Fundraising update: I am currently at $16,162! I’m only $455 from being fully funded so I am so so so close. Thank you for all your support and continued prayer. If you or anybody you know would be interested in supporting me financially, please feel free to pass my website along. Thank you also for reading and commenting on my blogs, I love being able to update you all on what God is doing in these countries. My email is [email protected] if you have any questions or just want to chat! Thank you all so much for reading! I am now in Bangkok, Thailand for a few days before departing to Mae Sot where all the guys will be together for the month instead of our normal teams. I can’t wait to update you as soon as I can pending access to the internet.
This past month has been one of my favorites so far! We spent the 3 weeks in the village doing VBS classes for the kids as well as teaching a couple English classes a day. I love the country of Cambodia and its people. Our hosts this month are a married couple from the Philippines named Roger and Deb. They met while Roger was in Bible school and decided to move to Cambodia to do missions full time. They have such a heart for the people and kids of the villages it has been so great to work with them this month.
Life in the village is a little different, but nothing too new for us on the race. We don’t have running water, we have to pump it from a well if we want to shower, wash dishes, etc. We are also sleeping in our tents this month. Here is what our site looks like.
We found this very large scorpion taking shelter under my tent one day after a big rain.
Our normal day when we don’t have a VBS class we get up around 6:30 and clean up around the mission house, clean the bathrooms, burn the trash from the day before, etc. We then head to English class in the tuk tuk around 8:30. The country side is beautiful and full of color, the rides into the village never get old.
Here I am teaching our morning English class! They are so well behaved and love learning, most of the time. If they start to lose interest we usually just get them to play a game or sing a song to keep them interested.
After class the kids line up and we give them a piece of candy, they bow and say “thank you teacher.”
Here I am with my kids after class one day!
We go back to our house after morning class to eat lunch and rest before we head out again for the afternoon class.
VBS days we leave around 8 and don’t come back until about 4:30. While at VBS, the kids learn a song with a simple dance that they perform for their parents at the end of VBS. Our team oversees games and crafts for VBS while the youth of the church we are partnered with are the teachers. It’s a great way to get them involved and equip them to be leaders for the kids in the village. Here they are dancing and also playing duck duck goose.
Here is a picture of me taking a break from English class to play jump rope.
The last day of ministry for our team, our hosts and kids from the church wanted to throw us a little party and roast a pig! They got up at 3 am to start preparing and cooking it. It was delicious! We went about 10 minutes outside the village to a lake to hang out, spend time with our hosts and play games with the kids. It was the perfect day to end one of my favorite months.
While here in Siem Reap I had the opportunity to visit Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world at 402 acres. We woke up at 4:30 to see the sunrise behind, truly an awesome experience!
Cambodia was nothing short of amazing and definitely somewhere I’d like to come back to. Thank you so much for reading and for your continued support on this journey. Please keep our whole squad in your prayers as we travel throughout Thailand for the next couple of days!
