Day two of ministry in Cambodia goes a little like this:
Awakened at around 6 am by crying 3 month old and stomping 2 year old.
Up and coherent at 8 for breakfast
Working on our first project for the day, leveling dirt and going to buy wood for the house we are building..
Humidity at 100% and temperature in the range of “really freaking hot, I didn’t know my body could sweat this much”
Break/lunch time rolls around and my teammate Jordan isn’t feeling good. She feels really strange and says to us “do you ever feel like you are living in a dream.” Suddenly she is crying for no reason and can’t stop. The rest of us jump into action, start fanning her, pumping her with water and rehydration packets, lay her down in bed and she starts feeling better.
Back to work moving dirt for a few more hours. We break at 2:30 to start rotating through showers before teaching English.
Allie is one of the last to go and after she’s been in there for a bit, we hear her yell, “Can you ask them if there are scorpions here!”
She comes out of the bathroom and stumbles to the floor in front of our beds holding her leg. Something mumbled through chattering teeth about a scorpion stinging her and her shaking hands as she tries to rub tiger balm on the sting.
(*side note, tiger balm is the cure for everything is Asia. You should get yourself some)
About 5 minutes later, I find myself in the back of a tuk-tuk with zero shocks on the bumpiest, most painful road I have ever known.
And that’s when I broke.
The urge to stop the tuk-tuk, walk back to our tree house, pack my things and leave for home was so strong. Every stress of that day overwhelmed me in that moment as I was catching air and slamming back down on the seat every 5 seconds.
I was every emotion you could imagine in that moment, tired, angry, overwhelmed, homesick, uncomfortable, stressed out, etc.
One thing that I have been learning more and more on the race is that it is okay to not be okay, but this instance was a little different.
You see, at the end of that 30-minute ride, I had two English classes to teach. I may have been tired and am 6 months deep into this world race thing, but it was only day two of ministry here in Cambodia and my host deserved my very best.
And on top of that, the fact that we are usually some of the very few white people that people see in each community we go to, every ride through town is kind of a little bit like a parade. People yell ‘hello’ to you and wave as you drive by. While normally, I love yelling hi back and seeing the smile it brings to their faces, it’s not as easy when you are trying and failing to fight back tears.
And in that moment more frustration came as I just wished for one second to not have my every move seen and examined, to not have to worry about setting an example and leaving an impression. Because when you look so much different from everyone else, everyone takes notice of everything you do. And I do care to be kind to everyone, to smile and wave back because it’s those small acts that share the love of Jesus as well.
But I had no strength in me to “keep up appearances,” so to speak. No strength in me to do anything at all.
And that is exactly the place that the Lord brought me to, exactly where he wanted me.
I couldn’t do it anymore, I had no fight left in me. He wanted me there, to teaching me an even deeper lesson about what dependence on Him looks like. As he spoke to me in that moment and continued to reveal things to me, I could see His hand working in all of it clearly:
“These first few days of this month were hard, and the rest of the month is only going to be harder. But this, this is where I want you. This is where we get down to the knitty-gritty. This is where growth happens. This is where community gets hard, where friction happens as iron really sharpens iron. This is where true friendships are born and strengthened.
This is the mess and the beauty of it all.
This is where you can’t do it on your own. Your strength won’t hold up to this. You need me; you need my strength every day, every hour, every minute. You’ve always needed me this much, but this is where you learn that lesson. It’s going to be hard, it’s going to hurt sometimes, you’re going to be tired, and you’re going to want to quit every day. But I am good and I am with you. Trust me.”
I could tell you that after He spoke those words to me I immediately felt better and everything was just dandy, but, I would be lying. I continued to fight back tears the rest of the drive and prayed earnestly for His strength to get through this but in the midst of the internal battle that raged on between giving up and holding on, I clung on to the fact that my God, He is still good and I trust Him.
When we arrived, He gave me the strength to teach and there’s nothing else I can give credit to than Him. He brought me to total dependence.
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And he was right, the month got harder than that. There was conflict, there was a daily struggle to choose to love my team well, there was every obstacle you could imagine. But among it all there was growth. And that is what I asked for this year.
I asked the Lord to grow me, change me and mold me as I went along this 11 month journey. It’s my prayer at the beginning of every month. And this month in Cambodia was the month where I was most aware of it.
Never did I think the prayer “grow me to be more like you” would mean living in a tree house in the middle of a small village in Cambodia, sleeping on a mattress in the living room next to my 6 other teammates with zero privacy and more ants than I care to remember.
I never thought it would look like manual labor in the hot morning sun, and teaching English to a rowdy bunch of kids in the evenings. With no ounce of strength left in me to be intentional with my team, but knowing I had to because those 6 mattresses on the floor left no room for us to avoid issues with each other.
I never thought growth would look like it did, but the Lord is always full of surprises.
But what was most impactful during the hard and wonderful times of my month in Cambodia was that through it all, the Lord was showing me clearly. He was showing me how every hard thing, everything that made me want to give up; he was using to grow me. He was answering my prayer right before my eyes and allowed me to see every step of the process of Him answering “yes, my daughter, I will help you to grow and look like me, to love like me.”
I would rate month seven as one to the hardest, but also as one of the greatest. I would have never made it through without the Lord. And he knew I wouldn’t have made it through or grown this much without the 6 other people on my team pushing me to be better.
We aren’t ever given more than we can handle, even when is feels like maybe we have been. With the Lord and His strength, we can handle it. And he knows each of us enough to know exactly what we need.
I needed a hot, tiring, difficult, wonderful month in Cambodia.
I don’t know what you need, but He does.
And if you’re willing, ask Him to grow you, to teach you what is means to depend on Him fully. He will show you.
You might find yourself asking, “Did I really ask for this?”
It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.
It might not look like you think it will, but it will be exactly what you need.
And I can tell you with full faith: you can trust Him. He is good. He loves you. He only desires for you to know Him deeper, and this is the first step to that.
