[As the title suggests, I wanted to write 11 blogs summarising my 11 months of The World Race, one by one. I want to be able to look back in a few years time and remember every detail, but I also want you to be able to live the memories with me. Each week I am going to share a blog post about a country, and also my top ten photos from that month (on my social media). I hope it gives you more of a look into what our lives have looked like this year. This is a look into Month 3.]
Month 3 was one of my favourites on The World Race! We started it off with a long 4 days of travel from Africa to Cambodia, with a 24 hour layover in Bangkok. This was trying to say the least with a cast, crutches and giving myself blood thinning injections everyday to stop my poor Mum dying off with worry far away at home.
We spent one night in Siem Reap before travelling to Phnom Penh, for a month at ITCS, the International Theological College and Seminary.
This month was spent teaching our amazing students English, Music Theory & Public Speaking. We also got the opportunity to teach in the pre-school and lower elementary grade classes. This was a busy month full of lesson planning, teaching, and spending time with our beautiful students. Teaching English is surprisingly difficult though, especially to College students who for some of them have been learning English for 3-4 years! Luckily, our girl Amanda is a grammar genius and could teach us English grammar, as well as teach our students! We spent many an afternoon teaching but also learning from her as we went along. Prisca and I also adored teaching English vocab classes together, and laughed every time we said things differently (American vs British English). We would say words at the same time to describe our terrible drawings, and the class would look on in total confusion as we laughed our way through the class.
Our students were beautiful humans. We adored them and the time we got to spend inside and outside the classroom with them. We laughed with them, ate food with them and worshipped with them. They were the perfect mix of fun and joyful in class, while also teaching us a lot about who they were and where they had come from. A lot of them came from places and backgrounds that were not easy, and it had required incredible sacrifice on their behalf to be where they were today. They had come to Bible College for a brand new start and the chance at providing a better life for their families. They were vulnerable and raw with us and told us their stories, and it was always a privilege to listen.
It was also a month of really sweet time spent together as a team. This was the first month that we prepared our own meals, so it was a month we cooked a lot of favourites! Em became our personal chef for the month and we ate like queens. We spent team times doing everything from Bible Study to eating burgers in the Hard Rock Cafe. We sang karaoke unexpectedly and danced to Guns n’ Roses. We watched The Greatest Showman in our tents and danced around our living space to musical hits. We fought for each other even when things were hard.
This was also the month my ankle healed! I was looked after so well and had my cast removed and an air cast placed, so that I could start to slowly walk again. We lived on the fourth floor of ITCS, so my arms were exhausted crutching by the end of it, so walking again was a sweet relief.
This was a busy month full of joy & love, and definitely one of my favourite months of the Race. I cannot wait to visit Phnom Penh again some day very soon.
Love,
Chloe xo
