This month we are working with a ministry called Teen
Challenge in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
I’ve known about Teen Challenge pretty much my entire life, because
there was one right down the street from Maranatha Bible and Missionary
Conference that I have attended with my family for as long as I can remember
and worked at for about 3 years or so.
Teen Challenge is a 1 year program that takes in people with addictions,
on their own free will, and helps them get back on their feet and shares with
them the love of Christ. We are
working at the women’s center that opened up in November and has only 6 women
and their 3 kids living here. When
we first arrived the place was desolate with a prison wall and barbed wire
surrounding it. We were shown the
house we were sleeping in, which has 3 rooms and no furniture. So we are sleeping on our sleeping pads
on the floor and were able to get mosquito nets to hang around us. The bathroom is a vat of pond water and
a toilet you can’t flush and a drain on the floor. We were supposed to shower (shower, meaning use a bucket of
pond water and a ladle to scoop it on you, over the drain on the floor) and do
everything with the pond water, but we instantly decided that that wasn’t
healthy and were just going to not shower all month. Luckily we had a bottle of bleach from last month, so we
have been putting capfuls in the pond water we have been using and hoping it
kills most of whatever is living in there. Also, by pond, I really mean swamp water, basically.
So, our first day was rough and our outlook on the month was
fairly dismal, but luckily I was blessed with a pretty good attitude about
everything and was able to fight for our team’s joy and emotional health. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to
on my own means, so I am thankful that God blessed me with that at the right
time. We had just past our half
way point on the race and a lot of us are starting to feel tired; the glamour
of this whole thing is starting to wear off a bit.
After that, every day was a new blessing we were receiving,
it was incredible! One day we were
blessed with an Australian team coming in and building teeter-totters, tire
swings, tree fort, sandbox and a volleyball court for the kids to play with and
they painted the fence a beautiful shade of lavender! No more prison wall! Another day our contact bought us an
internet stick thing so we could have internet in our house, another we were
blessed with 4 bags of fruit, which we don’t get too often! Then we were able to get hammocks in
town to hang up under the mango trees and palm trees. Another day one of the helpers showed us a huge container of
collected rainwater we could use to shower and not try avoid all of our
orifices and we were ecstatic! We
first though this month would be extremely hard, but we have been blessed with
so month and this month is turning out to be more of a rest month than
anything. In the mornings we teach
preschool to some of the local kids, which is one of the ways they are funding
the organization, then during the
day we just help out with whatever we can. They are building a shelter and setting up stations for the
women to sew, as another mean to make money. As well as cut apart bulbs of flowers to sell at the market
and gardening. We help prepare the
food (which is excellent, btw) and teach the women a bit of English. We also have been taking prayer walks
around the villages, which have been absolutely fantastic. Since this is such a new place, it is
so great to pray over it and “cleanse” it, in a way, of whatever occupied it
before and also gives us a chance to get to know the neighborhood and get away
from the compound. We have
befriended a group of kids we play volleyball with around the corner from our
house and one elderly woman in particular that I go see and just sit with. She doesn’t speak a lick of English and
I barely speak 2 words of the local language, but we pretend to understand each
other and just like sitting in each other’s company.
This month also marks the last bit of support raising, which
has been hectic. No one has gone
home yet because of support raisings, but it sounds like a few people will for
this deadline. So far I only need
about $600 more to be fully funded, if you include what should still be coming
in from monthly donors. It has
been a fantastic ride seeing the money come in last month and get me so close,
but now the funds have hit a bit of a lull. If you would like to support me and help me reach this
deadline, click “Support Me” on the left and you can get all the nitty gritty
on how to do so.
Thank you all so much for
your love and support already and I pray this post finds you well and you
aren’t shivering too hard out in snowy, snowy land, Ameri
