Hello everyone!
I arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia exactly one week ago. I traveled by bus from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam with all of my squad-mates, and we’ve been at a debrief event for the previous 5 days.
What is debrief?
Every 3 months, we have a debrief event! This is a time where we pause and reflect on the previous ministry & spiritual growth we’ve experienced, meet with members from our leadership team (who fly from the states to meet us on the field), and we have sessions on different spiritual growth topics. The photo below is of the squad at our final session. We discussed how the Lord speaks to us through small moments in life, and how some of those small moments become huge life lessons! Notice the heart shape that all of our lessons formed!
This month’s debrief was extra special – as we got TEAM CHANGES! My new team, Team BoB (bold & balanced), is pictured below! I will do the race with them for the next 4 months (or so) and afterwards, we will receive one final team change for the remainder of the race.
also – I’m now the team’s treasurer! (with the help of my awesome teammates) I’m in charge of paying for our accommodation, food, transportation, etc…. and making sure it’s all within our budget.
What is our ministry in Cambodia?
This month, we are placed at Victory Church Cambodia. We will be helping in Tampouk village, about an hour away from Siem Reap.
We begin our day by teaching an intermediate English class. We have a Bible study with a handful of women in the village around the lunch hour, and we end the day with two more English classes.
In between the classes and Bible study, we walk around the village with the village pastor and do home visits. A home visit consists of sitting and visiting with the family, making disciples by taking part in whatever activity they are doing at the time (like bagging their rice harvest for the year – pictured below), and praying for them.
The village that we are located in is absolutely beautiful.
Where do I live?
I am living at Overflow Guesthouse in Siem Reap! Overflow Guesthouse is an AIM base here in Cambodia. AIM is the organization that sent me onto the mission field! I am now on a co-ed team, so we’re split between two dorms here that were added on for World Race teams to stay in. Us three girls are in a dorm, with the guys in the room next to us!
We also work at the guesthouse in the evenings on security / night time / lock up duty. We rotate evenings, and stay up to make sure the guests don’t get locked out! Once everyone is at the guesthouse, we lock up, and prepare to wake up at 6AM the next morning to complete pool duty. We test the chemicals, add what is necessary, and vacuum the pool. My mom would be so proud of me.. because I already know how to test the water, balance it, and backwash the filter! #smart
Just on a fun note:
My boyfriend, Eric, came to Siem Reap on the World Race 2 years ago. He befriended a tuk tuk driver at the time, named Flex. For the first week I was here, I was looking for him, asking all of the drivers if they could connect us. No one knew who I was talking about… until one day, my tuk tuk driver ran out of gas. He had us wait in the tuk tuk until his friend arrived with more gas, and up walks a man with huge muscles. I recgonized Flex when I saw him, and sure enough, it was him!
Turns out, his real name isn’t Flex. That’s just his Facebook name, and his friends didn’t know that.
The world is really big… but also not that big at all!
I think that’s all for now – I hope you enjoyed reading about what ministry will be like this month!
