Yes, another country another blog about the logistics of what I am doing on the World Race. It’s been a while writing blogs and firstly, I would like to apologize for that. It’s been a crazy last couple weeks in Cambodia. Secondly, because of some laws in place in Vietnam I did not write any blogs for that time. Once I return home, I may end up posting a couple about my time there! I find these blogs some of the most important because they simply inform those who are following my journey of what I am doing on the field, where I am staying, and ultimately give an insight to my life on the World Race. If there is anything that you think would enhance these blogs, please let me know!
Country Overview:
Location – Kampong Thom Providence, Cambodia
Language – Khmer / English
Currency –Cambodian Riel: The conversion rate here is one of the easier ones we have had so far on the Race. All we have to think is 1,000 Riel is 25 cents! ($1 USD = 4,000 Riel)
Ministry Name – Good Seed International School
Team Name – NEW team (as of Vietnam, but new for the readers!) à Team Spice Girls
(Teammates: Codi Moore, Missy Leuthold, Katrina Chaney, Emalea Macinnes, Alyssa
Boss, and Vanessa Donnamaria) Role Change: I’m now a Team Leader!
Our Home: We call Kampong Thom Providence our home this month. This is one of the largest providences in terms of area, however, towns/villages are further in between. My team is living in a town that is right on a river. The town is simple and has a large traditional Asian open air market. Here locals sell fruit, dried fish, veggies, bread, and lots and lots of bugs! Yes, here they eat a lot of bugs like crickets, cockroaches, and grasshoppers. During the Cambodian Rouge genocide, the economy dropped and food was scare. This led to Cambodians desperately eating whatever they could get their hands on – aka insects, dogs, cats, etc. The economy is now picking up again, however, tradition continues and bugs are eaten. We are living above the Day Care where we have a couple rooms with simply four walls. We have the opportunity to sleep as traditional Cambodians would sleep – on mats (or in a hammock in my case) with mosquito nets covering us and no AC. Lucky for us we have a couple fans for the team. We have a working shower (YAY!) and a toilet – no sink. We use a water filter to get fresh water and we are living on about $5 per day, however, during the week we probably only spend about $2-3 per day for food. Our favorite place to eat has been a Khmer open restaurant where we go once to twice a day! The food is primarily fried rice with vegetables (I chose to be vegetarian this month due to the chance of eating dogs!), noodles, or a meat with vegetables and steamed rice. We have also found a man who makes coconut waffles in the market who has now become our dessert because they are only 15 cents a waffle!
Our Mission: This month has looked like a handful of different tasks at Good Seed International School. This school has around 350-400 students from ages 3-12(ish). The school has a Christian foundation, however, is not a requirement to attend or to be employed at the school. The school focuses on teaching the foundational curriculum in English. Prior to arriving in Cambodia, one of the teachers left the school. Because of this, my primary mission for this month is to teach 17-22 three year olds in the morning for three hours. I have learned so much from this experience. I have learned that teaching is truly one of my passions (however, maybe with little older kids- like college aged students!) While this has been a challenging experience, having kids come up and say how much they love you and give you cuddles and hugs, it makes it all worth it. I am not trained in teaching; however, love is universal. We have also had the opportunity to “pretty” up the school a little bit. As a team, we each had different opportunities to do some of the following: created five large murals throughout the school, deep cleaned all the classrooms with the teachers, taught ESL classes at night, worked at a daycare in the mornings, put on a game night for the staff, put on Friday assemblies for the kids which included singing, dancing, bible stories, and games, and simply showed love to the kiddos.
How am I?
In the past “When In…” blogs, I have exposed you to different check-in activities that we do at the end of the day with our team. I’ve shown High Low Buffalo, Rose Bud Thorn, as well as ESP withyou. Because we have gone through all the major check-ins, I will continue with this theme and simply choose the one that best suits the country I am in. This month I will be doing ESP. The activity ESP stands for: Emotional, Spiritual, and Physical therefore you would describe how you are feeling those three different ways that day.
– Emotionally — Oh I don’t know where to start. This has been the toughest month for me emotionally (replacing Panama on the stress scale). There are multiple reasons for this emotional roller-coaster that I am but I think it all comes back to me having such standards for Cambodia. The reason I chose this route was because I would have the opportunity to come here. Ever since I was little and was taugh about the organization Rapha House and having a Youth Minister for a sister church move and dedicate her life to the ministries here in Cambodia, I fell in love with the distant country. I dreamed and put expectations on what this country would entail and to be completely honest, right when I arrived I was disappointed. I wanted to do sex trafficking ministry. I wanted to be in the Red Light District. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted. Because of this, I had a bad attitude. I had all these high standards that I didn’t take the time to look around and see all the beauty Cambodia still has to offer. I have learned to never put a country in a box, to never put ministry in a box, and to absolutely never put God in a box. Once I realized this, I have tried to take on the attitude of thankfulness. I do not deserve to be able to take a year off of everything so I need to take every day for granted. Take in every experience that is given to me and run with it with joy and a good attitude.
– Spiritually — Spiritually, all is well. Actually, more than simply well, but good. The Lord has been able to teach me so much in Vietnam and Cambodia. With this new team, we have been super intentional about having a bible study together. During Vietnam, we focused on the book of Acts and all it has to offer. Personally, I also read through Esther thoroughly in Vietnam. Now in Cambodia, we have had time to focus on a sermon series by Buckhead Church called the ByStander Series which walks through the book of John and focuses on the seven major signs that Jesus performed during His time on Earth. I have now started James (because I need a swift kick in the butt by the Holy Spirit when it comes to my attitude sometimes, mainly this month!) By doing these studies and working through the Word, I have been able to feel close to the Lord. He is teaching me about patience, boldness, being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. I am excited to see how these lessons continue throughout my time in Asia and beyond.
– Physically– Man back to the areas where mosquitos are heavy and my blood is obviously sweet. This month I have been ate alive by mosquitos, however lucky for us we are able to sleep under mosquito nets during the night. A couple days ago, I fell to a high fever and flu like symptoms and was a little scared that I had Dengue Fever, however, symptoms came and passed within a few days so all is good! It was a ROUGH four days, but alas I am thriving again! Other than this little hiccup, I have physically been doing fairly well. We constantly only eat one large meal a day from the local Khmer restaurant and that has been good for me after having months where we have been offered 5-7 meals a day and feeling like we are gorging ourselves! In terms of working out, this month has been hard because it is so blistering hot at all times of the day. By the time, we wake up around 6:30am it is already 80-85F but feels like 85-90F with the heat index and humidity. HOWEVER, I have had the opportunity to spend time with our host and play soccer with him around two times a week at a beautiful turf field. I have loved this soooooo much because I haven’t been able to play since Nicaragua (almost 3 months ago!).
I hope this helps give you an image of some of the things that my team and I are doing here in crazy Kampong Thom, Cambodia. As always, feel free to reach out to me via email ([email protected] or [email protected]) if you have any questions or just want to chat. I don’t have WiFi where I am living, however, I do have access at the school so can making things work to be able to chat!
-e
