I’m finally back! I know its been a while since I’ve blogged but I wanted to give you all an update of how the race ended.
I want to begin by saying THANK YOU! Thank you for following my journey, thank you for supporting me not only financially but also prayerfully, and thank you for your uplifting comments. I couldn’t have made it through this journey without you! THANK YOU!
So its been almost two months since I’ve been back in America. Coming home was a bigger battle than anticipated. Not having my Christian community around me and coming into a world of materialism. But its in times of struggles that we grow the most and there’s always a period of adjustment.
I blogged on every country minus Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia so here is a synopsis of the amazing things God did in my life in those months.
Cambodia
In Cambodia we lived at a orphanage in a village down south. Cambodia was one of the hardest months for me. We had limited internet access, days were long, Cambodia had reach a record high in temperature (I was able to cook an egg outside but the dog ate it before I was able to take a picture lol), and we were eating rice and fish for every meal (sriracha and Tabasco got me through).
Looking back Cambodia was one of my favorite months. We made house visits to the local families. They were the most welcoming and giving people. Every house we went to they had something to offer us, most of the time is was mangos. I remember riding out bikes in the heat riding by all the spirit houses thinking I don’t want to do this, its too hot! Not one house did I leave with a joy in my heart because we prayed with the family. They trusted us enough to disclose their struggles at the time and what was on their heart.
The kids were on break from school when we first got there so we planned activities for them. We took them to a nearby lake and helped them with their chores around the house.
Once school started up again we helped out with different subject. I was in charge of teaching art in English. Now this might sound easy but given the limited resources it was a bit of a challenge. It was the cutest thing to hear them try their hardest to pronounce English words with their thick accents.
Vietnam
We started this month with a new team. This was my team for the rest of the trip.
Being in a closed country made our mission a little more difficult. We weren’t allowed to evangelize but we were able to build relationships with the locals and love on them.
We were located on the outskirts of a touristy part of Vietnam. We partnered up with a local after school program that focused on teaching elementary kids English, it was ran by a Christian family. People view knowing English as an asset and push their kids to learn it. Having native English speakers come help teach English brings value to the school. We would hope from class to class introducing ourselves to the students and interacting with them in their daily English learning games.
We weren’t given a busy schedule this month so we utilized our time by digging into the word as a new team. When we came into the month we started off with a new team, also our last. We decided to invest in each other and the locals. We had our regular coffee shops we would go to for coffee and conversations with the staff.
Philippines
We were in a village surrounded by rice fields and no Internet. This allowed us to be intentional with our ministry and each other. Our focus this month was to pour into the youth group at the local church.
During the week we would go out into the area talk to people asking if they know Jesus. Now a majority of the Philippines is Catholic and trying to explain to them why they shouldn’t pray to the Virgin Mary was something I wasn’t prepared for. Especially growing up Catholic, I felt like I was talking to one of my Tia’s. I know how instilled that is in them to pray to her, its part of their culture.
The Philippines was the only country where we brought over a hundred people to the Lord. They were more than willing to pray the prayer of salvation and to except Jesus into their hearts. I’ll never forget this one man, we were walking past a local store and my teammate decides to ask a man buying liquor if we could talk to him for a bit. I thought in my head there is no way this man wants to talk to us right now, he just wants to buy his bottle and go home. To my surprise he agreed. My teammate asked him if he knew Jesus as two girls from the church translated. Long story short he opened up to us about his struggles and prayed the prayer of salvation with my teammate. I prayed over him and he thanked us for taking the time to talk to him. That’s how the whole month in the Philippines were; we were planting seeds everywhere with the help of the youth from the church.
I had never seen kids so on fire like the kids at the youth. They weren’t afraid to ask anyone if they knew who Jesus was. They’re prayers were powerful and they had a desire to seek the Lord like I’ve never seen before. They taught me a lot about my faith with the Lord and to trust Him completely. They were so full of joy. I can’t say enough good things about these kids.
Indonesia
It was our last month; we were all trying to give it our all and trying to stay present. We partnered with our ministry host who ran an English center. Our job was to build relationships with the people who came in. We only had one week were the English center was to be open. We came to Indonesia in the middle of Ramadan were in the Muslim religion they fast from sunrise to sunset. Because Indonesia is mostly Muslim a lot of restaurants were closed during the day and because we wanted to respect their religion we wouldn’t eat or drink in front of them. That was a challenge when we went on a 7-mile hike with some locals.
The rest of our time in Indonesia we focused on building relationships with the locals by having movie night, going out for coffee, and some invited us for Ramadan dinner.
The last week me and six other girls visited the local women’s prison once a day. They had an English club and we would play games and do activities that would help them practice their English.
This trip has taught me so much about myself, the world I live in and has brought me closer to God. I thank you for supporting me through this journey. If you would like to sit down to know more about my trip please don’t hesitate to call or text 909-809-7826. Thank you and God bless!
