Tonight as we were biking home from dinner I heard a faint yelling of my name from behind. After a few times, I turned around to find Gabby had completely stopped on a curb about 50 meters behind me. She began walking her bike toward me as I pulled off to the side of the road. It was about 7 pm, meaning that in Cambodia, it was pitch black. And on a Saturday night, the streets are bustling with people all around. I was so confused as to why she had gotten off of her bike. My initial thought was that she wanted to go in a store or something along those lines. However, as she drew closer to me, I knew something had to be wrong. Her bike chain had come off and gotten jammed between the sprocket that holds it on. As I knelt down, I began trying to pull it out, but it wouldn’t budge. It was stuck. Suddenly, a man from the shop that we had pulled off in front of walked out and began speaking to us in Khmer (the language here in Cambodia). I didn’t know what to say or how to communicate with him besides just pointing to the bike and continuing to try and fix the problem. He quickly ran inside and grabbed a rag to help because my hands were covered in grease. I began trying to pull the chain with the rag but it was no use. After about 5 minutes and him pointing to lots of different things, he ran back inside and came out with two screwdrivers and instructed me to take off the chain cover. We unscrewed it and then I began trying to pull the chain and fix it. Mind you, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I had finally gotten the chain unstuck but I didn’t know how to put it back on. I was just trying to look competent because he didn’t look too keen on getting his hands very dirty. After I struggled for another 5 minutes he knelt down and began pulling on the chain, finally getting it back on the sprocket. In total it took us about 15 minutes to settle the whole ordeal and then we were back on our way. But as we left it became very clear to me that I had no way to adequately thank this man beside saying ‘Akun’ which means ‘Thank You,’ over and over again. We hopped back on our bikes and continued on our way home, driving very slowly so that it wouldn’t break again on our way back home.
This was the first time that the language barrier of living in another country really hit me. When the bike was first broken, I had no idea what to do or how to respond. My phone doesn’t have service and there wasn’t anywhere with WiFi nearby. It was a situation that we had to figure out how to fix on our own. However, we weren’t actually alone. The Lord carried us through this situation so beautifully. He provided exactly what we needed to fix the bike. It would have been a VERY long walk back home if this kind man wouldn’t have been there to provide a helping hand and some tools. I was oh so grateful. Living in a new culture has its challenges, but it’s pushing me to press into the Lord’s provision and not to rely on my own competency, because we are incompetent apart from the Lord.
