I love Cambodia!!! I mean it, I really do, and not that honeymoon love where you can’t see the faults in what or who you love. I mean the gritty, dirty, unconditional kind. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt so strongly about a country. It’s just the first time the place tested me so much. Back in ‘Nam (arm pump for using the expression) after doing whatever ministry I was involved in that day, usually indoors, I’d hop into a cool taxi and ride back to my ridiculously cold hotel room. Complete with a shower, cable TV and free WiFi. Of course I loved it there. I had every creature comfort I could think to want on the World Race. I’ve said it before, but it’s hot here. There are also tons of bugs. And oh, by the way, no AC. There is no electricity, just a generator they run from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. and then we only have fans. We’re roughin’ it like we never have before. We’re back to bucket showers, which is fine, but these are in dirty, tadpole infested water. Which, of course, is also fine. You just have to not freak out when you find them dried up and stuck to your chest hair later in the day.
So even with the little quirks that let me know I’m far from Indiana, I still love it here. Sure my insanity kicks in every now and then, I’ll tell you about it sometime, but God is moving here. He’s changing and teaching. He’s giving vision and new motivation and I can’t help but love it when he is so busy.
Let me describe for you how a day here looks for us. It usually starts off with some fruit for breakfast, then we pray together and spend some time in the Word. Then we do our home visits. These almost always go well. We then help teach a morning English class for the younger ones. There are six of us so we made teams of two and rotate the classes. The afternoon is pretty open until around three, but I usually end up playing football with the kids. Depending on the day we may visit more people. We then teach the evening English classes to the teenagers, eat dinner and hide inside while we have electricity and fans.
This may all seem very blah to you but it’s invigorating to me. Vuthy, our contact, has a heart of gold and his love for the kids we teach and the homes we visit, has rubbed off on us since day one.
It’s not just his love for them that makes this place so great. I have grown. Both spiritually and socially, I am not the same person I used to be. For instance, in Africa I had the hardest time not getting annoyed by the feeling that I was a novelty to the people we saw. I often felt like a freak show that came through for all the people to look, point, and laugh at. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved Africa and in many ways I had set myself up to catch unwanted attention. For one I am white, nothing I can do about that one. I’m also tall. I haven’t shaved since the night we left Louisville. My ears are pierced and gauged to a size four. My resting face is rarely a smiling one. I wear shirts that say things from “love” to “Oh Sleeper.” Oh, and let’s not forget that I started the Race off with some nappy-looking dreads. See, the odd things that I may do because of the personality God put in me seem strange to some people, and after many years of hating the feeling I get from those people, I am at peace about all of it. It doesn’t get in my way anymore. I can walk out on the football field here, which is a dried up rice patty with two poorly constructed goals at each end, and not worry that I look a little odd to the kids. I can love them and know that they will probably not be able to help but love me back. I really believe that many of them do. I can’t speak a word of understandable Khmer and they can hardly speak English, but we have connected in ways I never have with people on the Race. There’s a sort of camaraderie between us. We all love Jesus. I want to love like he did and I think that overcoming the fear of what people think about me has helped me get one step closer.
Reading over all this, I’m realizing it is a pathetic attempt to describe what I feel. Oh well, you don’t have to really understand me.
Nick
P.S. Pray for us all please. The heat is making us a little crazy.
