Made it to Cambodia
So guys, upon arrival my dear friend Mary Hollis, who is on another World Race squad, surprised me at the airport in Phnom Penh. She basically busted through an open window to give me a hug. Mary is one of my best friends from Albany. She’s amazing and is one of the reasons I’m on the race right now!
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Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital city and where we will be residing for the next month. We actually got hooked up with a hotel room with warm showers, which supposedly is high living for racers. Phnom Penh is hot, humid, and full of mopeds and tok toks (took-took). We ride a tok tok everyday to our ministry contact, which is basically a moped with a carriage on the back of it. What an experience it is to be on the roads. There are so many people using these transportations.. it’s insane. No one gets in wrecks and no one has road rage. It seriously blows my mind. Street vendors are always lining the streets selling anything and everything. (from haircuts to fish heads to entire cooked goats) I’ve eaten a whole lot of fried rice and hot dogs are not the same here.. gross. I feel like pictures will do more justice than my words.
more pictures here: (uploading was taking years on our american online dial up.. haha jking) http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025696&id=195400049&l=2c2acc4882
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Daughters
My ministry contact, Daughters (www.daughterscambodia.org) is seriously off the chain. It’s so legit. Please watch the video below so that you can understand what they offer. We are volunteering at the Daughters’ day centre, which is in the heart of an area of Phnom Penh brothels and it reaches out to girls working as sex workers and offers them ways out of the situation, including different kinds of trades. (making jewley, clothes, and accessories) I love it there and have made some awesome friends. All of the items made are sold in the shop, which has a store, a spa, and a cafe. Everything made is beautiful and I want to buy it all!
A Day at Daughters
Everyday starts at 9am. On Friday, my teammates, Anna, Natasha, and I started out in the fabric room organizing different fabrics with some of the gals. Organizing is something I need work on and I know God had me in there for a reason. haha. We then have lunch, which on Friday consisted of walking to find legit street food, which is pretty challenging considering we want to take care of our tummys. After lunch, Mon- Thurs we have prayer for an hour. We get to sit over one of the sewing rooms and intercede and pray a down-pouring of God’s love to fall on the women and men sitting below. It’s some powerful stuff yo. Sooo good! So so good! On Friday we don’t have prayer, but have chapel with all the men and women from Daughters, which includes worship with an actual Cambodian worship band. (2 guitars and a keyboard). Singing “come now is the time to give your hearts” in Khmer and English is pretty incredible. God is at work and the women’s testimonies were proof of it. Most of the girls and guys know Jesus, but some of them are new to the program and do not. Pray that God moves in huge ways and into their lives. On a completely different note, I also got frisked twice by the staff member who gave the sermon during chapel. It was used as an analogy of how to check your mind and make sure only truth is coming in. I didn’t know it was coming. (it was like.. bam. frisked) Ok, now to one of my favorite parts of the day.. coconut sanding. Oh my dear, the friends I’ve made through coconut sanding are incredible! The men who sand coconuts are apart of a program for men coming out of sex work, called Sons. Some of them have been living as women and have now transitioned into finding their identity in Christ as men. For the ones who haven’t transitioned… it’s awesome just loving them as they are. Friday, we had so much fun sanding coconuts… from singing Hosanna to being laughed at for trying to khmi dance by smacking coconuts together. My goofiness had the whole table rollin’. I’m excited that God has placed me with these men for the next month, and I am so psyched to encourage and love on them. It’s going to soo great!
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My Passion
Through this.. I have seriously figured out what I’m good at and what God has put a passion in me for. I love connecting with people. I don’t know what that will look like as far as jobs go, but I without a doubt know that this is what God has created me to do. From touch teaming at PCC to trying to pronounce and learn everyone’s name at Daughters.. I love it! I love loving people and I want God to be glorified in that. I’ve also learned that I kind of like photography. I don’t think I’m that good at.. but you can be the judge.
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We have Saturday and Sunday’s off so we just got back from a sweaty tour of the Royal Palace, where there are a lot of pretty gold things. God is moving through Phnom Penh.. and I’m proclaiming He is the God of this city!
