Cambodia.

What a country.

It’s funny how we can paint a picture of what something is going to be like before it happens, and then you get there and your picture looks like someone painted it the wrong colors. 

After a great time celebrating Christmas and New Years in Australia, my team of 12 and myself, packed our bags, and hopped on a plane that would take us to the first part of our 2 ½ month outreach to Cambodia, Thailand and another part of Southeast Asia. First stop: Cambodia. It took about 2 full days of travel before we arrived in Battambang, Cambodia, where we have been staying for the last 4 weeks.

If I could give a short description of what this outreach has been like so far, this would be it.

Loud roosters at 5 am, 98 degree humidity, gravel roads, and the word “Susaday” soon became my forced friends. However, alongside were beautiful palm trees, nice nights, and friendly faces of people who think you’re the coolest foreigner they’ve ever seen. My team has been blessed to live in a gorgeous 3 story house, with bunk beds, and plenty of food and clean water to fill our bottles with everyday. 

A couple days after settling in, we started our ministries. Our team has been working with a few different ministries in this city, including: Jeevit’s house – a place for kids with disabilities and diseases can come and be loved on and cared for by the staff who volunteer there and our students. They play games with the kids and teach them bible lessons. It’s an incredible ministry, especially because there are a lot of kids that are not being taken care of by their own parents.  This past Sunday we had a community party where about 70 kids from the neighborhood came out and we played on the playground, played games, did coloring, and face painting with them! I was on a face painting station, and I loved it. I had forgotten how something so simple could make a child so happy! 

We’ve also been teaching English at a Christian  Elementary and High School called Salaa Hope. We’ve discovered they know a lot of English already, yet their pronunciation needs some work, so we’ve been hammering that out during our time there. The kids really like us, and it’s fun to get into character while we’re teaching…. And I forget sometimes how difficult it is to learn English as I stumble to explain different concepts of how we talk. It can be quite tricky!

We also have been at a place called Date’s house – a ministry that reaches out to the kids and older youth of the neighborhood, and is basically like a drop in and hang out center, only it’s in a Christian environment. Four from my team including myself have been going there 5 days a week and we’ve been having the time of our lives hanging out with these kids. They’ve got so much energy all the time, and I don’t actually understand how they can run around in this weather, but they are a great encouragement to me when I don’t feel like I can! Haha. We’ve been able to just love on them, teach them English, and bible stories, as well as share our own experiences of following God. They really look up to us and it’s been so cool to build up the friendships that we have over the course of our time here. I thought it would be a fun idea to have my team come and teach them hip-hop dance for an hour last week, so I greed and told them we’d come, and later found out that no one really knew hip-hop nor wanted to do it… so I said “we’re gonna put on our happy faces and enjoy this” and we busted out some old school moves like the sprinkler, downhill skiing, the q-tip, the shopping cart and a few more – it was ridiculous.. but we just hammed it up and even though I wouldn’t call them “hip-hop” moves, we had a ball. They loved it too. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this song or not, but if you ever come to Asia, be prepared to dance to “gangnam style”. 

We’ve also been sending some of our team to the slums to work with kids there, where they give the kids baths, and hang out and let them run and jump around and play with them.  Another thing we’ve been intentional about is evangelism. The language barrier makes it difficult, but we’ve usually found people who can translate. My teammate Seline from Norway and I went out last week and we chatted to a French couple that was here touring, and then they let us prayed for them. We also prayed for a woman in a wheelchair with a crippled leg. I watched as she responded in a bit of a shock when we asked her to pray for her. Cambodians are 94% Buddhist, so one would naturally have this reaction. 

I go to a church in the slums on Sundays. It’s a small little church in someone else’s home, not much more than a little hut made from dried bamboo. I’m so humbled when I see how little they have, yet how much they thank God for. It’s amazing this little community of about 7 people that come together to worship God. I’m so encouraged as I look at they’re faith. And I pray God would grow their church and that it would be a light in the slum they live in. After church last week, we met a man with a crippled leg, and I am terrible at names, so I’ll call him Bob. We chatted to Bob and asked if we could pray for his leg – for healing and strength to come back to it. We explained why we were praying – because we believe that God can heal and that He still heals today. He agreed to let us pray, and then we were able to share the gospel to him, and give him a bible since he didn’t have one. I don’t think he had ever read the bible before, so I was super stoked to give it to him!

We got the opportunity to share the gospel with a bunch of non-believers this weekend. On Saturday, we hosted a volleyball tournament at the base which drew at least 50 people in, about 20 of them un-believers. We had a blast playing and the tournament got pretty competitive. But after the first round, we took a break and shared the “Everything” skit from Lifehouse. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a powerful message of a girl who gets really wrapped up into boys, money, alcohol, an eating disorder, and cutting herself. She gets so far apart from God the more she gives herself over to these other things.. and at the end, she almost kills herself, but decides against it and fights back to get back to God, but all of the other things are holding her back. All the while, God is on the other side pulling her and trying to get her back and eventually steps in representing Jesus by throwing them all back at the same time. It’s an incredible way of acting out the length of love that God extends in order to get us back. And from this we had a girl named Emma share her testimony, and then Luke – my co –leader shared the gospel with everyone. It was really cool and I was so excited about it! We didn’t see anyone receive salvation but there were definitely seeds planted that day. Praise God for sweet opportunities!

This week we finish up our ministries and then we’re off to a village about and hour and a half away to work in an orphanage for a week, where we will teach kids about the bible and do dramas and tell stories, and sing songs. I’m super pumped for it! I have no idea what to expect.

So earlier when I said, I felt like someone painted my picture the wrong colors, I wasn’t kidding. Cambodia is hot, and sweaty, and there are more loud noises than I can count on one hand, I’m mostly eating rice and veggies every day, there are usually challenges daily with our team – like sickness, attitudes, or we aren’t always organized. I will tell you – this outreach has been much harder than I had expected. But perhaps, it’s possible, that it’s not about me. If it were, the picture would be exactly what I imagined it to be.. which would be boring and predictable if I’m honest with myself. Sometimes I think God gives us more than we can handle because His vision is so much bigger than our own, and the only way we’ll ever grow is if He pushes us into the position where it seems like we’re unable.. but it’s totally untrue. With God, great things can happen. In Him I put my hope, in Him I put my trust, that He will be my rock and faithful father. And perhaps God is doing something much bigger. Perhaps, I have only seen a glimpse of the picture… perhaps He’s wanting to stretch my faith, perhaps, there’s so much more than my own understanding and what I can see with my own eyes. Perhaps, things are difficult so that I can come out stronger in the end, with more understanding of what kind of God I live for.  I want to keep looking forward with eyes of faith for God to move in me and my team while we’re here. In Psalms it says “For He is good, His faithful love endures forever. “ And I think I need to embrace that with all of my heart and rest upon it as truth that never changes.

So along with laughs, and tears, loud noises and lots of sweat, this has been an adventure. For me it’s been the farthest thing from perfect, but really, when is anything ever perfect? 

Just want to say thank you for praying. I can’t imagine doing what I’m doing without a support system back home, encouraging me and praying for me and supporting me financially. Thank you! And most importantly all glory goes to God for leading me, and leading my team. I wouldn’t be here without Him. He’s so good. And He’s so faithful. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us”.