Our time in Cambodia has gone and past. The past month was just a really great and growing month for us all as a new team. It was a great time for us to really just get to know each other and press on forward as a team-as a family.
This month our ministry was at Good News International Educational School. We started off the morning with bible study for the staff followed by English classes, then “cell group” meetings and then another set of English classes. The first week we went from 8am-7pm. Quite lengthy day but then the next week we had off for Khmer New Year. We had 4 more days of ministry and then it was time to go Thailand already.
Everyday of ministry was different for me. Some days we were able to help out with the children and teach them their ABC’s. Some days we were offered giant orange chips that looked like shrimp had been pasted onto it. One day a man asked if I could pray for him to get a toilet. One day we were asked to pray for a woman with health problems and for another woman with a goiter. This past month has really taught me to believe my prayers and to find my worth in the words that God allows me to speak. If a man can believe that my prayer to God can bring his family a toilet than I should be able to believe it will too. 
Our first day of ministry was the first day I really felt like I was on the Race. Everything was unexpected. It was hot and by hot I mean probably around 104 degrees with high humidity. You know me I sweat like I just showered. Not pretty. Our contact Sareoun spoke enough English to barely understand each other which left us both with nervous awkward laughter after everything was said. I felt God rising me up in boldness in what to say, who to talk to and just about everything else. Add on, “Oh by the way, when we get to the house that we’re walking to, you need to give a sermon.” Thanks for the 5 minute warning!!! haha God is good and of course his words were spoken and not my own.
When we got to the shanty shack made of bamboo, the women welcomed us into their home. We sang songs and were just able to worship- us in English and them in Khmer singing the same song, to the same God being the body of Christ. There was a heavy spirit of saddness and being broken in the home. I could see it on Sook Lee and Kilhoun’s face and I could feel it as well. After speaking about the Beauty of the Lord, the women shared their stories about how their husbands left them and how they felt abandoned and so forth. We were discouraged to physically touch as it is out of cultural norm typically. My heart broke for these women and when we asked to pray I held Kilhoun’s hand. We both knew she needed it. The minute I did I felt her pain and I wanted to carry her burden. The Holy Spirit completely just interceded and I knew that she understood what I said and she knew I felt her pain. She knew that my heart broke for her. We prayed truth, life and blessings over these women and that they would never forget that although their earthly men left them that God never did. We held each other and just cried.
That’s what the race is all about. It’s not the different countries that we travel to or the eleven months that we are gone. It’s about being called to love our brothers and sisters. It’s about reaching out to my sister and allowing her to tangibly feel God’s comfort through me. It’s about giving hope to the hopeless. It’s about not knowing what to expect but having faith that God shows up.
“The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance for our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion…” Isaiah 61: 1-3
…Or in a little hut in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to a woman I will never see again. My sadness and emptiness I felt last year before the race was nothing in comparison to what she has felt. The crap that I went through was worth it to be able to comfort her in that one moment.
Again, how did I get so blessed to live this life?
