The Orphanage

Well, I'm experiencing my first time being sick while over here. Can't say it's super fun, but thankfully I was able to just chill out today and hoping to be fine tomorrow! Anyways! I had to write about last night.

Last night our team went to an orphanage started by Buddy and Stop Slavery several years ago. It is lead by Pastor Paul and his wife and his mom. There are 10 kids there, plus Pastor Paul's 2 kids. Pastor Paul picked us up around 4:30 and we headed over to the orphanage in their Tuk Tuk. The ride over was pretty fun, as Tuk Tuk's are awesome, and the team all in one just makes for an amusing trip. As we pulled into the alley where the orphanage is, it was lined with kids waiting for us and waving like crazy. Apparently they were greatly anticipating out night. I wasn't so sure about it to be honest, as I already wasn't feeling well at all and was worried I would be pretty lame as far as energy and being able to pour into the kids. However, I put on a smile and said a prayer and we all climbed out of the Tuk Tuk. As soon as we got there, Pastor Paul went and grabbed some fresh coconut(no, not like what you picture a coconut like in America, SUPER fresh). He had kept them in ice and cut a hole in the top of them and stuck a straw in. We all talked with the kids as we drank our coconut milk. Then we headed over to this field by the house. It was mid calf high in grass, and there was quite a bit of mud and water and a little stream and a cow. We set up sticks, kicked off our shoes and started a game of soccer. It was guys against girls plus guys with blue and pink shirts. The game got intense really quickly as everyone was really good and super aggressive about winning. Mud was going everywhere and bodies kept tumbling to the ground. We all ran our hearts out and the girls won!!!! (should be no surprise there though!) The kids hung onto us and we all walked back towards the house. We took a short detour to a water pump to try and get some of the mud off of us before heading to dinner. Pastor Paul's mom had prepared a wonderful meal. I'm not really sure what it was, but it was rice with meat and vegetables. After dinner, the kids got up and preformed several praise and worship songs they had been practicing and had dance moves for and everything. We attempted to join in and looked so silly doing it! Then our team did a skit we have. It's called the Bean Skit. It's a super simple skit, but you go back and do it over and over in different styles. Eventually, we gave the kids our roles and they did the skit too. It was so funny! Then Buddy shared the story of King Hezekiah in from the Bible as all the kids gathered around and listened. The night was interrupted by the pet pig getting out, but it was soon caught and all was well. We ended the night with sad goodbyes, and lots of pictures. They were some of the happiest kids I've met before even in the face of so much. Truly incredible!

Please keep the orphanage and the kids there and Pastor Paul and his family in your prayers!

WOW!!!

WOW! What a past week this has been. It has been so busy and incredible and just an overall incredible experience.

We started off the week on Sunday going to a church service at the Centre where we teach. It is mostly high school age kids with some college age teachers also. Our very own Justin lead the service in worship, and then showing his versatility turned around and also did the teaching. He is truly a very gifted teacher. People where captivated by his lesson. At the end of the service, we celebrated the birthday(well…it wasn’t quiet his birthday yet, but almost) of one of the older students there. It was the first time in his life that he had a birthday cake. They had an awesome game at the end of the celebration that I will now be making a tradition at any of my future parties. People challenge each other to rock paper scissors and the loser gets icing smeared on them by the winner every round. It was so much fun! That night we had an insane dance party at the house we are staying at for the staff and a few of the students. All I can say is I made a 100% complete idiot of myself. But! I had fun while doing it. I really cannot dance at all. They however, where absolutely incredible. I have no idea how they can control every single part of their body so fluidly. All in all, it was just a super fun night.

Throughout the week, we continued to teach. Ange and I teach our class from 11:30-12:30 and then from 4-5, 5-6, and 6-7. The classes are getting bigger and we are really starting to build relationships with the students. They are in general just such a silly fun group. We have a blast in our class for sure. Our morning class mostly has just monks in it. We are really building strong relationships with them. I never ever would have guessed monks would be so hilarious and just so much fun, but they really are. They are probably some of the biggest teasers, practical jokesters and most competitive of all our students. They have also taught us so much about the culture and history and traditions of Cambodia.

Through this week I’ve also been working a lot on the self discipline thing. I even got to give a ‘teaching’ about it on Wednesday. I have been able to just be really consitant with my time with God and just feel a lot closer to Him already and it’s just neat. Also, being more self disciplined on the health side of it has me feeling really good also. The self discipline of communication has me writing back people much more quickly. It also has had me making better priorities and getting what I need to get done in a lot more time efficient and productive manor(for example, writing this instead of watching a movie with some of the team).

The past 48 hours though have been absolutely insane and so much fun! Yesterday morning we taught class as normal but then came back to the school at 3pm to set up for the evening festivities. The school was hosting a talent show. It was so much fun and we all had such an incredible time watching the students perform. They all had a fun time getting to show their skills in singing, playing guitar, and dancing. The dance class did a dance together and I just kind of stood in awe of how good they were. Justin’s guitar class also did a group act. They were so nervous, but got up there and made it through the song anyways! I got to help run the sound and then was in charge of helping find students and getting them ready to perform and getting everyone numbers as well as other misc errands. At the end, the DJs starting some crazy music and the team along with the teachers and older students had another dance party. I even learned one of their dances (very poorly I might add). Overall it went really well and everyone walked away smiling. It ended around 7:30 and we ran home to go eat and get back to the school for a prayer night. We hung out there and worshiped with them till about midnight and then headed home for a few hours of sleep. We all got up around 4:30am and headed out to Angkor Wat to watch the sun rise over the main temple. It was so so incredible. We spent the day exploring many of the different temples. I really cannot explain the sheer majesty and glory of the places, even being so broken down. And something really interesting, on one of the walls, there was an engraving of something that looks like a triceratops. At one of the places, we were one of the first people there and it was just so peaceful and yet powerful. I got the chance to read Psalms 148 out lout there, and it was just so cool. Even though it was a temple built for Buddha, the sheer glory of it pointed straight to God and His ultimate majesty.

A couple prayer requests. The first is tomorrow I am teaching at church. I’ll be sharing basically my testimony and how I got to Cambodia. Please pray that the Holy Spirit just really speaks through my weaknesses in talking and gets His message across. Please also pray for our last week here in Cambodia. Pray we can really touch the lives of the students in an unforgettable way and just really point them to Christ. Pray for our safety on our trip this next weekend to Vietnam. And for the preparation of the hearts of the people we will talk to there. Also, please pray for my time I’ll be in Thailand. Just that everything would happen that needs to happen during that time and that I just use that time as God would have me in the most effective way to glorify Him in all I do. I also am going to try to raise about $400 a month as support for living in Thailand. As I am not coming back to the states, I’m not sure how I’m going to do that. Doing everything through the farm I’m working at, I should be able to take on enough extra lessons and trainings there to make the money to live. However, the more I pray about it, the more I’d really like to be able to spend that time building up the therapy program there as well as getting to minister and mentor all the young girls that come there. Thank you all so much for your continued love and prayers!! 

Desperation

Desperation…complete desperation.  That is what our need for God should be. There are days where I’m just hit by just how utterly badly we DAILY need to be filled with God. I question how I can even survive a single day not having a strong fellowship with Him. I can’t imagine it on a day like today. We NEED God. God isn’t a convenience. He isn’t something we do to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. Or something we ‘do’ to gain something. He isn’t some magic genie. He is the GOD OF THE UNIVERSE. We desperately and direly need Him. We can do absolutely NOTHING without Him. He is our life. He is what gives us life and sustains it. He is the only way we know what is right and what is wrong. He is truly our daily living water. Not having any sucks the life out of you. There is no alternative. We are desperate to be filled by our living God. The provider of life. 

A Soldier

Ok, so I have been in Siem Reap, Cambodia for a whole week. It's crazy. It feels like it has been forever living here, and at the same time it seems like just yesterday we got here. Weird. I really love the laid back culture here. We bike everywhere here. I probably spend around an hour a day on a bike during the week. Our normal schedule is teaching at the Center from 11:30-12:30, and then teaching again from 4-7pm. Ange and I are teaching English Pronunciation. And I have an announcement. After years of thinking I would HATE teaching(but never really experiencing it) I have decided that it is actually something I enjoy A LOT. I have so much fun getting the lessons together with Ange and getting to help people learn new things and just be able to encourage them along and see the progress. It's really cool! One of the most interesting classes Ange and I had consisted of 4 monks from the monastery down the road. They seemed much more interested in flirting than learning the lessons. It was SOOOO funny! Ange and I had to work hard to keep a straight face. They were a ton of fun. They were constantly competing with each other and trying to out do each other and be louder and it was just so funny. One of them even pulled a chair out from the other as they were sitting down, setting the other monk on the floor very hard. All of our students call us 'teacher' and I don't know why, but I just think its adorable with their Khmer accents.  We are staying at the YWAM base here, called The University of the Nations. It's pretty cool. We are making a lot of friends that will be difficult to say goodbye too. Tonight we are even having a party with them. Food, music(i was put in charge of being dj...i'm worried they will dislike the bit of country music i had to throw in ;) ) games and even dancing(or what we call dancing... i don't know if the rest of the world would consider it that haha).

Cambodia itself is such an entirely different experience than Thailand. I have to admit, I was expecting them to be very similar, but they really aren't. This country is so poor. It's really sad. But at the same time, I'm realizing just how much isn't really a "need" as much as a want. You can live a life just fine without a microwave, a/c, hot water, flushing toilets, cars, dryers and indoor stores everywhere.  It's been a really awesome chance to see it all. This week I have also been studying the history of Cambodia. It is a gut wrenching and little known history. Basically a whole generation was completely whipped out by the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. Basically a Communist regime who took out all thinkers, and educated people and in the process killed off . Around 4 million people died during their reign. Many from mass murders and just starvation as their food was sold to pay for weapons for the military. The country was completely ravaged by war. The hardest thing to deal with about all of this? It was from 1970-1979. So pretty much anyone here over 30 has been personally impacted by this. Thousands and thousands starved to death or saw loved ones taken away and murdered or rapped or turned into soldiers. I would highly suggest reading the book "First They Killed My Father" if you have no already. It is a first hand account of one girls survival through that time period. I had no idea about any of this before coming to South East Asia, and maybe I'm just ignorant. But I think it is something that should be more known about.

One thing that God has really been working on me with these past couple weeks is discipline. I am TERRIBLE at it. I've been realizing it more and more. Just in everything. I am bad at it in writing people back, thank you notes, calling the people I need too, friendships, exercising, the food I eat, but most importantly in my quiet times with God. I'm good at keeping it up regularly for a couple weeks, but then something throws it off and I get bad at it again for another couple weeks and then I'll start doing it again. Same with everything else. I can do it for a while, but then something happens and it just messes me up. But, I think that is really really bad. These are things that are really good for me. Especially my quiet time! I daily need to be filled with God and I need to DAILY lay my life down before God. It's not just a one time and I'm good for the next bit. The thing that kills me the most is knowing that I do know what is good for me, but not being disciplined enough to do it. I think its a required thing in Christianity to be disciplined. Like a soldier preparing for battle. It's daily. There is constant training, or refreshing. Everyday intel needs to be updated. Always keeping their body ready. God calls us to follow Him and be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks about our hope and faith. But if we're being undisciplined, we're just setting ourselves up for being out of touch with our Commander and Chief. Not knowing His will, His strategies, His words. So...this isn't something I've overcome yet. This is still very much a struggle. And it's something I will continue to work on. But I want to start being more and more disciplined in everything that I do. I don't want to be the lazy soldier. I want to bring glory to God with every little part of who I am and what I do. So, I ask for your prayers as I start really working on this in all aspects of my life.

Also I ask for your prayers as this week I've been super homesick and it's starting to hit me just how long I am going to be away from home as I'm still figuring out the details for the rest of my trip. I have been missing family, friends and just being home. I love it here. A LOT. And I really do feel like it's where God has me and wants me to be, but some days, it is really hard. Love you all a ton!

Cambodia!!

Well first thing is first.  The Challenge was completed and I ate more bugs than I ever want to again. It was soooooooooooooooo gross!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, I wanted to get sick for the next day or two just thinking about it. I am going to try and get the video loaded of it. However, it is now a bit more difficult because…..

I AM IN CAMBODIA! Friday night we left Chiang Mai with many sad goodbyes. We got on a bus and headed down for a 12 hour bus ride to Bangkok. The bus was pretty awesome.  We all slept most of the time on it. Saturday morning we arrived in Bangkok, and after searching around to find someone who could speak both Thai and English we got a van that would take us as far as the border between Thailand and Cambodia. At this point the team is Bethany, Akari, Justin, Clark, and Ange as our leader. The border crossing was quite different. You could feel the entire atmosphere was totally different. Thankfully some guy lead us to where we could really get visas as opposed to the numerous stands around that would just swindle your money.  We made it across with the help of our next van driver.  We are all travelling with just a backpack for the next 7 weeks(along with a varying bag of snacks).

We are staying at a University of the Nations(affiliated with YWAM) house in Siem Reap. It is terribly terribly flooded here. We ride everywhere on bikes and it will sometimes get as high as 1ft in the middle of the road. The sides of the roads are far worse. However, life seems to continue on as normal, people just moving things around to make adjustments.  The rice fields are really flooded badly though, ruining much of the crops. We were warned at church this morning though to keep an eye out. With the flooding have come CROCODILES! Yeah… not a church announcement I intend to forget anytime soon. Talk about practical applications. Tomorrow we start working at a school helping teach life skills including English, Math and Music.  We will be here for the next 3 weeks. We will be teaching life skills at the Center here. I will be teaching English Pronunciation with Ange at 5-6 different classes a day. While here, we have very limited access to the internet, so I apologize for not replying to any messages in timely manners. Living in Cambodia has made us realize how spoiled we were in Chiang Mai in many ways including here there is no hot water, a/c or flushing toilets. It is a really good experience. J

Please keep our team in your prayers as we continue to grow closer and just that we can really reach the people here in a practical way and be able to show them God’s love for them. Also please keep in your prayers the friends we left behind in Chiang Mai. We built many relationships there. Bethany and I especially got to know this lady who made Rotee for us. She was awesome, and even though we didn’t speak the same language, we built a unique friendship. We hope to see her again and maybe figure out how to communicate better once we get back to Chiang Mai. Also please pray for my roommate Bethany as she has officially decided to stay next spring also. She has lots of logistics to figure out as well as just the pain of not being home for the holidays etc. Please continue to pray as I also work everything out for my extended trip this spring. Lots of love to everyone!!!!!! <3 

Why

You know what the epitome of feeling useless is? Not knowing the eternal destination of a dead loved one. The hopelessness. The despair. 

You start asking God, "Why God? Why him? Why didn't you appear to him or something? Why didn't you bring someone in their life to show them You?! I know there where people in His life that knew You. So WHY?! Why didn't they speak up?! Were they afraid? Afraid of what he might have thought of them? Were they just lazy? 'Oh, I'll talk to him when I get the chance away from my busy schedule to take him out for coffee.' Were they looking for the 'perfect opportunity'? So many people loved him! I know some of them had to know You God. When they saw the destruction he was bringing on himself, why didn't they passionately pursue him?! They knew where he was heading; to a place of eternal torment; to a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth, to a place of suffering. Why didn't they run after him, beg him, plead with him or try to show him You?! What went wrong? Or did they just not care? Not care about him? or worse, did they not truly care and completely believe and grasp and care about you?" 

Once you hit that point in the questions, silence falls over your thoughts as the implications start to hit. As I live everyday, how many of other-people's-loved-ones do I interact with that don't personally know my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. How many people have I told passionately of the love, grace, and forgiveness I have received?  Of my completely new life? Of my transformation? How many hard conversations have I avoided on pretext of not wanting to offend them? How many times have I waited till tomorrow because I wasn't 'up for it today?' How many times have I patiently waited for the perfect opportunity to come up while letting any opportunity I had come and go? Do I really believe that what I believe is really real? (Truth Project)

Once again, silence falls. This time however at fear and disgust at the answer. No. How can the answer be yes?! If I really truly believed with every ounce of my soul, how could I even think for half a second of anything short of serving my beloved Savior and bringing Him glory in all I do? How could I daily interact with people, even close friends and just roll off the fact they don't know my Lord? how could I look them in the eye and say nothing, knowingly signing their death sentence? I couldn't. So why can I? 

Take Me By The Hand

25During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

27But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

28“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

29“Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

31Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

32And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Matthew 14: 24-32

You know, Peter was one of God's chosen disciples. He had been with Jesus through so so much. He had seen first hand Jesus do miracles beyond his imagination. He believed that Jesus was truly the Son of God. The Messiah. He was totally sold out for Christ. Obviously Peter trusted Jesus incredibly, I mean, he got out of the boat! He even asked for Jesus to ask him to come. When Jesus did call him out, he went. Peter wanted to be extreme for God. Because of that, he got the chance to walk on water. Unfortunately, the storm surrounding him started to freak him out a bit.  He felt himself begin to sink. Can you imagine that feeling? Doing something incredible for God. Then looking around and realizing what it is your doing, and how crazy it is in the human mind. Standing on water and seeing waves and wind. Then the feeling of the water starting to reach the top of your feet, then higher and higher up your legs. He was afraid. "Lord, save me!" he begged. "Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him. "You of little faith...why did you doubt?" Jesus saved Him. But can you imagine the feeling of reproach at being called someone of little faith? Ouch!

      Our first thoughts, "What the heck Peter! You were walking on water! You'd seen what God had done first hand, yet you doubted like that?!" But, I can't distance myself from Peter. I've seen the wonders of the Lord first hand in so many different ways. He has worked so many things out for me. Yet there are many times I take my eyes off of Him and start focusing on the waves. I know what HE has told me. I know where I am at with Him, but then I start seeing the waves of the world, and start doubting what I know He has spoken.

     This is something I've been struggling with in a couple different areas lately. One as we're getting ready to leave for outreach, and I haven't yet finished raising my money for this trip. Also, as I am making the plans to stay here once I get back, it just seems crazy at times. I'll be living in a foreign land with so little planning and really not knowing a whole lot, as a missionary, outside of the structure that my DTS has offered.  These just two examples of many in my life. 

Please pray for me.  That I keep my focus on God and listening to His voice instead of looking at the waves of life.