A group of World Racers visited the New Life Christian Fellowship in Phnom Penh for the Sunday service this morning. Worship was fun and energetic. The message was given in Khmer, but we wore headsets that gave immediate translation in English. I was impressed by the American pastor’s ability to give a message in complete and fluent Khmer.
This afternoon Emily and I ran some errands. Traffic was especially busy today; I guess because it was Sunday.
We were only about 2 blocks from our apartment, but we decided to take a bike ride back, “for the experience.” By bike ride, I mean that we paid for a man to pedal a bike with a seat in the front. Emilie and I showed the man our address then crammed into a seat built for one. Our biker headed out into the sea of mopeds, cars, and other obstacles.
We laughed as we coasted at a pretty good speed through the crowded streets. We screamed and sucked in nervous breaths as we grazed by pedestrians and mopeds. Emilie felt like we should be waving, because it seemed like we were on parade. We felt a little awkward, but we said, “Oh well, it’s for the experience.” After moving a few blocks we started to get nervous about the direction we were headed in. Emilie is really good with directions and knew that we were headed the wrong way.
We asked the driver to turn around, but he kept going. We told him, “Central Market”. He shook his head and kept going. We were frustrated, but we said, “It’s a good experience.” About 6 blocks later and 10 more “Central Market” comments our driver understood and we turned around to get to the Central Market. On the return trip the driver made many U-turns driving directly against the flow of traffic. A stop light meant nothing as we went through a red light and stopped right in the middle of oncoming traffic. We were scared, but we said, “It’s been a great experience. With our help the driver was able to make it to within a block of our apartment. We climbed out to find the driver dripping with sweat. I would think he was probably upset to see that he had biked over a mile when we really only wanted to go 2 blocks.
This evening was night two of our ministry at HEC. A lot of the students were not at the house, because they have gone home for the weekend. We also found out that this month is a vacation for many of the students. Andrew and I only had two students, but it was nice to get to know them better. We talked about God’s unfailing love for us. Though we are sinners God loved us so much that He sacrificed His Son for us. We do not deserve His love, but He loves us no matter what.
