During the last few days in Cambodia, we had debrief. Debrief is basically four days where the entire squad and leadership come together to “debrief” the previous few months. It’s a time to meet with leadership and to rest. It’s also the time where we find out team changes if they decide to switch teams up.
I am now currently on a team with eleven other people. The team consists of my original team members with five members of another team. Together we form, Team Alabaster.
While praying for our new team, the Lord kept giving me the word Alabaster. I honestly didn’t know what it meant, but crazy enough, the next time I opened my Bible was in Matthew 26. The story of the woman breaking the alabaster jar on Jesus’ feet. I shared it with my team, and we decided it was a good fit for us. We want to be broken at Jesus’ feet, giving everything to the Lord.
After given our new teams, we were told to go into town (Siem Reap) to “make a memory”. While walking down the street trying to find a restaurant, one of my teammates began hugging me. It’s not an unusual thing for him to randomly hug one us, but as he did a man walked by and asked, “Oh, you giving out free hugs?” Marlin jumped at the chance, and gave him a huge hug. I think he was a little surprised at the quick reaction.
The man came over to me, and asked for a woman’s perspective. He began telling me how the night before he had gotten in a huge fight with his girlfriend, and he threw an engagement ring at her. He told me that he had been drinking ever since. He wanted to know if he should apologize or just leave and fly back to England alone.
I told him he should definitely sober up before going to talk with her, because if he was going to propose, then she must mean a great deal to him.
My new teammate, Bird as we call him, asked if we could pray for him. He quickly said, “yes”, so we began praying. He walked away crying, and we thought that would be the last we would see of him.
After finding a restaurant, we sat down and began looking over the menu. The man came into the restaurant, and handed us $200 to pay for our lunch. All he said was, “You will never know what the kindness of strangers means.” We invited him to eat lunch with us, but he said that he wouldn’t want to “soil” our table, and that he would remain at the bar where he belonged. After lots of pleading, he finally agreed to join.
We spent most of lunch listening to his life story. He drank many shots during the lunch, so I think that added to him opening up. He told us how he hated his job and his life. He was very successful, but found no purpose to life. He even shared how the day before he had bought a gun. He had a tuk tuk driver take him to an open field where he was planning to take his own life. He considered it for a long time, but ended up firing it once in the air then burying the gun.
He continued to express how he didn’t understand how complete strangers could show him such kindness. He let us know that we literally saved his life.
We continued to let him know that it wasn’t a coincidence that we met on the street, and it wasn’t us who saved his life.
Marlin looked him straight in the eye, and told him that he felt the Lord wanting him to give him the word “Worthy”, after which the man began to cry again. He wasn’t much interested in hearing that Jesus was the reason for our kindness, but the seed was planted.
As lunch came to an end, he leaned over and quietly thanked me for not disregarding him when he asked for my opinion. He also continued to apologize for “ruining” our lunch with his sob story. I told him to never apologize for telling his story. “Your story is important, and what you have to say matters.” We hugged our new friend goodbye, and never saw him again.
We certainly “made a memory” as a new team.
This man saw that we loved each other as a team. He saw something different in the way we interacted with one another. Jesus commanded us to love one another, just as He loved us. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
The world is watching how we interact with each other as believers, and hopefully they see something different.
You never know who can be impacted by simply showing love to one another.
I am currently serving at Delta Cross Ministries in Botswana. It’s very much in the “bush” of Africa. I have no access to internet this month, so I am having someone else post this blog on my behalf.
Thank you all for your continued support!
