Cambodia: Same Same But Better

As a whole, the last four weeks have been my best weeks of the Race- hands down! 🙂

 

Let me start off by saying that God is soooo amazing and He is showing so much about Himself this month!  When I found out one of the April ministries involved Vietnamese refugees, my heart was completely captured! There are many factors that played into wanting to head to that ministry, but mainly it was because my father is a Vietnam Vet and I have always had a longing deep inside of me to minister to the same people that he fought alongside.

 

 

 

LIVING ACCOMMODATIONS:

This month we live in the 3rd story of a guesthouse that overlooks gorgeous Cambodian farm fields, Buddhist temples, and the Mekong River (one of the dirtiest rivers in the world but we still went swimming in it!). Directly across the street is a shack brothel that I pray over each morning when I sit on the front balcony during my quiet time. The brothel is a small wooden barn that a dozen or so women live in and they roam around in their pajamas all day long. We basically have an amazing view from all sides of our living quarters. It is a weird feeling to know that you are in a third world country overlooking complete poverty, but yet you are able to appreciate the beauty and rawness of God’s creation at the same time. 

 

 

TRANSPORTATION

…bicycles!!! Enough said. 🙂

 
MINISTRY

We only have a few hours of organized ministry each day which leaves for a lot of time to be creative with intentional ministry around the community. We teach English for two hours every morning and afternoon as our primary ministry. We have had a group go down to the river with a guitar and sing worship and talk with the people that stop to listen.  The team visited the Vietnamese people in their floating village in town. An older gentleman invited us to play competitive volleyball alongside the river a few nights this month (Cambodians play a lot of volleyball). We frequented a small cafe in town and made friends with a few people that lived there.  I think one of the neatest things about this month is choosing to be intentional about living out Christ in every situation.  Who says that going to a cafe can’t be ministry or that playing volleyball is only for personal gain? Why are we not changing our perspective and viewing every situation we are in as an opportunity to represent and live out Christ?

 

 

SUNDAY MORNINGS

Now church here is not like a church building or anything that resembles what we would consider a normal church building in the States, but it’s not the building that makes the church- it’s the people.  Each Sunday morning we ride our bicycles to a home church of about four other missionary families, and we have an English Bible study today with praise and worship and we get a chance to be a part of the service instead of leading the service.  Then we have an hour break for an hour to go home and eat lunch (usually fried rice) and then I walk down the road to the Vietnamese cafe at 1pm to see if Phuong (a very special lady I met- a blog about her is on its way) wants to come to church and then from 1:30-3:30pm we have a Vietnamese chruch in a small buildings full of wooden desks that fits about 20 people…maybe 15. We sing Vietnamese worship songs either via acapela or with a lone guitar. And yes, if you are wondering, I look at the handmade song book and try to sing in Vietnamese.  Luckily the words are written in letters instead of symbols which makes the struggle of sounding out the words a little easier. 🙂  

 

  
KHMER NEW YEAR
This week is their Khmer New Year. Basically its a huge holiday and people leave town and go visit their families. Our ministry contacts were leaving town and told us to take two days off for the weekend instead of just one since Kampong Cham would be a ghost town during this time. We, Team Rush and Scotty and I, took a five hour bus ride on Thursday evening to Siem Reap and stayed with Team Crash of Love in Siem Reap. We woke up at 4:30am Friday morning and went to visit Angkor Wat which is the ruins of the oldest Buddhist temple in the world. We arrived in time to watch the sunrise over the top of the ruins. It was breath-taking! We also had a chance to explore the night market in Siem Reap and experience the famous fish foot massage (It tickled SO much!).

 

 

…I have found that each month is getting harder to accurately portray using words. It’s impossible. The longer this journey is, the more of my heart I find I am leaving behind…I can honestly say that there is a HUGE part of me that I will leave behind in Cambodia. I have met people that I will never forget, saw poverty at a level that I never dreamed I would see in person, and felt the presence of God so strongly that it is undeniable He is working in this country. I can only hope and pray that God allows me the opportunity to come back and work with these people for a period of time in the future…