I looked out over Cambodia from an airplane window, my eyes catching sight of green leaves, brown dirt roads, and very few clouds in a light blue sky. Almost immediately upon seeing this new landscape I’d call home, my heart opened up and I decided- woah, I think I’m really going to like it here. I was flooded with a passion and a love for this country that I didn’t know whether or not would come after saying good bye to Guatemala had been so hard.
I have now lived in Battambang, Cambodia for three weeks. Stepping off that plane, I quickly discovered that “hot” is just the texture of the air here. It’s not a temperature, it just is: hot. And Humid. The first night spent here in our room that’s now the residency of 17 girls, we all restlessly flipped and flopped around on our sleeping pads, realizing that night would not bring a relief of cool air. There’s no AC, but we practice fan equality, in that each of us gets consistently brushed by a wave of slightly less hot air throughout our sleep due to a fan blowing on high near by. I say this in lighthearted appreciation and giddiness, because I have genuinely began to thrive in this environment- heat and all.
There has definitely been a shift in the atmosphere since moving here. My team is working at a school in a rural area, a place called the Handa Academy that equips children to grow up into being influential members in their community by providing the education of English, computer skills, health and hygiene, soccer, gardening, and morality. It’s different than Guatemala where our schedule held a lot of freedom in our ministry, but the challenge to be a light when you can’t verbally talk about The Light is growing our notions of love and gospel sharing. My beloved team of 9 is relearning what it means to love and pursue each other in the wake of a new environment, personal hardships, the entanglements of self-interest, and the sneakiness and deception of apathetic hearts.
Stepping into this culture looks like leaving behind Latin America’s passion for craze and wild joy, to be present in the meditative and peaceful ease that the Cambodians carry themselves in. It’s kind of funny how different market experiences are here- calm and simple, a contrast to Guatemala’s hustle, noise, and overflow of people. Both have been to me uniquely beautiful and reminders of the personality of God.
Speaking of the personality of God, I want to share something from one of my first weekends here, a story and a discovery that reminds me of Him. It’s just a glimpse into a day I lived here, something that feels so normal to me now. Here’s something of a journal entry from it:
This morning, I’ve been reminded that the desire of beautiful things can be holy. My friend Erin and I walked by a store, and the prints of soft-colored fabrics and antique wooden shelves caught our eyes, and we walked inside. We spent several minutes sorting through an open drawer of old tattered and stained post cards, and when we had decided which to take home with us we made eye contact with the quiet and kind young man who was working to signify that we were ready.
He led us to the checkout area and softly wrote down the totals of our items. He used gray newspaper pages to carefully wrap our enveloped post cards and sandy colored pumice stones (7 months of traveling and lots of barefoot prayer paces have taken its toll on the bottom of our feet). The young man then took a spare piece of paper wrote in English— where are you from?— and then looked up at us and smiled. He then signed to us in ASL that he is deaf, and he also signed “my name is Ratha.” Then it made sense why this man who carried himself as so friendly and open had also been so quiet. Erin spent a few moments trying to remember how to sign her name (because there’s actually girl on our team who knows a lot of ASL and taught her some). We kept talking to him a little bit more through written conversations in English.
This entire experience just impressed upon my spirit that the desire of beautiful things can be holy, because God had captivated us with the things that we saw through the window, and it drew us in so that we could meet His son. Because the most beautiful thing, the most captivating thing, is a face to face interaction with an image bearer of God. And that is why beautiful things can be Holy things and it is not shallow to be drawn in by an aesthetic or an ambiance- God is there. He’s in the dirt and dust, and the sky and the sea, and He’s also just appealing to us in the color and wonder of interior design. And how cool is it that we are created to create, that making something beautiful is a form of worship and connection, and that adoration for what’s visually appealing does not have to be a dismiss of depth. It’s an invitation to see God anywhere.
All day long, as Erin and I walk around in whimsy and wonder, I ask Erin about her paintings and she asks me about my writings, because we’re both artists with different creative outlets of expressing what’s inside of us and that’s another beautiful, holy thing: friendship.
–end of journal entry–
Thanks for staying updated on this little internet space that gives a small insight into the days I’ve been living, it’s a joyful pleasure to share this season with you through what I write on these electronic pages of my travel journal.
