A hop skip and a jump after my last blog post and I’m in Cambodia! Okay the hops and skips were mostly for fun and it was a BIG jump in a jumbo 747 but… still. It’s been a week and more has happened than I can possibly hope to recount in this blog but I’ll give you the highlights.
We flew into Siem Reap and from there is was a three hour bus ride to the beautiful city of Battambang where we will live and will be doing ministry. My team and I stay on the edge of the city in a unique, three story building. Each floor is one large room, and they seem to fulfill an almost infinite list of uses.
The first floor, for example, acts as living room, classroom, office, meeting space, garage and kitchen. A small mountain of shoes lies piled just inside the door frame, and I add my dusty Chacos to the heap as I enter my borrowed home for the first time. Straight ahead a whiteboard hangs on the wall and crayon-filled papers flutter overhead, each brightly proclaiming a fruit of the spirit.
The walls are painted a bright yellow, lending an even greater sense of joy to the room. Turning to the right I almost trip over a moto (what they call a moped) casually parked just inside the door frame. My heart leaps as I look past it to see six bikes lined against the wall and imagine the stories those spoked wheels will carry us to in the weeks to come.
Tiled stairs take my team and I to the second floor where we will sleep for the next three months. There we find a large room with white walls and windows covering the two street-facing sides of the building. Immediately we throw open the doors and windows and were graced with a gentle breeze. The doors swing open to reveal a wrap-around balcony overlooking the street corner and beyond to the overgrown park across the street.
Another flight of stairs and we find ourselves standing on the roof gazing east over the city. Hammocks are quickly strapped to the columns rising from the far side of the concrete and mosquito nets draped over top. Many of us then proceed to climb into those hammocks and immediately fall asleep. The next morning our team awakes to the distant sound of music blaring from a roadside stall somewhere below.
Groggily, we poked our heads out from inside our nylon cocoons and are struck with one of the most staggering sunrises I have ever seen. The next two days were mainly spent in recovery from the 14 hour time difference, two days of travel and intense culture shock. Towards the end of the second day we all muster up the energy to explore the nearby city on bikes in search of dinner. We follow our host on bike to the end of our small road and for the first time look upon the chaos of Cambodian.
The first thing you notice is motos. Motos in the right lane, motos in the left lane, motos on the sidewalks, hauling trailers, welded to mobile food stands… motos everywhere. Because traffic consists purely of two wheeled vehicles and there’s none of those pesky things called traffic laws here, there’s typically 4-8 lanes of traffic all moving in alternating directions.
“Let’s send it boys!” yells my team mate Luke as he peddles into the street and disappears into the madness. Not wanting to get left behind I quickly follow, narrowly avoiding death as motos, zip by on all sides. The traffic here works like a massive game of ‘chicken’. Say a moto and a truck both want to turn into the same street. If they crashed the man on the moto would die, and therefore the truck gets the right of way.
Eventually the host leading the way swerves his bike to the right and hops up onto the sidewalk beside a small shop called ‘The Noodle Man’. We order, and five minutes later a steaming bowl of noodles and dumplings is placed in front of me. A couple of wonderful, dumpling-filled bites later I sit satisfied in front of an empty bowl. The next morning marks our first day of ministry. Our team was assigned to a nearby church where we will help garden, paint and prepare the space for years of future ministry.
At 8:00 am we arrive at the front gates at and meet a five foot Cambodian man named Sano. He invites us in and gives us a tour of the small space. My team and I follow him as he walks us through the outdoor sanctuary, followed by the children’s area and small garden. With each new location his smile widens in pride and an excitement for things to come.
We have been working there for five days now. It’s hot. And it’s hard. And it’s really, really, humbling. Each day we meet back with our squad to hear stories of conversations with local children, soccer games in the street and victories of evangelism. In comparison we carry stories of weed piles and newly painted walls. And yet, every day, at a small church, in the middle of Cambodia, I worship. I praise as the last weed is pulled from the dirt. My heart fills with joy as I sit watching the third coat of thin white paint dry on the walls of the children’s room. So I work, and I worship, and I praise God for the fruit I cannot yet see; The fruit I may never see. The ministry done on top of the floors we swept. Love encountered inside walls I painted. God lifted high amidst the flowers my team and I tended.
