This month I am in Cambodia and some things have been switched up, I am now on a new team with five other awesome girls-Keri, Aimee, Nikki, Tiffany, and Cassie.
This month we are living near Takao, Cambodia working with an organization called Teen Challenge. Teen Challenge is a rehabilitation center for boys dealing with drug and alcohol addictions; they are all between the ages of 13 and 26.
The center is full of 26 guys at the moment and every single one of them is absolutely amazing. While we do not live at Teen Challenge we are very near by and spend nearly all of our time their. Teaching English and Bible studies, working along side them on their new farm, eating meals, playing games, singing worship songs, having deep conversations, and dancing the night away.
This past Sunday we were able to join them in going to the capital Phonm Pen where we attended a Christmas Party/Worship Service. Where we sang, dance, and ate lunch. Spending time with the boys I feel just like a part of their family. They are all very protective of us girls and are always placing our needs way before their own. I love to sit and sing with them as they play guitar and they love to make fun of my laugh all of the time, they call it “Gina style” and they are always trying to mimic me when I laugh, they also really enjoy calling me Monkey, it is their nickname for me.
During the day I get to spend most of my time with the 13-year-old boys teaching them and I have so much fun with them. Some of their minds are easy to wonder away from what we are studying, but many of them catch on quickly to what Cassie and I are teaching them. In the afternoon and evening they like to sit all of us girls down and the younger boys enjoy giving us these amazing back massages, they are quit amazing. But of course there is a price to pay, they always want to play this crazy Chinese rock, paper, scissors game that one of my teammates taught them, it use to be a really fun game, but now I can’t even stand to play it anymore, but they always push me to play over and over again and of course I always cave in to their smiling faces.
At night when we dance they play some of their Khmer music and teach us their cultural dance moves, it is rather slow but very graceful. Then they put on American hip hop music and younger boys amaze me again with their amazing breaking dancing skills, they always try to teach me how to do it, but I fail miserably every time.
I really love being here I feel so much at home, I have made so many great friends just within our first week with the boys at Teen Challenge and with some of the people we are living with. I am so blessed by all of these boys and I am so thankful to say that God has blessed me with 26 amazing brothers in my life.
On top of all of this I am still in need of raising some $3,600 to reach my final goal of $14,300. Christmas is right around the corner and I will be spending it here in Cambodia at Team Challenge if any of you feel so inclined to give me a gift, please help me by sending a donation to so that I may finish the World Race.
God Bless and Merry Christmas!
