First of all, thank you to all of you who sent me comments and messages as encouragement from my last blog. I am blown away by all the responses I received in response to my last post. Please know that your words are an inspiration to me and thus help me keep going on the World Race!
Before I get to what’s going on in the month of April. I will quick recap the last half of March in Malaysia….
he past three months (Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia) has been spent mainly in cities with lots of westerners and modern facilities, but this month, we straight up in the country. There are no Starbucks around the corners, no tall skyscrapers, no 711 stores, and best of all no other Westerners besides our contacts. Instead of all those things we have: red dirt roads, people wearing pajama sets at all hours of the day, a market that is SUPER sketch where we get our food from, riding our bikes EVERYWHERE, bucket showers, living in a house on stilts, and best of all scorpions and tarantulas as snacks! Cambodia really is the poor man’s Thailand. J
Our contacts this month are Jim and Carolyn Gabriel and a man name Joel. They are from the states. Jim and Carolyn have three kids and have been in Cambodia for a few years now. Joel has been in Cambodia for about the same amount of time-maybe longer. For reals y’all, they might be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met! We are the first World Race team they have ever hosted. I can’t even begin to tell you how caring they are. They both have mango trees at their homes and so we never run short of fresh mangos. I might have a mango overload by the time this month is over. Ahh I’m probably averaging about 2-3 mangos a day. So good! They are kind enough to have us 
over for dinner at their homes twice a week. We’ve had really yummy soup and yesterday Joel made us some of the best spaghetti and cheese bread I’ve ever had! Meals like that are a rarity on the Race, so we devoured the entire meal! They are extremely kind hearted and we are SO SO blessed to be working with them and their ministry here in Preah Vihear.
Ministry this month is pretty much completely opposite of what last month was. As in last month we were boom, boom, boom moving around ALL the time, but here in Cambodia, it’s super chill. Time is no factor here as people here run on “Cambodian time.” Church is scheduled to start at 5:00pm on Sundays, but people don’t start showing up until 5:30pm and service starts around 5:45pm. No biggy. Our contacts have informed us that this month is more of a relational month. Instead of project based mission work like building things or manual labor, it’s more of working within the community to disciple and be an example of Christ. There is a small Christian community here and part of ministry is to train and disciple some of the people to rise up as leaders in the Church. We also hold open classes for English. We have let the community know that in mornings from 8:30am-10:30am we are available for conversational English lessons/practice and then from 4:30pm-6:30pm we will do formal English classes. What do we do in between those times you ask? Well, it’s get so bloody hot here in Cambodia that the whole town shuts down for a siesta. Usually from 11:00am-3:00pm nothing ever gets done because everyone stops working due to the heat. Average temperature is about 95 degrees. April is the hottest month of the year and it will soon be hovering at or above 100 degrees every soon. We take the afternoons to have our alone times to pray, worship, or rest.
We have developed a theory that God gave us this month as sort of a Sabbath. Not only because this is the 7th month of the race, but next month we will be doing ministry in Africa! Yes, AFRICA! It’s going to be an intense three month. We have already read blogs about heavy spiritual warfare and demonic possessions that have taken place in some of the countries we are slated to go to. Ohh boy!
But until then I will enjoy my time here in Cambodia. It’s our last South Eastern Asian country and a great way to end a journey within a continent. The Khmer people are super friendly as we hear yells of “hello” as we bike by stilt houses. The fresh mangos and fruit aren’t too bad either J. Cambodia has a lot of history which mainly involves the genocide in the 70’s from the Khmer Rouge. I just finished a book written by a woman that lived through the Khmer Rouge invasion. It’s called First They Killed My Father. It’s quite the intense book and is not for the weak hearted. I think of her as an Ann Frank of Cambodia. We plan to go visit the killing fields were hundreds of thousands of people were killed during this time. Our contacts have also allowed us to take time off to go to Siem Riep and visit Angor Wat-a huge temple that is ONE of the SEVEN Wonders of the World. They also have planned a trip for us to take that is going to be very near and dear to my heart. I won’t reveal it yet until it happens, but it’s something that would mean the world to me and my family.
Truly truly I say to you, I will try and write more often this month! We have lots of downtime and I have so much of my heart I want to share with all of you. I want to share what God has been teaching me, the people I’ve met here in Cambodia, and anything else that God puts on my heart to share. Thank you for hanging in there even though I’ve been lacking a little! I’ll make up for it….I promise!
