As we traveled down the red dirt roads on our way to the village, for our new ministry site, I wondered what God and this place had in store for us this month. All we knew was it’s a village 30 mins outside Siem Reap, we would be staying in the church and doing manual labor.
The church we pulled up to was a single room concrete building in the middle of a village surrounded by rice fields. The “shower” is a well right on the main road that they kindly built a structure around for us to feel comfortable. The bathroom is a 3 minute hike to a neighbor’s squatty potty out house. Please don’t think this is a complaint. I signed up for this and this is more of what I had expected the race to be like. Things were really starting to push us out of our comfort zone.
The first major challenge we faced was illness. Our leader was sick coming into the village and then our boys got sick next. This didn’t make manual labor any easier, but we were still able to handle it.
Next we had some of our things stolen. This was hard. We had started to form relationships with these people and this situation had the potential to change relationships. One of my teammates had an exceptionally good attitude about it all and encouraged the rest of us to take that route too. Our pastor was able to track down the missing items and they were returned to us fairly quickly. They apologized profusely for the entire village and this gave us a chance to demonstrate God’s forgiveness and love.
Things seemed like they would start to become normal (at least by world race standards). We were finally ready to all be together as a team and start bonding as a team. We were getting ready to spend some quality time together with a movie night, when the electrical wiring caught fire. For safety reasons the decision was made to move to a church in Siem Reap to stay and commute to the village for ministry.
Again this had potential to taint the relationships we had formed in the village. When the van pulled up it was already after 8 pm. The sun had already gone down and most people were in their homes for the night. I couldn’t stop the feeling that they were going to be so confused when they realized we left in the middle of the night. Yes we came back in the morning, but would they know that we still love them? Would they realize that us moving out of the village was only for our safety and nothing they did?
We were able to finish off the month with this arrangement and it may have actually helped us love them better. When we were in the village we were completely invested. And by living outside the village we were able to regroup, refill, to be able to pour out that much more during our time in the village.
Life this month was not easy. It stretched our comfort zone. Over and over, we weren’t sure why things happened. We just had to trust. This is the race and it’s completely worth every trial.
Love, Meg
I have one more month to reach my final goal of being fully funded. I’m getting very close and many of you have supported me so much already! I’m so thankful for all of you who continue to support me financially and prayerfully. If you are feeling led to donate you can click the “support me” link. Thank you!
