Maybe it’s because I’m nearing the halfway point of the Race or maybe it’s because I’ve been striped from life’s luxuries or maybe it’s because I really am starting to change my outlook on life, whatever it is…I actually like the person I’m becoming.
Team Lego now lives upstairs from the boys house at the orphange. It’s the nicest place we’ve stayed so far on the Race during ministry time. We have plenty of fans! We have real beds that are off the ground! And did I mention we have a TV and DVD player!!!
Forget the fact that we have no windows or that we live with a massive family of mice that share my bedroom or that electrical things probably are not going to work when we want them to or that the toliets probably are not going to flush or the 70 year old Aussie woman that has become our roommate. But none of that matters…most of the time.
After living the past few months with very little luxuries in American standards. It actually feels wierd to have some luxuries back.
Saturday night we took the boys to the the girls house to do a joint youth night. We planned on leaving at 3:30 but by 3:00 the boys started lining up waiting for us. As I went downstairs, I saw boys freshly showered, geled hair and dressed in their nicer clothes. It truly was the most adorable thing I’ve seen thus far on the Race.
These boys and girls get up early everyday. Sleep on mats on the floor (the older ones have beds and babies have cribs), wash their own clothes on the tile, go to school and do their homework all while living in true community and seeing thier biological families little to none.
However these kids are the most amazing kids. If people could adopt these kids, I would be in trouble!
When I see what some people would consider living a sadlonely existance without much hope and without much of anything, it breaks my heart. But not for the reason you may be thinking. It breaks my heart because that outlook is so far from the truth. These children have more hope and a better attitude then most people I’ve met. They’ve been through more in their short lives then most of us will ever have to go through. But their lives are far from sad. They get it! They understand what the important things in life really are! And unlike most people from Cambodia, many of these kids already know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
A year ago I was one of those people who would have thought there was no hope for these guys. I would have been the one who would have felt sorry for them when in fact they should have felt sorry for me. My life sucked – not because of my job or my family (I have a great family) but because I was trapped in the way I was living my life and I was trapped in negative thinking. I would have actually thought I was superior to these kids when in fact that’s not true at all. My life sucked because I made it suck. The problem with my life was me.
So maybe my outlook on the world and life has changed or maybe being on the World Race has changed me or maybe the people I’ve been ministering to have also been ministering to me and opened my eyes to a whole new way of seeing things or maybe God really is doing something in my life. Whatever it is, my guess is that I still have many more lessons to learn.
