Kampong Speu, Cambodia
This month we lived in a village in Kampong Speu, Cambodia. This was my average day in the village.
I'd wake up everyday at 5:55am. I'd walk to the bathroom — it had a pleasant tile squatty and a giant water basin that holds rain water for bathing. I'd give my face a nice splash of freshness to start my day. It was important to be extremely cautious while in the bathroom, especially on the squatty, the tile was extremely slippery and could cause you to fall into the water basin. This would be a sad day for you and the twenty other people that share that same basin.
Then I'd walk back to my home, jumping over all the puddles, hoping my shoes would avoid getting sucked into the ground. If my feet came back clean, it was a really good day.
I'd sit on the bamboo cabana to read and pray… alone. It was beautiful. One of my favorite parts of the day.
We'd eat breakfast everyday at 8am. Ice Coffee and a surprise! Sometimes we'd eat noodles, sometimes fried bananas, sometimes jello. This was the only part of my day that was consistently unpredictable.
Around 9am we would do a little bit of practical labor, which mostly consisted of moving dirt so Ra, our contact, could start building another cabana classroom.
After practical labor, I'd usually walk to get a coconut. They are 50 cents and delicious. The lady thinks I'm wacky because I like the brown coconuts and she likes the green ones. My advice, go for the brown ones, they have more coconut meat and you could get a discount on them since they are considered old.
After we walked from the coconut stand, my friend Lauren and I would go pray in the rice fields. Eventually my teammate Meg joined us. We'd attempt to hurdle the puddles, but more times than not, we'd find our feet landing on not so solid ground. The cows would give us dirty looks, but we'd sneak past them safely every time. We'd get to the rice fields and go our separate ways, far enough not hear each other, close enough to see each other. Perfect! We'd pray and sing and just enjoy His presence. It was awesome. We'd be out there until lunch time.
Lunch was usually veggies and rice, and when I say usually, I mean definitely.
After lunch, our English classes would start. We each had our own class. My students were around the age of 14. I love them. My translator, Jen, was 14 years old as well. She's one beautiful girl. I taught them how to have conversations with foreigners (that's what they call us). They also wanted to learn how to talk about clothing and the market place. Since we were talking about outward appearance, they also learned about how The Lord is looking at their heart. They are really smart kids. The English class I taught was not part of their school day, they'd come when school was out just to learn. Crazy. You knew your class was over when the kids started singing, "goodbye teacher, goodbye my friend, see you tomorrow."
When I was done teaching, I'd go running with my friend Lauren. Lauren and I once ran with our dog Clyde, but his story didn't end so well.
Once the run was over, it was about 4pm and there'd be a bunch of young teens sitting on our cabana waiting to practice their English. Our one on ones allowed us to really get to know the teens in the village. I think one of the reasons I loved this month so much was because I could have so many relationships with people in the village. A lot of the young teens are eager to learn English, and speak it really well, this made building friendships super simple.
After one on ones it was dinner time! Refer to lunch menu.
Bible study happens every night in the village. The village is mostly Buddhist, but many of the youth are interested in Jesus. They know a lot of worship songs and love to sing!! This was where my heart was particularly burdened for the village. I saw so many young teens and children desiring to know more about Jesus, but had no bible, no church, no consistent examples… they only had what was being taught each night. I became particularly close with the young teenage girls, they have such a desire to follow Jesus, but no real examples in their life of what it looks like to walk with Him. I'm hoping to visit them again someday soon.
Village life was pretty crazy for our team. Every week I was at the clinic or the pharmacy for either me or my teammates. Each one of us caught the plague of the pink eye. There were some really rough moments, but Cambodia has become a favorite. It's where I found greater intimacy with The Lord and got bigger eyes (well, I guess technically I also got smaller swollen eyes too) for what He is doing in His people on this side of the world.
