For my first blog on the field, I want to address some common questions I’ve been getting. Please comment below if you have any other questions and I will try to answer those in a timely fashion!
How was Traveling?
Let’s just say that I have never travelled this far for this long in my life! From Georgia to South Korea was thirteen and a half hours. We flew on a 747 and it was so great! It was actually a lot more comfortable and enjoyable than the second flight. We spent two hours in South Korea before flying to Cambodia. This flight was about five hours. Once we landed, we got our visas and went through customs before getting on the buses to where we would be staying with our host family. The bus ride was about two hours heading East to Kampong Chan.
What is sleeping/showering and using the bathroom like?
All of the above are actually really easy and are a lot more comfortable than I would have thought a month ago. Where we are staying, it’s basically like a compound. There’s two buildings and there’s a wall with two gated entrances. One team is in one building and my team is in the upstairs area above the main building. There are three rooms where my team split up into. I’m sharing a room with Hannah, Karly, and Natalie. Three of my lovely team mates. Because the mosquitos are so dangerous here, everyone sleeps under mosquito nets. For bedding, we sleep on sleeping pads and I like to sleep on top of my sleeping bag because it adds extra padding. I also “stole” one of the airport blankets and if I ever get cold at night, I will use that rather than climb into my sleeping bag. Speaking of nightly temperature, each of the rooms have ceiling fans and due to the mosquito nets, we can leave the windows open if we want. I have not gotten hot (knock-on-wood) at night and find that I can sleep quite comfortably at night. And the mosquito nets really ease some stress that might be associated with creepy-crawlies trying to join me at night. But some bites tend to have mysterious occurrences in that they might occur at night or during the day. Either way, I’ve accepted that bites are going to be a part of daily life for the next three months.
The bathrooms are squatty potties, so definitely going to be building up my leg muscles on a daily basis here (so yay!), but the showers are absolutely glorious! I want you to picture a bucket. Like a five gallon Home Depot bucket filled with water. Now picture a large scoop, like something you might use with dog food for a Great Dane (like a big scoop!). Lastly, picture both items in a closet-like space and you have yourself a bucket shower! And I absolutely love them! The cold water is so refreshing. I’ve already told my family that I’m putting a bucket in my bathroom at home because I love them so much!
What is my team like?
I love every singe girl on my team. Everyone is so sweet and humble before the Lord. We are always complimenting one another and laughing with each other. Our leaders are so supportive and willing to provide any care that we may want or need. We’ve grown super close over the last two weeks that we’ve basically become family. During team times, we’ve been sharing testimonies and through those a lot of wallaby’s have been coming down. It’s been amazing getting to know these ladies!
I’ve really taken to my roommates: Hannah, Natalie and Karly. I find that we really work well with each other and we can spend hours upon hours with one another. Every morning we go get coconuts together (THEY’RE SOOOO GOOD!). They’ve become our “morning coffees”.
What is the orphanage like? What does our ministry look like?
The orphanage is about a five minute walk from where we are staying with our host family. There’s a boy house and a girl house with an outdoor activities area where community activities take place like meals, English classes, and church. There are mostly boys than girl and the ages range from 7-20 years. The girls enjoy doing crafts and really want to teach us all how to cross-stitch, which we’re looking forward to. The younger boys get their laughs through messing around with us, like trying to scare us with snake-like reeds. And we tend to do physical projects with the older boys like yard and house work.
Ministry occurs on Sunday and involves one of us giving a short message and due to the language barrier, it is translated by Courtney, our ministry host and one of the orphanage leaders. But ministry is also every day of the week when we are spending time with the kids and going where they go. It’s about building relationships and showing them that we care about them.
During the week, we teach the kids English. The kids are broken up into older and younger and we split up into smaller groups to teach the kids English. A lot of them already know quite a bit of English, the goal is focusing on challenging those who need it and helping those who are struggling. These classes really create another great opportunity for spending time with the kids.
How long am I in each place?
I am in Cambodia until September 29th and then we take a bus to Thailand. And then we are in Thailand before heading back to Georgia on the 22nd or 23rd (whatever gets us to Atlanta by the 24th).
What is the weather like?
I am so grateful to be here during Monsoon season because when it rains, it is super cool, but when the sun is out… it can get really hot. The whole first day we were here it rained the entire time, which was awesome. And then it barely rained the second day so everyone was really hot and sweaty, but such is the tropics.
How am I doing?
I am doing great! I am so excited to be here and I feel that I am starting to get adjusted to my living environment. I had a really hard time sleeping on the plane (like I slept maybe two hours the entire time, so really not good), which made the first day in Cambodia a little rough. But because it was a pretty easy going day, I literally must had slept for like twelve hours. I took a long nap after lunch and then went to bed pretty early right after dinner. But I felt great the second day because I was well rested.
I truly believe that I have moved in here. I’m loving the kids and my team. My host family is great and so comfortable to be around. And yes, there have been a few things that I needed to get used to, like roosters crowing at 3am and wearing bug spray to bed, but it’s all part of the experience.
What prayers could I/my team need right now?
Unfortunately, the cold seems to be going around and a few girls haven’t quite recovered from traveling. So some prayers for strength and health are greatly needed here.
