Surs day (hello) from Cambodia!
After 2 full days of travel from Atlanta to Texas to LA to China and finally to Cambodia, we made it here to Phnom Penh! This month our team is here working with the Cornerstone Organization. We are working with Pastor Rogil and his wife, Janice. They are the most wonderful people! They are from the Philippines and have been doing missions here since 2008. They do so much through their ministries here and have been so hospitable and sweet to us! They work so hard so we are doing our best to serve them well & give them a bit of a break. (Also- Janice is the most amazing cook, and has been making us such delicious Phillipino and Cambodian food…she is spoiling us).
Some observations about Cambodia so far:
-Cambodian people are very friendly and a joy to be around!
-The traffic here is INSANE..there is no such thing as lanes in Cambodia…everyone rides motorcycles and when you cross the street they come straight at you from all directions (you just have to walk in front of them like you own that road and they’ll stop for you…most of the time).
-Bubble tea is cheap and wonderful
-Cambodia is H O T (I didnt know a person could sweat so much)
-Cambodian kids are the cutest.
(This is the view from where we are staying this month!)
Ministry this month with Rogil & Janice includes teaching English, helping at the church, and building relationships with the nearby university students. We are staying in the city, but next week will go to a village about an hour and a half away to teach English there and put on a sports camp for the sweet kids there. We got to go there to teach on Sunday and the kids were so attentive and excited to learn. In Cambodia if you know English there are much better jobs available, so teaching English here is pretty important.
This week we are doing a lot of ministry at the nearby railroad tracks, a poor area with a lot of children. We teach them English for a couple hours in the morning and for a couple in the afternoon. There is one little guy there named Giro who has really captured our hearts! He is deaf & mute, so he isn’t able to communicate with the other kids. He gets really frustrated and sometimes runs off mad because of it; and some of the other kids pick on him. But he is so smart and funny and loves to jokes around with us! We are trying to teach him some sign language so he can have a way to communicate, and just show some love and patience with him. He is truly a joy to be around. Pray for healing for this sweet boy!
(selfie with Gira)
We also got to minister to some students here at the local university. Some of them shared their testimonies with us and it was very inspiring. Many of the students have recently become Christians and come from Buddhist families, so their parents do not support their faith. Pray for continual strength and faith for these awesome friends!
Next week, we will go again to Kampong Channang and stay there for 3 nights to do more teaching and outreach! Rogil and Janice have just purchased a piece of land there to do the outreach, but do not yet have a building in which to teach the kids there (which is important because it rains A LOT in Cambodia!). They need about $1,600 more to build. If you feel led to support them in this, you can donate online by clicking going to cornerstonecambodia.org.
(Here are some of the kids from the village!)
Overalll, Cambodia is great. God is teaching me so much through Janice and Rogil and everyone we are working with here. The church community here is such a sweet example of what Christian community should look like, and it is a privilege to be a part of it for this month!
THANK YOU to everyone who has financially supported me thus far. I am only about $5,000 from being fully funded! & THANK YOU to everyone who has been praying for this journey! I am so thankful for your support!
