This week has been similar to that of last week, but it’s also been very different. My team and I are still teaching, painting and building relationships with the teachers and students. However, the school has suffered tremendous damage. October is the final month of Cambodia’s rainy season and they have taken a hard hit. The school sits right off a river and, because of the rain, it has risen drastically since we arrived. Apparently this is not normal for the Cambodians and a lot of it is in result of a dam having been built further downstream. The dam has caused the water to move through more slowly and the river to expand in width.
Because of this expansion, the school’s play area, which looks similar to that of a picnic shelter with a playground underneath, cracked all the way down the concrete floor on Sunday night and as the rain continued to pour and the river continued to rise, part of the shelter’s concrete flooring fell down into the river. It has bent the supports of the structure and now sits leaning into the river. This damage has been hard to see as it is not going to be an easy repair and is going to be quite expensive.
The school has also experienced a lot of problems with one of their vans. It has constantly been breaking down this past week and so they are now having to look at taking a loan out in order to replace it.
Amidst all of these problems, the school had one of their teachers, as well as their secretary, put in their resignation.
All of these hardships are bringing stress to the teachers and I just ask that big prayers are prayed that God uses all of these hardships to bring the teachers closer to Him during this time. My team was able to pray with the teachers this past week for all of these things, but my desire is to see God not only provide and bless them, but to just draw these teachers who do not have a personal relationship with Him to Himself through all of this. That they see God working in such a way that they cannot deny His existence.
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We have continued teaching and painting though and both have gone well. We, as a team, have faced our own challenges in teaching and are learning so much from it. I, myself, have been learning how to project my voice more so the students can more clearly understand what I am saying. I have also had to relearn some grammatical and phoenix lessons in order to teach them to the students. What comes so easily to me in the English language, that I don’t think about it, has proved to be increasingly hard to teach. It has given me an appreciation for the learning I received (and yes I am referring to my homeschool experience haha).
Last week, while in Phnom Penh, our team went to an office market where we picked up supplies in order to help the teachers re-do previous decorations and add more. We are so glad to be able to have this opportunity to not only bless them in this way, but also to build our relationships with them even more without the presence of students.
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This month truly has been incredible. I have learned so much here from the people. It’s not even just those that I am working alongside of, but just of Cambodians as a whole. They have such a heart for service and helping others and this is especially true of our host. Chantha works with Shalom Mission Cambodia in Phnom Penh and for this month, while I and my team are working with the school, has given up her own time to come and stay with us. She cooks our meals and provides knowledge on the culture and help in getting to places in Phnom Penh (so we don’t get lost). She has truly given a whole new meaning to a servants heart. She is an amazing cook, but more so than her cooking is her desire to bless us with foods such as fried chicken and french fries or spaghetti and even pancakes. She has gone above and beyond anything we expected and is constantly giving back even when we want to bless her.
Last weekend we wanted to bless Chantha by having a movie night since she really enjoys english movies. That night it poured rain and was the same rain that flooded the office. While it poured she finished our dinner and brought it into the office. She said for us to go on and eat because she needed to go back outside and before we realized what she was doing she was coming inside with popcorn. She had stayed outside in the pouring rain in order to fix us popcorn for the movie night we wanted to bless her with.
This isn’t just true of Chantha though, it’s also true of the Cambodian culture. The teachers are constantly wanting to help us paint or remake the decorations and the students are always looking out for each other and trying to help each other in spelling a word or answering a question. It is in their culture to help each other and serve each other and I’ve seen that even outside of the school setting. While in Phnom Penh last Saturday, Chantha’s niece needed lunch. Before Chantha really went in search of the food, a woman on the street gave her a coconut for free.
Seeing these acts of service has made me desire to learn and grow into that even more. Here I am wanting to serve these people and their response is to serve me. I pray that one day God grants me this same heart of service that He has blessed these people with.
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This past week has been very growing. Not only am I learning about a servants heart from the culture, but I am also learning about who I am, both as a person and in Christ and what that truly means. This has been happening through reading Who Am I? by Jerry Bridges and also going through a study called Journey Markers with my team. Through both of these I have been learning about false self and replacing that with who Christ has made me to be. It has been such a great experience and I am enjoying the challenges that both have been giving me.
One of the things that I learned this past week was how I struggle with justification. Because I am in Christ I am justified by Christ. So often on my bad days I fail to see that justification and I start doing a comparison game. I compare my life with that of others and it constantly goes into more and more comparing. I can grasp that God can justify them, but I feel unworthy of His justification of myself. What I’ve learned, however, is that I did nothing to receive the justification. I am justified because of what Christ did for me on the cross when He bore my sins. And just like I did not do anything to receive the justification, I cannot do anything to lose the justification. Christ has called me to Himself and it is His death on the cross that allows me to be justified through my faith in Him.
Another book that I have been slowly working my way through is called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and this past week I learned the characteristics of an emotionally healthy adult. These are characteristics that I want to obtain in my life. I desire to be emotionally healthy and so because of this I am challenging myself to grow into that this next year.
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This past weekend, after my team and I were able to obtain wifi and post updates and do check-in’s with our leadership team, we got the opportunity to go exploring. The coffee shop that we did check-in’s at was this little tourist shop called Costa Coffee and had free wifi. Right next to this coffee shop was the Palace. We had originally planned on getting to go explore it, but because it was a day of recognition for the late king, we only walked over to get a picture in front of it.
After this we headed over to the office supply store which really does resemble one of the office supply stores that we have in America. This made things a little easier to find things that we needed and also fun as we got to just look around and see what the store offered and the differences between the cultures.
We then went to the Killing Fields. This is just one location of where the genocide of 1975 took place. I was totally unprepared for what I saw here and the history that was told. Men, women and children were taken from their homes by other Cambodians. Here is a bit of an excerpt:
“Between 1975 and 1978 about 17,000 men, women, children and infants who had been detained and tortured at S-21 were transported to the extermination camp of Choeng Ek. it is a peaceful place today, where visitors can learn of the hours that unfolded here decades ago.
The remains of 8985 people, many of whom were bound and blindfolded, were exhumed in 1980 from mass graves in this one-time longan orchard; 43 of the 129 communal graves here have been left untouched. Fragments of human bone and bits of cloth are scattered around the disinterred pits. More than 8000 skulls, arranged by sex and age, are visible behind the clear glass panels of the Memorial Stupa, which was erected in 1988.
The audio tour includes stories by those who survived the Khmer Rouge, plus a chilling account by Him Huy, a Choeung Ek guard and executioner, about some of the techniques they used to kill innocent and defenseless prisoners, including women and children.”
There hardest thing for me to hear/experience there was a tree called the “killing tree.” It was this tree that the Choeung Ek guards would bring women and children. The guards would then beat the head of the child on the tree in front of their mothers. It was a draining experience, but it was also one that I’m thankful for. I’m glad I got to learn more about what this country has been through and the fears that are still very present because of what occurred.
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This weekend has been good as well. My team and I finally got to go to experience church in Cambodia, and though it was all in Kmer, it was great getting to see how they worship. I also got to talk to one of the Pastors afterwards who is from the States. He and his wife were both homeschooled and now live here full time ministering to the Cambodian people. They have 7 kids and are expecting their 8th this week!! Please be in prayer for them. They are a sweet couple and family and it was a blessing getting to meet them.
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Prayer Requests:
- Continue to be in prayer for the school and their ministry. Also be in prayer for this last week of ministry here and that God will be evident in our lives.
- Pray for safe travels for my team and the others on my squad. We will be traveling to one of our five debriefs that we will have while on the race and the first of which is in Siem Reap.
- Pray for continued growth for myself and my team as we pour into ourselves and each other and that we would challenge each other into greatness.
Until Next Time,
Kara
