Prayer Requests

This week is getting hectic and to be honest, my brain is a little to fried to give proper updates although Cambodia still amazes me and takes my breath away every single day. I wish I could share it all with you. But I can’t. 

These are the serious and important bits anyways. You probably won’t get this in time because I probably won’t get on the internet to post this before but here goes. I would love prayer for (1) my school kids, (2) my church ministry and (3) Revival Meeting aka Life University campus ministry.

1. School kiddies

Last week I shared the gospel during morning devotions and this past week, I shared about the Holy Spirit. Pray that the seeds sown would take root and that the kids would not be manipulated into religion but seek truth.

2. Church ministry

Life Bible Presbyterian English Service is the only English service in Sihanoukville. The foreign teachers at Life University and Life International School (my school) run the service. I started my bible study at church this morning. I have 3 guys and 3 girls. Most of them have been exposed to Christianity and have started getting involved in ministries but do not have a personal and real relationship with God. Pray for them. Pray for me.

Also, this Wednesday, I have the honour of leading the Prayer Meeting at church. I pray that prayer (that sounds weird huh?) will not just be a time of asking and pleading with God as it has been in the past few weeks but a time of giving. Giving of our hearts, giving of our desires for His and real confession and repentance. So often we have a list of things we think we need from God. But I pray that we first come humbly seeking His will for our lives.

3. Revival Meeting

The campus Christian fellowship has a weekly meeting on Mondays they call Revival. This Monday, I have been asked to be the speaker to the 60ish Cambodian students who come out to the meetings. Some of them are Christians, some are not. Some are curious. But most see being a Christian as a set of moral rules or simply going to Church and fellowship. Pray for understanding and clarity (I will have a translator). Pray for wisdom. Pray that God would speak through me. Pray for open hearts.

Thank you.

Myth

Myth busted: You need to comb/brush your hair regularly. One thing I forgot to bring to Cambodia in my rush to pack and leave Canada is my brush. I have hardly brushed or combed my hair in 2 and a half months (don’t look at me like that) and my hair has never been better. Ok, it’s no Herbal Essences ad but it’s as good as it gets, I reckon. Living off 20kg of belongings isn’t too bad! My closet consist of a single rack and a $5 bamboo shelf.

Blessings

Like reaching an oasis in a desert, my roommate and I decided to check into a hotel for a night this long weekend. It’s the Water Festival. This hotel was NICE. Cable TV, internet, a/c, HOT showers, clean sheets, swimming pool and complimentary breakfast buffet where they provide fancy dishes to put jam in! I swam once that day and the next morning before we checked out. Heavenly.

The night before, I got to call friends and family on my cell phone too. Talked to my mammy for the first time in 2 months :) The excitement continued with skype chats with friends, my brother and my mother again at the hotel. Ah... internet! Talked to friends on msn, got new music and watched youtube! It was quite the weekend in my books.

But then as some of you might have seen from Facebook, I also rented a moto and took it for a spin in an empty soccer field with cows grazing around. Unfortunately, I took a turn too sharply. And the next thing I remember was my elbow on the ground and my butt a little sore. And then I saw a cow stomp closer and closer. And my friend shouting in the background: “Run! Run! Run!” I tried to run but my legs were stiff with confusion, fear and thinking: Is this for real?

Suffice to say the cow was more interested in sniffing out the moto and all I had to do was step back and let it scold the moto for making crashing noises and scaring her calf. But I left proud of the slight scrape on my elbow, and a ridiculous story that will live on for generations. The moto refused to start after that fall but some nice local boys playing soccer helped us get it started. Anyways, I think I’m getting better at the moto although the fall shook me a little and I’m more weary of the turns. But if I can manage the roads next time, it’ll be my ticket to freedom (now, I just need to get the language down). Especially with my friend putting ideas in my head about buying an electric-powered moto for $200 from Phnom Penh that is lighter, smaller and perfect for my size. Maybe next time… Open road, blue skies, endless beach here I come!

But all in all, a weekend full of God’s providence. I am so blessed to be living here. I am blessed with an amazing family who prays for me back home. Friends who encourage me from thousands of miles away. And every hot shower that is like dew from heaven!

Melancholy

I was going to title this post Sadness but it’s not quite sadness. I don’t know if it’s melancholy either but that’s closer I guess. It plays to the soundtrack of Everything by Lifehouse. So if you have that song, feel free to play it now.

Cambodia is a place full of people with stories. Their eyes and face tell a million stories. So much tiredness and life experiences, yet such a hope and assurance that there’s no other way but up from here. Today, I talked to Vuthi. He is a Theology graduate from Life University and helped out at the Life International School for 2 weeks. I asked him how many brothers and sisters he has. He said 8. I said wow. And still calm, his eyes smiling, he said some of them have died from an illness so he does not have 8 anymore. Just as a matter of fact.

I don’t know if this makes sense but I guess that conversation sums up what I have come to think of as the mood here in Cambodia. Hardship is a part of life. The younger generation sometimes complain about the hardship and the older generation (not that there’s many since the Khmer Rouge) bear it quietly. But for everyone, they wear it proudly as a battle scar. It’s almost as if poverty and hardship are part of the Cambodian culture.

Coming from Singapore, Canada and Australia where, comparatively, people bleed money, this everyday exchange of topics like illness, death, poverty and prostitution like the exchange of weather news is slightly unnerving. I have to constantly remind myself: this is not normal. I have to. Or else fall into a state where I become blind and accustomed to street kids coming up to me and asking for food. Blind to the old lady who asks for change. Blind to the Night Clubs and Karaoke Lounges with dim lighting and scantily clad young girls with too much make-up hanging around the lobby looking unhappily haughty. By that I mean brothels if you didn’t catch my drift.

But at the same time, I don’t want to pity the Cambodians. I am no better than them. I just had the privilege to grow up with more money. Giving them money or food is tricky too. Some people say we “spoil them” by doing that. But then, how do I just stand by and watch dirty little kids who can’t afford to go to school while I have a well stocked fridge, food on my table everyday? Although, I do understand the other side of the dilemma. Handouts aren’t sustainable.

Anyways, enough of my dilemma and back to the people. Melancholic. I wish I could videotape each of them telling their stories, their expressions, their past and the hope mingled with sadness at the future they see. They see a bright future. Sadly, not in their generation. Most of who I have talked to are around my age or just a bit older – at the start of their lives and career. Yet they cannot hope to dream too big for themselves. They have to save their biggest hopes for the next generation. Maybe I should make a movie. Perhaps after I write my book. Or after I write that play, as suggested by Pritee. 

This is Cambodia. And despite appearances, Cambodia does have a Hope and a Future.

Visual Memoir Captured in Words

So I have been sending the students home on the school bus every day until December. I get the scenic view of the town. It is spectacular, wild and beautiful. These are mental pictures I have taken from the bus ride and other adventures:

I saw a 4-foot shark tied to the back of a moto. 

I saw a dog talking to some goats as a naked baby watched in the distance.

I saw an old white man sitting on his front porch looking bewildered with his frizzy white beard hanging down to his pot belly.

I saw 2 guys sitting in a hammock they pitched under an 18-wheeler.

I saw a baby taking a bath in an old paint bucket.

I rode on the top of the hill behind my school which looks down to the town and a breath-taking view of the cove that Sihanoukville sits in. It looks like the Mediterranean. The colourful houses, the deep blue sea and the cloudless, endless sky. 

Beauty

My roommate was asleep so I snuck out to the hallway and sat at the end where it opened to a view of the town and the sea. I had my bible in hand and ear phones plugged in. It was a spectacular night. Balmy and still but every so often, a light breeze would lick the ends of your hair as if taunting and teasing you with the promises of rain. Rain would be a much needed relief from the heat and humidity. As I sat looking out to the dark sky that night, I was captivated by beauty. I clenched my jaw as I smelled the thick, fresh fragrance of moisture in the air. It smelled good. Too good. Do you know that feeling you get when you are so overwhelmed with something amazing and your spirit is so uplifted you cannot help but frown with the intensity of the experience? This probably sounds weird but that happens to me.

So I sat frowning at the sky. And this is the great part. The lightning. Creeping, sweeping across the sky. Silent. With not a sound to announce its presence but the power of its light. A flash. A flash. Another flash. Each one looked as if it could light the entire universe. Each split second turning night to day. And in the background, music like a symphony orchestrated specially for nature’s performance. “He’s alive! He’s alive!” sing Shane & Shane in Embracing Accusation.

Looking at nature’s light show, I see beauty. I see that God is alive.

Science explains how lightning occurs. How rain forms. And shows us what happens when day turns to night. But science holds no reason, no purpose. It merely explains the existence of something. I do not live for mere existence. There is purpose for life.

Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.

John 17:3

Love

Over time and space, God has taught me an important yet simple lesson. People are but instruments of God’s love. They are not the source of love. I knew it in my head but I didn’t experience the fullness of God’s love extended through people until now. And even now it is a shadow of God’s love in all its glory. When I saw God’s hand extended, I saw people. And I put my trust in that. I am just now learning to see beyond the human hands and into the true heart of God.

Tonight, I was coughing much. If you didn’t already know, I’ve caught a bit of a cold and am a little bit – well, more than a little bit – impaled by my illness while still having to teach full days of classes. So I was coughing merrily and minding my own business when the lovely Korean missionary couple from next door knocked on my door and asked if I was okay. They said they had medicine.

Mr. Roh: You stay here. We get the medicine for you.

Me: Uh ok. Thank you! *cough cough*

Mr. Roh: Remember, this is for night time. Drowsy. And this for day time.

Me: *cough* Thank you *cough* so much!

Mr. Roh: Now you sit down. We pray for you. (Speaks in Korean to his wife and we all sit down and pray).

I was touched. For a moment I felt loved and taken care of. I miss my parents. But I also felt God’s provision and grace. It is His love that is extended through human hands.

Bitterness

As I soaked in this concept of freedom, it was like God was unloading every part of my life that was heavy from the surface to those that were buried deep under my skin. This is the story of my bitterness. The first thing that I had to let go of was the stress of work and ministry. Next was living in a foreign country with all its customs, traditions and nuances. Then, the isolation and separation from loved ones and things familiar. And then a few days ago, it hit the big one. My bitterness and hurt that ran deep. Baggage that I carried with me from years past and from Canada to Cambodia.

Forgive me as I write the depths of my heart on the world wide web. But I pray that as I wear my heart on my sleeve that it might shed light on the depth of God’s healing love and extend an honest example of the depravity of humanity clashing with the radical but absolute love of God.

So back to bitterness. As a child, I feared people. Being vulnerable in front of people was humiliating. So to protect my huge pride, I kept my life private. Just God, my family and me. Protected from scary people, I thought. It helped me as I moved to Australia at 16. When I moved to Toronto the next year. And when I left again for an international exchange program. But when I came back to Toronto the following year, God had broken me. Broken my pride. I had nothing to hide behind and for the first time in my life, I opened my heart up to a community around me. It was exhilarating, exciting and rewarding. Until I graduated.

Disclaimer: I can be a little over-dramatic at times 

My life was to take a massive turn and I was not prepared for it. I was set to go to Art School after graduation but God had other plans. God called me to work. And God called me to Asia. I was faced with one of the biggest decisions of my life on top of the transitions that came with graduating, summer work, volunteering and spending time with my family. It was to be the most challenging summer of my life thus far. And it was a summer I had to face alone. 

You see, the world does not revolve around me. Surprise, surprise. I wasn’t the only one going through difficult decisions and busyness. Friends were caught up with life and so was my family. It was a big summer for my family. My sister was getting married and my brother was having his first baby. My world was changing. And so fast! So while on the outside, I seemed alright, inside, I felt utterly abandoned and hurt. I desperately wanted someone to be there as I looked at job prospects and prepared to leave the life that I had fought so hard for in Toronto. (Life hasn’t been easy in Toronto you see). In my pride, I desperately wanted someone to care that I was leaving and promise to keep in touch and reminisce about the good old times for the last time before my life would change forever. But there was no one.

In the last 2 weeks of summer, I signed a 1 year contract to teach, packed and booked my flight to Cambodia. It was so fast, I packed my hurt and abandonment in my suitcase, carried it halfway around the world and buried it under work, busyness and ministry. But there was no peace. Because deep in my baggage was that hurt which had become a heart of stone.

And a few days ago, as the Holy Spirit was digging through my burdens and baggage, it was like the shovel hit a rock. A rock of emotion and hurt that I had secretly nursed. It was a buried boulder which showed its ugly face every so often when I felt beat down and exhausted from the daily routine of Cambodia. Since then, like an excavation in progress, Jesus has been knocking away chunks of rock and, surprisingly, it’s not that hard and big as I though after all. In my stupidity, I forget just how big God is and how small my issues are in comparison. And now I can breathe again. Each taste of sweet, fresh breeze like a small but life-giving blessing in a desert.

This is freedom. Freedom from hurt, bitterness and fear.

Month + 2 weeks = Freedom

Wow, looking at my last blog posts, God really does answer prayers. One thing that I have been pondering upon has been the concept of freedom. A verse that I have been reciting over and over again in my heart has been John 8: 34 – 36.

Jesus replied,” I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

I didn’t get it. I still don’t fully get it. But I so desired this freedom that the Bible talks about. Not just a temporary outlet or break from reality but true freedom from my stress, my hurts, and the weight of the world which I bear on my shoulders sometimes. I did not have that. Every night I sleep, I think about my kids and the responsibility of their education and future, and the great needs of Cambodia weighed heavily on my mind. And every morning as I wake up at the crack of dawn, my body remained weary and my soul exhausted. I was a slave. I could not run away from the pressure, the stress of work and the many lives that seemed thrust into my care. And I got more frustrated in my personal life as I drifted farther and farther away from people I loved and used to share my life with back home. Trapped in this cycle of stress, loneliness and exhaustion. This was not freedom.

But as weary miner trying to dig his way out of the dirt and darkness, Light found me and pulled me into His loving arms. I have seen but a glimpse of this Light and it is the most brilliant concept, object, reality I will ever live for. As I sat, soaked and pondered, Jesus spoke. So simple. So true. It seems silly when I write it down but so profound in what it means to me.

This is what I have been learning on freedom:

1. Freedom is not a feeling that comes. Not a decision I make. Not something I can knock into my head by repeating it or pretending it. It is in seeing the Gospel of Jesus, intellectually and experientially having that truth deposited into my soul by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Ball’s in His court. I helplessly and humbly have no part in it except to respond and receive. Nothing more, nothing less. That is all. All or nothing.

The reconciliation is represented as work of God. It begins with God and is accomplished by Him. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). This emphasis on divine monergism advises us that reconciliation is a work that does not, as such, draw within its scope human action. As accomplishment it does not enlist, nor is dependent upon, the activity of men.

Reconciliation is a finished work. God is not only the sole agent but also the agent of action already perfected.

- John Murray in Redemption Accomplished and Applied

2. In my quest to give God my all or nothing, I sought to take hold of every aspect of my life and, disciplining and dealing with what held me back. But it is not about seeking everything of me that was wrong. It is about seeking the One thing of God that is important. This is freedom. 

3. I do not answer to anyone but God. Not my kids, not their parents, not the other teachers. The only one I answer to and am held accountable to is God. And He already paid the price.

4. They are not my kids. They are His. Let go.

5. When I feel that I have a standard to reach, important things to get done, I don’t. I really don’t. Nothing, absolutely nothing, comes close to resting with Jesus. Even if it means pushing aside a week of lesson plans to sit and listen to that one song about God’s love.

6. And as I started to taste this freedom, I was worried that it might once again slip from my grasp but Jesus assured me with this:

But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

John 14:26 – 27

Peace. Hmmm… Freedom and peace. This week has been no different than others. Still tired. Still no internet. Still no hot showers. Children still running amok. But there is a peace. Not a cheesy happy hippie peace but something deep stirring in the pit of my stomach that makes the sky look richer, brighter, more beautiful. Because I am reminded of His beauty. And it is brilliant.

Hungry

Hungry I come to You for I know You satisfy

Thirsty I come to You for I know Your cup does not run dry

So I wait for You

So I wait for You

I'm falling on my knees, offering all of me

Jesus, You're all this heart is living for.