Hello hello,
Month 8 has arrived, and the race is flying by! This month my team is out in the bush in Kampong Speu, Cambodia. It is about 1.5 hours outside of Phnom Penh. Our primary task is to teach English to children after their regular school, which they only go to for three hours a day. Kaysea and I are teaching together and our main group is 12 to 16 years old. They actually take notes and want to learn which is amazing! We also lead worship in the community three days a week, have one on ones with people in the community so they can practice their English, and help out our contact, Ra, with whatever he needs.
Last month our team was riding high spiritually. We were learning and training on how to access the Holy Spirit. We were preparing for battle and we knew it. We had no idea that the battle was going to start in Cambodia. Satan has quite the grip on this country and it is very evident. We knew there was spiritual warfare here from the day we set foot on its soil. I won’t go into the past that still haunts them (genocide) or the present issues they still face (human trafficking and poverty) but this is a country that desperately needs Jesus.
In our village we witness a lot of suffering. One night as Kaysea and I were cleaning dishes a little girl fully dressed and drenched in water came up to us, begging for some food. She was shivering and shaking. Her eyes desperate. Outside of our house, Ras mother in law battles cancer, in its final stages. She sleeps out in the heat on a wooden cabana (we have tried to get her to stay inside and offered to move out). It is painful to see her suffer day in and day out, fetal position, moaning, with little access to medicine and doctors. When there are no teams here, they have no money for medicine or foods other than rice. Please pray for continued support. The children run around with clothes that are ripped and far too small, covered in dirt with strong odors. They need love. They need prayers.
A cool experience happened yesterday. I prayed that the house next door that has seven kids, an alcoholic father, a mother who passed away, and all live in a wooden hut and dont go to school, would join us in worship. That night they all showed up. Not just that, they knew the songs and were singing along. Even the two year old. This household is Buddhist and has a shrine outside, so seeing them praise God was truly amazing.
We pray for healing in this community and for the mother in law. There is hope. There is love. Jesus is just getting started and we are blessed to witness and be a part of it.
