Wow friends… I was sitting here and I had the most saddening of realizations. While I’ve been trying to blog and share my thoughts about the Race and the Lord and everything in between, I’ve committed an almost fatal mistake; I haven’t actually told you what we’ve done the last two month! Gosh friends, I’m so sorry! Thank you for having grace and continuing to read these crazy blogs despite my lack of details; you all are incredibly kind. With that in mind, I want to utilize this blog post to actually tell you what we did in Vietnam and Cambodia (as well as to give you a short update of what our month in Thailand is looking like this far). I’m trying to keep my blogs a little shorter because I know that you all have lives full of very important appointments and people, so I’m going to try to keep each blurb to about 250 words. Enjoy, and thank you again for your grace!
Vietnam: During our three weeks in Vietnam, we were working at a coffee shop run by an incredible Christian family (since Vietnam is a closed country, shoot me an e-mail if you’re interested in learning more about the coffee shop and I can send you some more information). Each morning, my 4 teammates and I would split the day into three shifts (8:00-12:030, 12:30-5:00, and 5:00-10:00), and one or two of us would go to the coffee shop for each shift. Throughout our shift, we would sit in the conversation rooms with whoever came to the shop that day and hold conversations on everything from movies to music to education to healthcare.
The coffee shop is marketed as a place to practice English with at least one person regardless of when you come (which is why one of us had to be there at all times while the shop was open), and people in the area have been responding really well to the shop and all that they offer food and conversation wise. Some of the shifts were long and conversation would struggle to flow naturally, and some of the shifts were incredible and it would feel like we were hanging out with a group of our friends! Because our ministry days were only about 5 hours long, we got a lot of time to both be by ourselves and form relationships with the coffee shop regulars and do things with them outside of the coffee shop (these friendships leading to chances to share the gospel is the main vision of the coffee shop).
In addition, we got to help out and attend both the church services and the prayer meetings run by the coffee shop owners, spend time with our wonderful roommates (who also worked at the coffee shop), and have one-on-one time with each other as teammates. It was a hard month because we would have to go the entire day (or at least from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm) without seeing one or two of our teammates, but we eventually fell into the swing of things.
Cambodia: During our two and a half weeks in Cambodia, we were working with a family that ran a church/school (all held in the same building) in a province located across the river from the city of Phnom Penh. The family we were with is the only Christian family in the entire province, and because of the Khmer New Year, we got to spend a lot of time pouring into the family and loving on them.
Before the New Year, we would take the mornings and split into a group of two and a group of three; the group of three would help out with the preschool class that the eldest daughter taught from 8:00-12:00, and the group of two would stay back at the house and help with the cooking and the cleaning. In the afternoons, the group of two would go to one school and teach one hour-long ESL class from 5:00-6:00, and the group of three would go back to the preschool and teach three hour-long ESL classes from 4:00-7:00.
During the break from 12:00-4:00, we would eat, have time together as a team, and take a rest period (because the heat of the Cambodian afternoon can reach upwards of 110 degrees). After the New Year, we got the opportunity to help paint a mural on the side of the preschool, so one person would teach preschool in the mornings while the other four painted, and one person would teach each of the three ESL classes at the preschool while everyone else finished that day’s painting. It was a lot near the end, but the mural looks awesome (see the picture below) and we are hoping that it will attract even more people to the church and to the Lord! On Sundays, we got to be a part of the church services by teaching worship songs and doing skits!
So Far This Month: Thailand had been full of wonder and surprises this month. We are actually working with New Jerusalem Church and our dear brother, Pastor TJ, as opposed to a YWAM base. This past week, we have done several house visits and prayer walks, helped put on a prayer and worship night, and have shared our testimonies at a juvenile detention center where, praise the Lord, 6 boys came to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior!
We are living almost 30 minutes outside the city and entirely without WiFi, but God is clearly blessing this time and this new team. Pray for us as we continue to minister and do life here, and for our time teaching English in the local Thai grade schools, which will commence on the 16th.
I’d love to give you more details if you’re curious about these last two months! And I am absolutely going to make an effort to be much more communicative about the amazing ministries with which we get to work (and in a timely manner, at that!). My heart is so blessed by each and every one of you!
