Since we have returned from Siem Reap, my ministry has changed. In the mornings the guys team is doing something called Monk Ministry, and it has been an awesome experience so far. We started last week with prayer and interceding over the monks and the pagodas, and also prayer to cover ourselves because these are very dark places. Praying for hours on end is not something that I have ever really done, so it was difficult to do and to keep my mind from wandering and thinking about other things. But as the week went on praying for longer was easier and started to come a little bit more natural to me than it was previously. Tuesday through Thursday that is what we did, come to the library and pray to prepare for our conversations. Then on Friday we were shown the three pagodas that we were supposed to go to during our time here, so we went and began to pray at those pagodas to again prepare for our interactions with the monks. We weren’t supposed to intentionally start up a conversation, but if one got started then we could talk. We were about to leave the first pagoda and there was about four of us standing at the gate and a monk walks in and immediately begins talking to us, so we got to talk to him for about thirty minutes before we went to the next pagoda. When we arrived at the next pagoda our plan was to walk around the outside and pray, but for some reason we went inside. We began to walk and pray, but not even a minute in an older gentleman grabbed Sam by the arm and then grabbed me as well. He began to lead us down a path with the rest of the team following behind just laughing at the situation. Then the man lead us straight to this monk that we found out was the president of the university in the pagoda. We sat and talked to him for almost an hour and began to develop a relationship with him, it was crazy to see the way God changed our plan and made it his own. Then on Monday of this week we went to the third pagoda to pray and we prayed for about an hour and then our team split to go to the different pagodas. Leader Luke and I stayed at the third pagoda to talk to people there. To start off with we weren’t sure where to go so we just started walking and praying, and then we hit this fork in the path, and we had the choice of going to the right or going to the left. While we were there I felt this tug that we needed to go to the right, later on I found out Luke was thinking about going left to go deeper into the pagoda cause we were at the edge, but I told him we needed to go right and not even like 200 feet later we round a corner and there were two monks sitting at a table, saw us, and immediately told us to come sit. We sat and talked for like an hour and a half with these guys. While we were sitting a mixture of more monks, students, and even taxi drivers were around us just talking. So by the end there were about ten people around this table talking. Having God direct like that was so awesome, it was the first time I have ever felt him lead me like that and it was so cool. I am so excited for what the future holds and please keep me and my team in your prayers while we are in this place of ministry.
