So, I’m in Cambodia now. What is my life?
It’s a weird time to write, there’s so much and at the same time so little. Going into this trip, I knew my goal was to write a blog once a week, but I’ve honestly been struggling to put into words the journey I’ve been on over the past couple weeks. But, the Lord is good, and just today has brought clarity and peace, so join me, I’ve got a lot to share.
If you have read my last blog, you know that Training Camp was a big step for me in my faith. Surrounded by missionaries, across the country, and focused on the Lord all day every day, God blessed me with things I never expected to see. I saw him move tangibly, I felt his peace and joy, and I started truly learning what it meant to receive God’s love and love him back. In the moment, I was excited for the 7 summer weeks that preceded launch, eager to start my mission early in my hometown.
But as soon as my plane landed in Denver, I started struggling. I struggled to retain the passion I had for the Lord at Training Camp. I struggled to be bold in my faith and share with friends. I struggled to spend time in the Word and in prayer. I struggled with obedience and with temptation. And most of all, I struggled with the idea of leaving for 9 months. I felt so confused, I had experienced God in ways like never before, and then it felt like nothing. “Does God still want me on this trip?” I wondered. “Do I even want to be on this trip? My life is pretty great back here. I have an amazing family, awesome friends, a cool bike, a sweet job, a rad school (#skorams) and a comfy bed.”
But, I had made a commitment to the Lord, I was not backing out. I figured location must’ve been my hindrance in reaching Jesus in the same way, so I was excited to get back with my group and see the things I saw at TC again, and live out of the joy of serving the King.
As I began saying goodbyes, the trip became more real. I had some friends over the night of the 7th, the day before I had to leave, and had an awesome final hoorah. The next morning, my alarm rang at 3am. Wow, it was happening. Crazy. Sidenote: I am not an emotional person. I have cried only a handful of times in the past few years. But nonetheless, as I clutched my dad and brother in my arms one last time, the waterworks flowed. “How could I leave them? THIS SUCKS!” I thought to myself. But I pulled myself together and set off for Atlanta with my mom for Logistics and Squad Training.
The few days in Atlanta were chocked full of sessions, these ones less interesting and more logistical than Training Camp, but it was good to see friends from my squad. I began to settle into the rhythm of life with my new family and tried to retain as much information as I could. But I still didn’t feel the same as I did at TC. I began praying that the Lord would move again, that I could feel him again. At that point, another brutal goodbye showed up, and I bid my mom farewell. It sucked, again.
Then, two nights before launch, a guy named Jeremy came up and spoke at the evening session. He spoke of how he was introduced to the Holy Spirit. He spoke of how the first 4 days after his awakening, how he crashed onto floor under the power of the Spirit, spoke in tongues, prophesied, and healed multiple people. I sat on the edge of my seat, I wanted that so bad. After he was done speaking, he invited anyone who wanted prayer to the front of the stage. I darted to the front and dropped to my knees. I began pleading with God, “Spirit, fall on me! I need you!” I began getting chills, which was the main way I had felt the Spirit so far in my life, but then something new started happening. My neck started shaking and flexing without my control. Then, a lady came behind me and laid her hands on me and my teammate Christian, who was next to me.
She prayed over us for about 30 seconds or a minute, and nothing happened. But when she left, my heart started racing. It started beating out of my chest and I felt something powerful coming. It started feeling like I had bubbles in my stomach, and a numbness started inching from my fingertips onto my forearm. “This is it,” I thought, “Bring on the tongues!”
But then, all of a sudden, the feeling receded. The numbness was gone, my heart went back to its normal pace, and the chills went away. My eyes started darting around the room, looking for someone to come and pray for me again. But, no one saw me, and I was left sitting there, confused at what to think.
Afterwards, I sought out some place to be alone with God. He led me to some Scripture that gave me some peace, but I still wasn’t sure what my reaction should be. I figured there were two possible outlooks. First, I could take what happened and just be grateful for the experience. After all, not that many people have experienced God like that, and I certainly hadn’t. The second was that I only just saw the tip of the iceberg, and that God wanted me to walk in so much more of His Spirit, I just had to pursue Him more.
So, after wrestling with that, I started getting ready for the massive travel day that was quickly approaching. Because I’m a Field Logistics Coordinator on my squad, I lead with one other member to ensure that all the travel goes well with our squad. It seemed like a daunting task, given that all in all we would have to spend over 15 hours in four different airports and 21 hours on 3 different flights across the globe.
But, we did our best, and after a brutal 2 days, our whole squad made it to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We got out of the airport, hopped on a bus, and were off to our final destination, Battambang. Driving through the countryside, I was getting amped. “It’s finally happening,” I thought, “I can’t wait to see God move.” We arrived a couple hours later, and after paying the bus drivers, we were welcomed into our new home.
We met our hosts, a sweet Australian-Canadian family, and set up our stuff in what seemed like a palace to me. My team had a whole floor to ourselves, along with 2 bathrooms and a sweet rooftop terrace to set up hammocks (Pictures will come shortly). “This won’t be too bad,” I thought. I slept in my hammock the first night, falling asleep to a beautiful Asian sunset.
We were given the next few days to recover and get a bearing on the location. We scouted out the local food joints and coffee shops, and the excitement just increased. I spent a lot of time with the Lord, more than I had ever thought I would, and it was great. I hung out with my team, listened to the cultural and ministry briefings, and got ready for ministry to start on Tuesday. And then everything changed.
Tuesday morning, we showed up to our ministry site. It was a tiny little church, just a couple minutes’ walk away from our home. It looked to me like an abandoned storefront, but after waiting a while, sure enough, our host showed up to greet us. He introduced himself as Sano, and shared a little bit of his story. He had learned English in a refugee camp in Thailand during the Khmer Rouge back in the day, found the Lord, and helped start this church. He then started explaining what our job would be, that we were meant to renovate the facility. We began with a massive overgrowth of weeds and trash out front. Wacking at the plants with a massive hoe and overcome with some bad smells in the heat of the day and crazy Cambodian humidity, it finally hit me, “What the heck am I doing?”
Did I really fly across the ocean to pull some weeds? This is the WORLD RACE, right?! Aren’t we supposed to go start changing the world and preaching the gospel and seeing people healed? At that point, my whole perspective changed. In my head, the city of Battambang switched from an exciting new place to a grimy, loud, smelly, urban destination. I started longing for my mountains back home. I started missing my family, my friends, my school. “Holy cow,” I thought “I’m supposed to do this for nine months? This is not what I expected.”
But, what can you do in my situation? You can’t quit, not yet. You can’t fall back on entertainment or school. All you got is the Lord. So I dug in, spent time in the Word and in prayer. I meditated on Galatians 5, and resolved to put my flesh to death and make room for the Spirit. I decided to keep my phone turned off for the first month, and to start a weekly 24- hour fast. I still wasn’t hearing from the Lord, and I didn’t feel him, but that wasn’t gonna stop me from trying. Not yet.
I kept showing up to ministry, and things started looking up a little bit. Even though we were just doing lowly tasks, we were able to get to know Sano a little better, and make significant progress in the church. We uprooted and burned the weeds. We cut down a tree. And we painted the children’s’ area. We also discovered an amazing Cambodian treat: Coca-Cola Coffee. Nonetheless, I felt disappointed. I felt that I wasn’t living up to the expectations I had placed on the race. I wanted to go feed to orphans, to prophesy over widows and to see miracles. I wanted to continue in the big things that I had seen glimpses of at TC and Launch. I figured that’s what the Race was for.
And that brings us to Sunday the 23rd. My team had decided to go to the church we were working at for their 9 AM service, despite the fact that it would be held in the Khmer language. We showed up together, decked out in our nicest clothes, and were greeted with a welcome I was not expecting. Amidst the congregation of 20 or 30, we were introduced by Sano and led to our seats at the very front. Looking around, I saw faces light up, so grateful for what we had done.
The service began with the singing of Khmer hymns, and I did my best to hum along. After that, some children came up and performed, then corporate prayers were held, and then church was briefed with the plan for the rest of the renovation. There was a time held to meet people, and I was able to meet a guy named Sambat. In the short time I spoke with him, he established that he went to a University in town, and that he was previously a Buddhist before he found the Lord at this church. His smile was infectious.
Eventually, the time came for the Pastor to preach His sermon. A very small Cambodian man took the stage and asked us to open to John 13. I was fortunate enough to sit behind Sano, who translated the gist of the message for us every couple of minutes. If you’re not familiar with John 13, it walks through the time Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. The Pastor elaborated on it, emphasizing the reality that the King of Kings, the God of the Universe stopped and took on the lowly task of washing the disgusting feet of his closest followers. He humbled himself as a servant, and took on the simplest of tasks.
The Pastor went on to talk about Peter’s reaction in verse 8. “You shall never wash my feet,” Peter exclaimed. Even though Peter’s heart was in the right place, He tried to prevent the Lord from working in a way that didn’t make sense to him, a way that didn’t seem right. The Pastor then related it to Matthew 16:21-23 when Jesus foretold his death. Once again, Peter interjected, claiming that surely the Son of Man would never die a death like that. Even though his heart was in the right place, Peter was “not setting his mind on the things of God but the things of man.”
After the sermon was over, Sano went to the front to pray for the church, the nation, us as a team and other things. During the prayer, I felt the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit for the first time since arriving in Cambodia. I had chills and was filled with this crazy peace. Goosebumps covered my body and a smile was plastered on my face. God is good.
I sat there in awe. I had been looking at everything all wrong. I realized that even though Jesus healed dozens of people, performed countless miracles, and even raised himself from the dead, his true character is seen in that one act of service. Jesus took the lowest status he could to simply love people, his people. If the Lord of All can brings himself to do a sort of manual labor, how could I have a bad attitude about doing the same? And at that point I had realized that I was acting like Peter. I had figured that the work we were doing was too simple, too basic to actually be bringing Kingdom. I had been saying “No, Lord. Surely this isn’t your plan. It doesn’t make sense to me, it doesn’t seem right.” Even though my heart was in the right place, I had been denying the work the Lord has for me, instead seeking the big things. But true love is found in the little things, in the simplest acts of service. And that simple love is enough.
It’s funny though. One of the main things that was conveyed at TC and Launch was that God’s character is always predictable but the way He works is always unpredictable. Boy is that true.
I was approached and asked to lead worship for the church the next Sunday. In addition, our team members would be sharing our testimonies and even possibly preaching. And even more than that, looking around the room, I knew that this was the beginning of beautiful relationships that would be developed over the course of my time in Battambang. Something that began with pulling weeds can turn into so much more, who would have known?
So here I am, with a whole new perspective of this trip and my ministry. I am excited to serve in the lowliest ways with the most jovial of hearts. I am excited to love my teammates in the simple ways, and to build relationships in the same basic way Jesus did. I am excited to simply tell people “Prayer Jesu sralong ner” (Jesus loves you). And you know, I’m gonna keep praying for the big things, and when the Lord does bless me with Tongues and with Healings and with Visions and with His voice on this trip, then that will be amazing. But no matter what, I am going to rest in the fact that simple love is enough, and it always will be.
PS Thank you to all of you for reading my blogs, supporting me in prayer and finances. It truly means the world to me, and I feel so blessed to be here because of it. I get wifi every couple days here so feel free to comment and email me your thoughts!
