So I turned 28.
And it was the best day of my life. It began in the morning with a coffee date with 3 of my favorite girls, Brandy, Jodi and Jen. I had a large latte and chatted with them about how we couldn’t believe we only had 1 month left on the race. Then my team and I went to a cute vintage shop called Keok Jay (www.keokjay.org/). I purchased a souvinier and then headed over to an amazing cafe where I had the best lunch of the entire race. My team paid and we headed to our last day of ministry for Cambodia. I taught my 2 o’clock class with Ken as usual and then at the close of class two of the girls handed me gifts. One gave me a pearl bracelet and the other gave me a neatly wrapped package with a stuffed dog inside! It was so sweet! I had no idea that I had made such an impact on them. We then had our two conversation classes where students continued to shower me with gifts. I couldn’t believe what was happening. These students have NOTHING, yet they still wanted to give me gifts. One girl gave me a camai sandwhich, a boy brought a bag of fruit for the class to share, two differnt boys gave me keychains with my name engraved in them, and the entire class pooled their money to buy me a new wallet! They knew that mine had fallen apart because Ashlee told them that I needed a new one. I was so overwhelmed by the presents and they probably sang happy birthday to me at least 4 times throughout the day. I was on the verge of tears throughout the majority of the last two hours of classes.
Then, when I thought there was no way it could get better, we returned from ministry to find out that the entire J squad was coming to my birthday dinner at the smallest mexican restaurant in Cambodia. We all rode on 6 different tuk tuk’s to get to Cantina, and they sang happy birthday to me when we were all stopped at a stoplight on the way. It was a tight fit but they were all there and got even more gifts from various people and everyone signed cards and wrote me notes. I’ve never felt so loved in my life by people who aren’t my blood relatives! One year ago today was the first time I met most of my original team and now I can’t imagine a life where I don’t have my 38 brothers and sisters with me nearly every day. As many months as I couldn’t wait to be home, now I’m not sure how i’ll react to a life different from the World Race. We’ve really learned how to love each other like brothers and sisters.
Thank you J-Squad for making my night one I will never forget and probably the best birthday I’ll ever have!
