Hey everyone! I know I haven’t written a blog in an eternity, but things have been pretty crazy. I’ve been living in Cambodia, and I have been loving every minute. That doesn’t mean that things have been easy though. Actually, things have been pretty hard sometimes. This weekend in particular was especially interesting, and I want to tell you all about it. Story time!
Last week my team moved to our ministry sight in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. It’s a small town on the Mekong river, three hours away from Phnom Penh. Our host and his family are very sweet, although they barely speak any english. We live in the church building with them, and we sleep on the floor every night under a big mosquito net. We have no air conditioning, but we have quite a few fans. We have two toilets and they are both squatty potties. There are two cats in the house, which I am allergic to, and so my eyes are constantly itchy and I sneeze a hundred times a day. Every morning, at 4:00 a.m., we wake up to pigs screaming their heads off because they are being slaughtered.
(Our bathroom)
These are the conditions we are living in every day. It is hot and I’m always sweaty. The mosquitos are always biting. I should hate this place, but I have fallen completely in love. I love all my precious English students. I love my host and his amazing family. I love the family who runs the shop next door who I buy water from every day. I love all of the people who live on our street and say “Hello!” whenever we walk by. Yes, the conditions are rough, but Kampong Cham is still one of my favorite places now. I was starting to get in a groove, and get comfortable with my new life here. Then craziness happened.
It all started Friday morning. Ronny (one of our squad leaders) and Nathan left early in the morning to take all of our passports to Phnom Penh to get our Visas extended. We sent them off, and went about our day. Around lunch, Ronny texts me and says that the embassy was closed, and that the visas couldn’t get done until next week. It messed up the entire plan, but you know, these things happen. So, we got ready for ministry and waited to hear what Ronny and Nathan were going to do.
I was not surprised when my phone started to ring. I thought that Ronny had got a new plan together or something. Boy was I wrong. He called to tell us that Brandon’s visa had no stamps. So technically it was invalid, and Brandon had to travel all the way back to Siem Reap to fix it. I couldn’t help but laugh. What are the odds that would happen?
The minute Brandon get back from teaching english, we shoved him and Jack out the door and onto a bus to Phnom Penh to meet up with Ronny and Nathan. So, that night, it was just us girls. We had a fun time without the guys, and decided that we would take the first bus up to Phnom Penh in the morning and meet up with the team.
I laid down on my mattress pad to sleep that night. I was completely exhausted. I mean, what a day. That’s when I noticed that my mattress pad had deflated. I figured that I didn’t close the valves right or something, so I blew it up again and laid down. Five minutes later it was flat again. I turned to Emily and said, “If the cats popped my sleeping pad I’m going to be so mad.” I slowly got up and looked at the bottom of my precious bed. One of the cats had put not one, not two, but NINE holes in the bottom of the mattress pad I need to sleep on for two more months. What and end to that day.
The next day, we got on the bus to the city bright and early. Brandon and Ronny had tickets for a bus to Siem Reap that morning, which they missed (of course), and so they had to take a later bus. Once we got to the city, we spent the day at the mall there. We found a Starbucks and a Krispy Kreme. Life was finally looking up for us. We headed back home at 4:15 (we almost missed our bus), and got back home safely. We were so ready to go to bed, but there was a bible study going on at the church. So, we sat around for a long time. Nobody had eaten dinner, but we were too tired to go out.
We were so grateful when our host asked if we wanted to eat with them and the bible study group. We sat down to eat. There was rice and eggs. It looked so good.
Then suddenly it dawned on me.
I turned to the team and said, “Guys. I know that in the philippines, they have this thing called balut that is literally a chicken embryo in an egg… what if that’s what this is?”
But have no fear. It was not chicken embryos. It was duck embryos. I had to eat a duck embryo.
(Duck Embryos. Yum!)
Then the second course came around. Crickets and rice. I actually liked the crickets a lot better than the embryo.
I laid down to sleep that night and just thought about what a crazy couple of days we just had. It was insane, but I will carry those memories with me for the rest of my life. I will tell my grandkids about this crazy weekend one day. Do you know what the best part is? I was able to fix my sleeping pad! So when I went to sleep, I got to sleep on a fully inflated bed.
Through all this craziness, God has been so faithful. He never gives you something you can’t handle, and he constantly showers little blessings on us. Two days ago, I would not be thankful for an inflated sleeping pad. I am now. My little bed on the church floor is such a blessing.I am so grateful that my perspective is changing, even after only one week in Kampong Cham. My life is hard right now, but it is still so good because I have a God who is abundantly good.
