The children of Cambodia were some of the most beautiful
children I have ever seen. They
were always smiling, telling us hello (multiple times a day, every time we
walked by them) and just wanting to be around us wherever we were. This included peeking in through the
windows of the church where we were living, and here in Cambodia there are no
glass windows, just bars over the windows so they could hear and see everything
we did. This caused some frustration
for our team, because we had NO privacy ever, everything we did was constantly
on display for the whole community.
But I think the Lord taught us even more about our “rights” and about
what we “deserve” because there were definitely some days when all I wanted was
to be able to go into a room and be totally alone, but with six teammates and
tens of children looking in on us at any given time, that just wasn’t
reality. But then I would walk
outside and would be greeted with smiling faces, hellos, and high-fives and I
just couldn’t not want to be around these little lights.
Our last weekend in Cambodia had some of my favorite moments
of the month, we rode pony carts to the river where we splashed around with the
kids for a couple hours and three of the little girls in my five o’clock class
attached themselves to me for the entire day, we walked around holding hands,
they climbed all over me while we played in the river and then later after
lunch they sat in my hammock with me and we taught each other words in our
respective languages. I would
repeat things they would say, which would cause them to giggle for minutes at a
time…who knows what I was even saying, but honestly it didn’t matter to me
because I finally was building relationship with them, spending hours at a time
just sitting and talking. I know
that Srey Mai, Srey Ne, and Munchie didn’t know what I was saying in English
and I certainly didn’t understand their Khmer but just spending that day
together was so much fun!
I hope in some way my time
in Cambodia, the way I loved these girls, and so many of the other children I
got to know this month, will show them Jesus, make them desire to ask questions
of Pastor Virah, and love each other the same way. I don’t know that I will ever go back to Cambodia, but it
was certainly a month of my life that I am so thankful for and will remember
forever.
