Hi there.
In advance, I’d like to apologize for breaking my “two blogs a month” promise. Living on the mission field is hard, y’all. From here on out though I will be more aware of updating my supporters and followers of this blog. You guys are so important to me and you have chosen to go without so that I could go, and I’m overwhelmingly grateful for that. On October 5th my squad of 51 women and I left Atlanta, Georgia and after a few stops in San Francisco, South Korea, and Singapore we landed in Siem Reap, Cambodia! The first week we stayed together as a squad in the Overflow guest house and got to transition into life on the field together in a beautiful way. My team and I then headed to Kampot, Cambodia to start our ministry with Vuthy and the Light of Hope school.
We knew his name before we ever left America, and had been praying for Vuthy and preparing our hearts for him for a few weeks before ever stepping foot in Kampot. When we first arrived, the conditions hit us hard. We had squatty potties, bucket showers, slept under mosquito nets, and there was essentially no communication to the outside world. We taught three English classes a day, and in our free time we walked across the street to buy coke/coffee in a bag (America needs to jump on this wagon because it’s amazing). Vuthy proved to be far better than any of our expectations of him. He is a man of incredible faith and plays every role Kampot has for him. He’s the pastor of the church, principal of the English school, teacher of English classes, soccer coach, loving husband, hilarious ministry host, worship coordinator, and he even holds a government position in Toch Village where he lives. His number one priority though, is to know God and make Him known. He invited us in to being his community for the time we were there and he poured wisdom into us.
We got to branch out from the teaching ministry by doing home visits all through Toch Village and praying over believers and non-believers who lived there. One that particularly stuck out to me was a sixteen year old blind boy who had the most beautiful singing voice. He shared some of that with us and I became overcome with emotion. He also shared some of his family struggles and how he was feeling ill so we prayed over him and then on Sunday we rejoiced because he was feeling well enough to come to church with us for our final Sunday. We also got to join in on Vuthy’s soccer ministry where he gathers men from all over his village and some from his own staff and they meet a few times a week and play soccer games against the Cambodian Army team. We definitely provided them with lots of laughs as we participated in warm-ups and then bought IDENTICAL jerseys and wore them with pride.
My team is made up of myself and six of the most precious and godly women in my life. I adore them and am so grateful we get to spend this time with one another. I know in an earlier blog I talked about loving them, but now here we are doing the life thing together and I get to know them on a deeper level than just the surface, and they surprise me and make me proud every single day. We knew we would be friends from the beginning of Training Camp, but really living in community with people is different. Sometimes they won’t live up to your unrealistically high expectations and sometimes you let them down. I am a logistics coordinator so during last week’s debrief I had to step away from theme little bit to do some other things and I got to witness first hand what lovely, graceful women they are and how much they fight for one another and our relationships. Jesus is doing some good things with this team, y’all. How lucky am I to be a part of it.
When it was time to leave Vuthy and Kampot our little hearts were just broken to pieces. Jazlyn and I’s students came to say goodbye to us the morning we left and as we prayed over the staff I could hear our sweet little girls sobbing. It was hard, but Jesus showed me in that moment what I had been hoping for all month long – I had done my part. I had loved on these girls like Jesus wanted me to. Even though that made leaving them even harder than expected, I knew I could walk into my next ministry feeling solid about our time in Kampot.
We all cried the entire way to Phnom Penh and even a few days after.
After a few days of fellowship in Phnom Penh, we got to come together as a squad again to cross the border into THAILAND!! Woo hoo! As a logistics coordinator, travel days are one of our main jobs and so they’re not always the most relaxing of days but after many hours on a bus and walking across the border of Thailand we arrived at the Siamaze hostel in Bangkok! We had a week of debrief full of sessions and adventure. The idea of a debrief is to find rest where it is needed and prepare our hearts together as a squad for the coming months. We got to share stories about what the Lord was doing in our lives and get lots of good snuggles in before we sent everyone off in different directions for the holidays and the next six weeks in Thailand.
Today, after 33 long hours on buses, I arrived at my Thailand ministry site! We are in the city of Ubon Ratchathani working at a YWAM base. We will be here for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I know that will be hard on my heart so if you’re thinking of me around then maybe send up a little prayer to let Jesus know you’re with me through him. That would be nice.
LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH.
Again, sorry it’s been so long. I promise it won’t be this long until the next one.
Peace and Blessings,
Elizabeth
