This blog will be split into two sections being that Justin and I were apart in Cambodia: We will each share about our time and experiences while serving there!
In Cambodia, Justin and I surprisingly decided to participate in “Manistry Month”. This is a month that is set aside for the men and woman on the squad to split up and do life and ministry together for a month. This gives the men an opportunity to form a brotherhood and grow together as men of God, and it allows the same opportunity for the women to grow together as women, and to form a beautiful bond and sisterhood.
I say we “surprisingly decided” because we were DEAD SET on not participating from the moment we heard about it. Being a married couple, we did have the option to opt out, and we had every intention in doing so! But, something in us changed when we were given a few days to pray about it, and make a final decision.
For some reason, I felt my heart changing about the idea, and I was so scared to tell Justin, because we made a pact to not budge if anyone tried to talk us into it! Lol. But, God had other plans.. because unknowingly, Justin was feeling the same way.
When we told one another, we were both shocked and excited because we simply KNEW that we were supposed to participate, and so we did.
I spent the month with 15 beautiful women on my squad. They loved me, challenged me, pursued me, encouraged me, prayed for me, laughed with me, and even cried with me. It was amazing, and I believe that I grew from it in so many ways. Areas of growth for me were:
Trusting the Lord fully, confidence, independence, pursuing others, and mostly.. my love for my husband grew tremendously! Justin put it so well when we saw one another again, “Separation caused Appreciation”. And he was so right. It did. We truly did grow in ways that wouldn’t have been possible had we not participated.
Although we both worked with different ministries and lived separately from one another, thankfully we were still in the same beautiful city of Battambang, and we got to see one another on our off days, which was such a blessing, because let’s be real, a solid month without seeing my man, would have been so hard!
I had the privilege of working with the incredible Ezra Ministries while in Cambodia!
Some of us worked at the Ezra Learning Center, which is a ministry that slowly grew out of an obvious interest from the young people in the village to learn English. They now run English classes in their home for more than 130 students each day. Ezra employs four Cambodian teachers, who they also train, to help improve their teaching skills. They do not charge the children to come learn with them, and they trust that in doing so, many of them will gain English skills that would have otherwise been out of their reach. They believe that in the children learning English, they will have increased opportunity for a brighter future.
And then the rest of us, myself included, worked at the Ezra Library Cafe. The cafe is being developed as a means to support the Learning Center. It will help enable them to pay the staff well, and it will help buy teaching resources for the Learning Center. It is also hoped that the cafe will be a place where Cambodians, and even foreigners will go to relax, read, eat or drink, and just enjoy being together with friends. The cafe is meant to be a place where groups can come and enjoy a clean and friendly atmosphere.
I truly feel blessed to have worked with such an incredible ministry, and with such wonderful hosts! Let me tell you, the Theriaults were all you could ask for from a host family and more. They took us in and made us feel like their own daughters. When we arrived they’d read all of our bios and used us each in the areas where we excel at most! It was amazing to see all of the women help by doing what we all did best.
The things that we brought to the table as a team of 15 women were exactly fit for this ministry, and it was so cool to see how God lined in all up.
Between the 15 of us there were teachers, web designers, photographers, a pastry chef, a hospitality and culinary manager, a visual manager, baristas, organizers, planners, and the list goes on and on.
The teachers got to create lesson plans, teach, plan and lead field trips, and do lots of fun stuff at the Learning Center.
Many of the women got to put together a Vacation Bible School for the local children. They went all out with decorations, lessons, songs, dances, skits, arts and crafts, and so much more! They planted so many seeds in the hearts of the children in the community.
The pastry chef and hospitality and culinary manager got to help create a well rounded menu for the Library Cafe, and helped teach the employees the recipes, did research on local prices, helped price the menu items, and did all the fun food stuff! Lucky, I know!
Our barista trained the employees of the cafe to make the perfect coffees, from lattes to espresso! They had the best training them, and we all left having had some of the best coffee drinks we’ve ever had!
And then Cassie and I got to use our creative gifts, and we created visual content through photography, we designed a BRAND NEW website for their ministry, Cassie designed a menu for the cafe along with advertisements to go around town and in local magazines and papers.
Overall, it was just so encouraging to be able to invest our gifts into such an amazing ministry.
To check out the website that we worked so hard on, and to learn more about this incredible ministry, head on over:
I learned and grew so much in my month in Cambodia. I also believe that many seeds were sown in the people we met, and in our time there. I am already missing the quaint little town of Battambang, and the people who captured my hearts while there.
As always, thank you for following along on our journey.
Love, Tess.
Hey guys! Justin here!
Overall, our time in Cambodia was awesome! I worked at Lighthouse Battambang. I lived at a boarding school with about 25 Cambodian students. The students were from villages far away, and they lived there so that they could be close to the universities and get an education. They also were able to extracurricular activities and classes at Lighthouse. So for them it was a win-win. With such busy schedules, the staff at Lighthouse don’t have the time to do some of the things that need to be done around the facilities.
So when we weren’t building relationships with the students and doing devotions with them, we were doing manual labor. Which I really enjoyed. That was about the time I was pretty homesick and missing my little ole town. So being able to just hang out with the guys and doing manual labor made it feel a little bit like home. The heat there definitely reminded me of that Georgia humidity.
We had a productive month and got to help out a lot! We spread gravel out for the new driveway, we cut down several trees, we fixed toilets, we replaced a lot of plumbing pipe, we fixed the water filtration system so that they could have clean water to drink, we put up a volleyball net, and hosted a field day for the students.
So, being from Butts County, of course my station was having these young bucks shoot a blow dart gun at cans. I was right in my element and got just as stoked as they did when one of them would smoke one of the cans with a dart. I’m just making sure they have survival skills! HAHA.
But anyways, we also helped do construction at a local coffee shop. We put up shelves, replaced some rotten areas of a wall. Some of the guys even got to do a little welding.
Once a week we even got the opportunity to play soccer with the guys from the school and the staff. And I know you have questions about that, so here are the answers: Yes, my team won every time we played (I never scored and was the worst person on my team). No, I’m not a grass fairy. No, I would never play soccer in the states (I actually had a blast and couldn’t keep up). And yes, it was truly a blast and those Cambodian kids made us Americans look like little school girls on that field.
I really enjoyed being back in Cambodia, and being with the guys for the month. Most that know me know that I spend a lot of my time back home with my dad and the boys. So having a month to chill with the boys, pour into one another, challenge one another, and really grow a stronger appreciation for my wife as she was away for a month, was awesome in so many ways.
I’m not sure if I will ever end up in Cambodia again or not, but I do know that Country has, and will always have a piece of my heart. I’m convinced those are literally some of the nicest people on the planet and we, as Americans, could really learn from the way they love, put others first, and just carry a smile through even the hardest seasons. It’s absolutely amazing to watch and I feel blessed to have experienced and learned from their culture. I will miss it!
Thanks for the love, prayers, support, and encouragement.
Blessings, Justin
