Greetings from Siem Reap, Cambodia!!! A crazy tourist town, elephant t-shirts, and one of the 7 historical wonders in the world! My last week in Thailand was great; We pumped out more bricks and came close to finishing most of the side walls for the church. We hoed and cleared the weeds in their banana field, and was even blessed to cast fishing nets with some locals in a small inlet creek to some rice paddies! As I learned casting fishing nets is indeed an art form (extremely hard)! Our Hosts, aka: our second family took us out the night before I left in celebration of the month and how God had blessed us both. It was an honor and privilege to serve such a humble, loving, & caring family. My hope in remembering my host family is to be joyful in all situations, having full knowledge & trust that God will provide for my needs in His perfecting time. They certainly were grateful with what God had abundantly provided them and did not worry were future funds would come from, but whole-heartedly trusted God would provide.
As I said my Good-byes in a teary eyed manner, I hopped on a bus traveling alone ahead of my team to the border city of Aranyaphathet for a leadership development weekend in Cambodia. My double decker bus departed at 10pm and I arrived at a halfway point city known to the locals as Korat. Here I had to figure out a way to transfer buses and snag a ticket to the border city. It’s 2:30am and I call my host back to help translate for me since none of the signs had a lick of English on them. I then get walked over to the back side of a different building and am told to wait by a sign on the bench for a bus to show up. So there I sat in the middle of the night for 3 hours until the bus showed up! Praise God I was able to even get on the correct bus. So maybe the hardest part of the travel time wasn’t trying to frantically get a bus ticket when I don’t speak thai. The hardest part is getting into the bathroom with a hiking pack, day pack strapped up front, and a guitar in hand. At the bus station you have to pay to use the restroom, so that meant navigating through a ridiculously narrow carousel counter! Now that was hard! So, I arrived at the border crossing at 10:30am and waited for the other Team Leaders to arrive at 2pm before we all crossed into Cambodia together!
Overall debrief as been a healthy experience. Siem Reap has been an awesome city to stay in. We are in a little guesthouse on pub street nestled next to a huge Buddhist temple. Just a walk around the bend and we are in the heart of the busheling city, white tourists everywhere. Unique themed restaurants serving all kinds of American dishes line the streets. I definitely was able to eat my fill! Everywhere we walked we would be bombarded by tuk tuk drivers asking us if we needed a ride somewhere. At Night they would tend to have a secondary motive to asking us for a ride. As the sun set on the city and the night life came alive, most tuk tuk drivers didn’t care about getting people to drive around. They began to asked if we wanted, “hash, weed, marijuana, crystal meth, or a girlfriend.” The dark side of the city was apparent in no time, right in the midst of the cool shops and eateries. You could not get away from it, it was like a plague every where you walked, you would be hounded. Throughout our stay my prayers began to focus on this turmoil and hold that the enemy had on this city and country. I would just ask that our squad was somehow a light in all of this crazy darkness that surrounded.
Debrief was mainly full of some more great sessions where our Squad coaches, mentors, and leaderships poured wisdom into us. As a team we had a great month of ministry in Thailand, but struggled to really dive deeper as a team spiritually. With many diverse personalities coming together with many differing purposes for being on the race, we really didn’t unite as one. We did not foster an other’s focused mentality or culture. And frankly we did not serve each other well. Due to our stunted growth and overall lack of team coherence and commitment toward a given vision under my leadership, I was asked to step down as Team Leader. This has initially been a little painful of a process, but I trust in the Lord’s sovereignty wholeheartedly and will yield to His will for my life. Please be in prayer for me as I ask God what He has next for me as i step into the role of teammate. A blog will follow and speak more on this all later has God brings some clarity to me.
Tomorrow I leave for the city of Kamphong Thom where my team & I will be staying at an orphange called the shelter of love. Here we will be teaching the kids english & computer classes. Going out into the local town and evangelizing. We also seem to have an opportunity to do some more construction for them as well! I am excited for this month and what God has in store for me. As I begin to serve here in Cambodia and as God brings clarity to my heart I will post more on where I am at spiritually with this change! Love you all and I can’t thank you enough for your support! God is molding me in ways I could never have fathomed!
