Last night showed me the reason why I’m here. Why I need to be here.
It started off as a normal ministry day, waking up at 5:30, getting ready, and heading to the school to teach my morning class, full of wonderful teachers. As soon as I walk in the door every day, I get to see their beautiful smiles that light up the room. They all giggle and say, “good morning teachaa!” And I just laugh and say it right back.
My life here is starting to become a routine, doing the same thing every day, yet the awesome thing is, I am always out of my comfort zone. Every day I have to figure out how to teach adults and children English in a creative new way. We get to sing songs, I help them pronounce words while reading books, we play games to make learning English a bit more fun, and we get to laugh when they all say the word, “fish,” like, “fis.” Although only a few of them speak pretty good English, I still feel such a strong love for all of them. For the first time in my life I have to experience a language barrier, yet it doesn’t matter at all. Because the connections I am building with these men, women, and children, just through having fun and laughing is one of the strongest ways I’ve ever built relationships with anyone. We can’t understand each other, yet we completely can. And it’s all through just loving each other. It’s honestly the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
After class, I usually get breakfast with Josie. The usual is, thinly sliced egg on rice with some chili sauce that is absolutely amazing. Afterwards, Josie, Kat, and I go to the library room and plan out camps, update the school facebook and instagram, we paint murals, fences, etc. All from 8-11. A few weeks back, Sok Eng (our host) asked us if we could plan a camp for the teachers, and to be honest, we had no idea what that could look like. So we just went with it, and started planning.
Last night was the night of our camp. So throughout the day Kat and I went and go get some things from the market for the camp, such as, coal for a bonfire (even though it’s about 90 degrees at night), bananas, candy, coca-cola, and crackers. We headed home, and eventually set up our fire pit. We had to find ply wood in the back of the house because apparently they don’t sell fire wood here in Cambodia. Maybe it’s because it’s 85 degrees all year, who knows. And we also threw some cardboard in the mix as well. Later on, after everything was all set up, people started showing up around 7pm.
Before it all started, our team prayed together. That God would really show up tonight and make a change in these people’s lives. And ohhhhh let me tell ya, He sure as flip did. I also prayed on my own, asking God to work through us to plant seeds and for us to help them grow. I really felt a sense of peace over everything after praying for that, and truly knew that the Holy Spirit was going to work that night.
All the teachers began to show up, and being them bubbly wild selves, they would run up to us screaming and hug us. Their personalities are the most interesting things, because they can be so quiet and conservative when we’re teaching (especially when we first got to the school) but as soon as you make a joke or show any bit of happiness they just thrive off of it. They are some crazy and giggly girls that I absolutely love. Anyway, then Sok Eng’s sister who is our cook showed up with her whole family, our cleaning lady came with her daughter, one of the guards came, a bunch of the kids and almost all of the teachers showed up. It was a huge turnout, so we started playing fun music and we all danced around the camp fire and laughed till our bellies hurt.
Here in Cambodia, they don’t have marshmallows available at the market so we decided to use bananas instead. We brought out sugar crackers, oreos for chocolate, and bananas for marshmallows. Put all those together and you gotchyo self a Bodian S’more! It was a huge hit at the party, and we all were roasting them around the fire as sweat droplets fell down our cheeks. After all of the Bodian S’more supplies were out we decided to have a deeper moment with everyone. We began to play some worship music.
At the start of the worship music, some of them were still talking and were kind of confused on what was going on. Plus the majority of the people that were there were Buddhist. People who worship God’s and sacrifice things because they’re too scared that if they don’t horrible things will happen to them. While we were singing, some girls were on their phones, some were just studying our actions, and some were even closing there eyes and just listening to the melody of the song. After about two songs of worship I felt as if the Holy Spirit was really tugging at me to go up and ask everyone how they were feeling about what was going on. I approached Kat and told her that we should go up and ask, she just said to me, “Do it. That’s the Holy Spirit.” So I walked up to Sok Eng and asked him if he could translate for me. He nodded and I proceeded to stand up in the center with the fire’s shadow and quiet sounds behind me. I asked the crowd of people, “How are you guys feeling about all of this, are you feeling anything different than usual, or any emotions at all?” Sok translated for me and we both looked towards the group. Some teachers said good, some said refreshed, and one looked at me and said, “alone.” At that moment, my heart sank. I approached her and held onto her hand as she began to cry. I then asked her if I could pray over her. She looked up at me as she tried to wipe away her tears, and nodded. I felt such a flow of words that I had never felt before in my life. God was truly working through me to reach this girl and be a physical being to help her through her brokenness. I kept holding her hand as I was praying for her and she continued to cry. A bunch of women surrounded us and we all held onto her, showing her that she is never alone, and that she is completely and unconditionally loved by God. After our prayers were finished, we all stood up and I squeezed her hand. Giving her a sign that we are always here and that she is so treasured and loved.
I walked behind the group of people and another teacher was crying to Hannah about her brokenness of her family, how her dad treats her and her mother horribly, how she wants to be a doctor but her family is so poor that she will never be able to afford school, how she wants to go abroad yet she’s so poor, and how people judge her because of her darker skin. Hannah and I were crying with her as she was pouring her heart out. Throughout the night, about 5 different women came to me with their hearts. Whether it was loneliness, a broken family, a broken heart, judgement from others or just prayer requests, it was all so incredibly important. They needed to be felt heard, they needed to feel loved, to feel special, and they needed someone that could always be there for them. I told all of them, that God is their answer. That they felt this way tonight because of something that is so real and so life changing. After we finished the worship, the prayers, and helped the girls feel special, we went into the house for some games and to get to know each other.
I stayed outside and talked to my friend Chee, who had just gone through some really hard things. She really opened up to me about the things she was experiencing and it made me feel so special. It made me realize that I am completely in the right place. That for the first time in my life, I felt like I was completely where I am supposed to be. To help plant seeds. To help people feel valued, loved, forgiven, special, and found.
After the night was over, I was so overwhelmed with joy about everything that had happened. Sok Eng came up to us and we asked him how he thought everything went. And all he said was, “you girls are planting seeds.” And wow. That statement alone made me want fall on my knees and praise God. He showed me that this is where we are supposed to be. That the feelings the girls experienced couldn’t have just been from some songs. That He is completely and utterly present and real.
I told the girls that this is our chance to help the seeds God has planted through us, to grow.
