Month 4 is very different than any of the other months so far – it very much feels like we’re in the middle of something. And yet at the same time, this month feels more like the start of the race than Month 1 did.
We’re teaching English in a couple different ways, to a bunch of students. The ones that come to the house at night mostly come from the local slums, some 75 students of vastly different ability that we’re able to do anything with, from teach more complex grammatical structure to the older ones, to sound out “cat” and “sat” and “rag” and “sag” with the younger ones. Over at the international university, we’re serving as teaching aids for each of the grades, preschool to 6th.
Most of my time is spent with the younger kids, time I spend communicating by guttural groans and exhortations frankly not of this earth. “AaaRRRRRRRe YOU! A. giiIIIIRRRRRLLLL???? Guh- Guhhh … Guhhh … irlllll. Gir. Ir. Girrrlllllll.”
It can be hard to take things so slowly. And it’s hard to remember why you’re here, and still harder to believe that any Gospel message can be communicated in ‘Guh’-‘Guh’-‘Guh’s and ‘mmmmm’s. All I really want to do is skip ahead to the vocab lesson where I can effectively communicate “I was DEAD in my sins, but now I’m wonderfully ALIVE in Christ Jesus, and reconciled to the living God forever and ever, isn’t that AMAZING?!?!?”
But we’re not there yet.
Even in our new team – there was a team switch just over a week ago, and it’s almost like starting over, but now with a whole new perspective and maturity on how to live and function in raw community. We have to relearn at the most basic level how each other works, where we all come from, our struggles and our pasts and our current needs. And some days it’s awfully hard to get past those initial learning barriers. I have to teach my team all over again the basic “Stuh-Stuh-Stuff” that I struggle with, all the ways I still need to “Guh-Guh-Grow”. And I have to learn, from each of them, how I can be divinely used in this season of their lives to build them into the potential God has for them.
It’s hard not to feel like our hands are tied, and our tongues are wrapped in a knot around our head as a blindfold, as we’re stumbling to communicate even the most basic fact and experience – to patiently fumble through the building blocks of relationship again. It’s a struggle not to miss the comfort of old teams, old family, old histories. It’s hard to feel community when we only have the vocabulary to pronounce the “Cuh-Cuh-Cuh” of the first letter.
Pray for Tanner as he figures out how to lead us. Pray for Stephanie and Jen and Lauren and I as we figure out our place here, and pray for Michael and Veronica’s marriage, that they can find peace in their place as one flesh on our team. Pray for our time here, for intentionality and grace and endurance, for patience and fresh love, for clean slates, for pressing in, and for peace in the transition.
And pray for our kids, all of them. Pray they somehow find Jesus in the “Cat’s” and the “Rat’s” of English class. Pray they get the Gospel in the goodnight high fives. He can do that, He’s that big.
Thanks in advance for the prayers, and I’m praising God in advance for the new kids and families He’s bringing into the Kingdom here in Cambodia.
Love,
Danny
