So, we're a week into our life in northern Cambodia. We're living and serving in a northern province about two hours from the Thailand border in an area known as Preah Vihear. It's small. It's rural. There's lots of dirt roads. And bugs. There's lots of cows.
I love it.
We're helping a small team of missionaries from The States. They've been here for a number of years and helped to plant and grow a local church. The challenge now is to get the local people to take ownership of the ministry of the church, which seems to be a bit of a struggle. This month we're trying to help encourage those church members, and to help light a passionate flame in their hearts for Christ. We're doing a lot of praying in our down time, and trying to just build relationships with the people in order to hopefully allow the Holy spirit in us to really inspire them to hope for more, and not to settle with just having church once a week. It's unlike any of the focused ministries we've had thus far, and really hard to wrap my head around. A lot of the time I feel ineffective. I have to remind myself that my prayers are POWERFUL and EFFECTIVE and to remember it's the Holy Spirit's show and to trust Him, to be led by Him and to enjoy that process!
So please pray for the church here…to catch the fire of the Holy Spirit and to explode with people who want more out of their relationships with Christ, who hunger for a deep experience with Him, and who want to share that with their countrymen who are mostly folk Buddhist practitioners. Please pray for the Gabriel family (Jim, Carolyn, Sam, Meghan and Jake) who have given up their own comfortable lives to move here, learn the language and invest in the people here. Pray for Joel, another missionary doing the same. Cambodia needs our prayers!
So what does any of that have to do with me being shoeless? Well, this weekend our team is visiting Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. We're staying at a youth hostel, where upon entering, many people remove their shoes as is the custom here. So, being the elegant gentleman traveler that I am, I did likewise. And upon returning to my shoes a couple of hours later, I discovered they were gone. The huge pile of all the guests' shoes was still there. I saw my teammates' shoes. But not mine. After ten minutes of searching without any results, well, any positive results, I gave up and walked out to meet my team for dinner.
Yup, I'm walking the streets of Phnom Penh in my bare feet. I think I might walk to the Russian Market tomorrow and see if I can't find a cheap pair of replacement flip flops. Which is fine…but the ones I lost were jsut getting perfectly worn in, and soft, and molded to my feet. My feet had never enjoyed life more on a day to day basis. Oh well. I guess that's life on The World Race….and it's completely fantastic! (And it leads to some interesting discoveries…like discovering my feet can become completely and totally black on the bottom in a matter of minutes. Or that stepping in Phnom Penh curb-side puddles isn't as refreshing as the water first appeared to be. You know, those kind of things…)
Walking to the market for groceries with new friends. And main street.
This is where Phil and I live. My bed is directly under those upstairs shutters in the middle of the photo. (This is the home of Po Rut, one of the church leaders. Pray for him too, he just had surgery for colon cancer a few days ago and he could use some prayer support. He's a cool guy who speaks almost no English, but some French which is how he often tries to talk to us.) And followed is our street, Clearly there's a lot happening around here.
And here's what I look like these days. Figured at least Mom would want to see this.
