It was such a blissful, restful Sunday morning. I look back on that time with a smile as I think of the sweet community at the small Khmer church not even a half mile from what I currently call home.
Sarah, my teammate, had asked me in month one if I wanted to help her teach English songs about Jesus to the children at a local church. I excitedly said yes and so began a new Sunday morning routine. We arrive at the church about thirty minutes before it starts and greet all the children there and their leader, Lena. We stumble through some broken Khmer, bringing all sorts of comments and laughs, and then we teach a song and practice more times than I have actually sung the song in my life. The kids sing the song in front of the small but beautiful congregation and then they go back to the tiny patio-like area to the side of the mostly cement and tin church building. Sarah and I then join the service and listen to the all Khmer teaching while receiving a snippet translation from Sauno, one of the elders.
That particular Sunday Lena asked Sarah and me to stay after the song and help cut out paper roses to glue to an old soccer ball for a Christmas decoration. Sitting on a woven mat with girls and women ranging from 8 to 18 to 28 I soaked up the warmth from their kind spirits and radiant laughter as I learned Khmer words, was corrected for using too much glue, and had my hair braided by my new sisters.
The simpleness of enjoying each other surpassed the language barrier as we all set about the same task.
I didn’t plan on relating this back to Jesus. I just wanted to share a story that is beautiful to me as well as share a little about the Khmer church, but as I type this I realize that this is a small snippet of what the Body of Christ is called to look like on a large scale. We all have the same task of cutting our roses out, or sharing the Kingdom of God, and it looks different for each person, yet each are needed and instead of comparison there is enjoyment of one another.
Enjoy your brothers and sisters today as you labor together and co-labor with Christ.
-Victoria Schafer
