Ever since coming to Cambodia the running joke has been that we accidently went back to Africa. In so many ways this place reminds us of our time there. I don’t fully know how to explain it, but as we got here it just had the same feel to it. The border reminded me of all the African ones we crossed, the flatness to the country side was definitely similar, ha and the bus station that was apparently in the middle of nowhere was reminicent along with the bus it’s self that took us to the city.
My team and I are working with Teen Challenge of Cambodia at their newly started Women’s rehab center right outside of Phnom Pen. The compound were at is about a 30 minute Tuk Tuk ride from the city and feels like its in the middle of nowhere. And after a week has gone by now, I’m starting to feel the beauty of that more and more. Like I said the center here is rather new, it just opened this last November and currently only has about 6 women and 3 of their kids who are here. When we arrived there the place kind of looked more like a prison than rehab center, fortunately there was another team here with a church from Australia who completely changed that. They painted the concrete walls with barbed wire surrounding the compound a beautiful blue, built a new structure that will soon become the place where they train the women in sowing and other trades, built a bombtastic playground… I may have played on it a few times already… and set up volleyball net. They were only here a week and completely transformed this place, bringing it a significant amount of more life, joy, and peace. One thing this trip has taught me is to never underestimate the worth of short-term missions. After all the long term missionaries we’ve met too, I’ve also learned never to under appreciate the individuals called to the long haul either.
After all the labor that the Aussies did, we’ve been left with some small tasks to help with, but mostly our ministry here consists of helping run the preschool that they have on site from 730am-1040am. 7 of the most rambunctious children attend this preschool and I love them all. One of my team members, Ruth, also helps teach our contact’s son English in the afternoons. Other than that we get to just wake up every morning and ask the Lord, “Hey what do you want me to do today?” Sometimes we help the ladies clean a root that they harvest, go on prayer walks through the small village around the corner, play volleyball with the local village kids, just play with the 3 kids who live here, or just hang out with each other. Most often we do all of that every day. It’s a pretty chill daily schedule.
When we first arrived our living situation looked pretty grim on a couple fronts. We have our own house sort of, where we sleep on the floor (aka our sleeping pads) and have our own bathroom. But we were originally told we didn’t have any mosquito nets (something that is very needed in these parts of the world) and that we would be bathing in stagnant pond water, which we also discovered they were washing our dishes with. These things combined with the original state of the compound when we arrived, didn’t give the best first impression. Honestly it was kind of gave me this worrisome feeling about our time here. Just in this first week however we have seen such incredible blessings from the Lord be given to us, seemingly out of nowhere. The Aussies gave the whole place a facelift, our contact helped us find pretty cheap mosquito nets, we talked to one of the other girls here and she told us we actually shouldn’t bath in the pond water because it gave her spots on her skin and showed us where we could bath with rain water instead. On top of that the food here has been delicious, though I have had to get used to fish (I still grimace at the thought of it but I eat it), through building relationships with the women too we’ve learned that if we need anything from the market in town they can get it for us, and Mom Pancy one of the cooks here gave our team a bag of coffee last night because she found out her like it. What seemed like would possibly be a pretty grim time has completely turned around in 7 days time.
I’m thankful for so much right now that the Lord has graciously given us. I’m thankful for rainwater, His ability to break through language barriers, for 3 in 1 instant coffee packets, for a sleeping pad and pillow, for mosquito nets and repellent, for my team of ladies and their ability to laugh things off, for computers, movies, and portable speakers, for the word of God and the comfort it gives, for podcasts and sermons from home, for volleyball nets and playgrounds, for blue paint, for fans, for the way the Lord speaks, and so much more.
It’s incredible how much simplicity stirs up gratefulness in you. It’s gonna be a good couple more weeks here.
