Often times on the race running water is a huge blessing…especially after serving on location without. Hot water is faint memory from our former lives.
But the rules change in Cambodia…where shower water can not possibly get cold enough to satisfy.
With temps on the rise and perspiration on the run…it’s HOT!
Dan and I are making the grand tour of teams this month since this is our squad’s last month serving with these teams. Next month is defined by “manistry” in Thailand…where the men will trek off into the jungle to be men, serving in a capacity that can not be disclosed to the female half of the species. The women will be going into the red light district where we’ll be ministering in the bars and streets to the women involved in the human trafficking/sex industry. Please keep us all covered in prayer!
We started this month serving with Colby’s team in the remote regions of Cambodia. No running water, no electricity bar a generator which was ran through the night to power fans and keep the air circulation bordering bearable. Did I mention…it’s HOT!
Our hosts would fill a relatively deep tub in the bathroom full of water about once a week. The water made the muddy waters of the Mississippi river look clean. With it’s brown hue and live tadpoles, we were set with our toilet, bath and laundry water…in one pool of goodness.
We rinsed out the squatty potty and called it a flush…dumped it over our heads and called it a shower…and washed our clothes and called them clean. (well ok Colby’s team did their laundry…I just kept wearing the same thing until I returned to the city – currently back in Phnom Penh)
But I didn’t write to tell you about our water.
I wrote to tell you about our hosts.
Our main contact and only one who really spoke fluent English in the village was a 27 year old guy, Vuthy, who had his life radically transformed by Jesus. He literally went from wreaking havoc and running the streets of Phnom Penh to returning home to his village, reconciling his relationship with his parents, and beginning community outreach projects and planting a church in his living room.
(Vuthy and Anthony on a house visit)
Speaking of his living room…we were living in it.
I’ve thought a lot about hospitality since coming on the race. It’s often difficult for many people to open their calendars…let alone their homes…to friends and acquaintances…let alone strangers.
But his family not only opened up their home…they gave us their home for the month. They had a newer concrete home built next to their older wood and thatch home built on stilts (very common in the Cambodia countryside). His family moved out of the concrete home and into the stilt home because it had a leaky roof and they didn’t want to put us there.
They gave us their home.
(the stilt home they moved into, we taught English below)
He originally left home due to a violent situation with his dad who was abusing alcohol.
When he returned home…his parents still fought…
and they didn’t understand his new found faith…
they didn’t see the need to invite neighborhood children for English class…
But that was then…
long before they agreed to take us in…
before they joyfully cooked all of our meals…
before they started building a classroom for those neighborhood children…
before they gave us their home.
(Vuthy’s mom – where she did all of our cooking, under the house)
*pics by Chelsea
