We arrived in Cambodia on January 6th and debriefed for a week in Siem Reap at an AIM base hostel called Overflow. Siem Reap was enjoyable (I got to drink a lot of coffee), and we will be headed back to Siem Reap for ministry around February 26th when our parents arrive for PVT.
After a week of relaxing and debriefing we departed to Battambang- about three hours away. We got to Battambang Friday January 12th and met our ministry host for the next six weeks. This month the entire squad is living together in one location. Three teams from the Squad, mine and two others, are paired with Ezra Ministries. The other three teams are paired with other school and ministries in Battambang, but we all live at an AIM base that Ezra Ministries aids.
The next Sunday there were a few churches we could tuk tuk to (a tuk tuk is a little buggy that can fit between 4-9 people pulled by a moped), I went with a group to the YWAM base church service. This was a great experience because I got to see other missionaries at work in the city and see how they are serving long term and have a major impact on the community.
This week our ministry was different from what it will be for the next five weeks. But, my team of six split into teams of two and spread out to three international schools in the city to teach kindergarten in the mornings from 8:00 – 11:00 am. I was paired with Lau and we had a thirty-minute bike ride to and from ministry. We would return around 11:30 am and eat lunch with the three Ezra teams at 12:00 pm. At 1:00 pm we would bike to our second ministry, we were originally scheduled to teach English at another school on Mondays and Thursdays, so on Monday we went to orientation from 1:30 – about 3:30 pm. Tuesday and Friday afternoon we served at a trauma hospital. On Wednesday and Thursday we helped a couple from New Zealand move into their home. They are bible translators and have lived in Cambodia since 2014. They had spent the last year living in a rural village without any comforts so they could fully understand the language and culture here in Cambodia. Now they are back in Battambang in a new home, so we helped unbox and organize their belongings that had been in storage.
Our ministry was changed so it will now look like this: In the mornings we will serve at a library from 8:00 – 11:00 am and in the afternoons we will serve at the trauma hospital from 1:30 – 4:30 pm.
The trauma hospital is truly a special place and I will write a blog about that later. For now I wanted to give you an idea of what I have been up to and what the next five weeks will look like here!
