To Live is Christ

Life

This evening, I found out that my god-brother passed away. He took his life. He was 26. 

Sometimes I get so caught up in my own worries and trials to realize that this life is fleeting. Most days I think things will never change and that at 23 I have my whole life ahead of me. And usually, I think that my friends and family will be around. At least for a few more years. But life is fleeting. Things do change. And sometimes, life on earth ends sooner than we think.

When I heard the news of my god-brother I was shocked. He was young and I never really knew what went through his mind. It was a stern reminder of 2 things: 1) People around us are broken 2) We don't have as much time as we think we do. Consequently, this means 2 things in my life: 1) To set aside differences and love deeply the people in my life 2) Tell people the most valuable thing in this world - true life. 

To put bluntly and simply, if my life or the lives of my friends and family were to end soon, I would not merely tell them that I loved them. I would tell them this: God loves them. God loves you.

Not some strange being in the sky or an electric presence out there. But a personal, living, loving God who created and moulded you to know and have relationship with Him. We've been searching for Him through time, through religions, through making of massive statues and temples. And in today's world, we have been looking for Him through romantic relationships, intimacy, entertainment , thrill-seeking or careers and success. All to fill that void in our lives. Some people call it "meaning" or "purpose" or "calling". Some call it "the one" or "Mr. Right" or "Miss Right". Across time, across cultures and countries, we are all looking for God to fill that void. 

The sad news is that we don't know how to. Religion doesn't get us to God. Living right and doing good doesn't get us to God. Loving God doesn't even get us to God. I don't know if this happens to you but I know that when I try hard to do good, I fail. When I intend to love, I hurt and distance my friends and family. Living in Cambodia, I see corruption, poverty and a history of violence and bloodshed everyday. And try as I may, I cannot change anything. Somedays, I don't even want to. I am selfish. I am sinful. Sin doesn't merely mean doing bad things or thinking bad thoughts. Sin mean missing the mark of perfection. According to the laws of this world, you get what you give. We give hatred, anger, deceit and death - whether with our words or actions. What then should we get? Do we even deserve God coming to our rescue?

Truthfully, no, we don't deserve it. Yet, truthfully, God did it. He did rescue us. He came into history and split time when Jesus was born. Jesus was all man and all God. Jesus is sometimes called the Son of God because He is a part of God Himself. He lived the lives we live, desiring and struggling with what we do. Yet He lived the life we couldn't - He portrayed compassion, love, sacrifice, integrity and humility. He deserved a reward we don't deserve. Instead, He got a death He didn't deserve. All so He could turn the tables and give His reward to us and take our death upon Himself. Grace. We receive a pardon, a reversal of sorts, for our sin.

We still die a natural death in this life. But something else changes. Life. 

God is life. And when the barrier of sin and imperfection is removed by God Himself through Jesus, that life becomes available to us. And it is a life that awakens our spirit on this earth to give and receive love, find joy (not happiness) in all situations and live at peace with great assurance of God's love for us. And it also allows our spirits to live eternally with God beyond this earthly life.

Why doesn't everyone have this life then? Why don't even some people who call themselves "Christian" seem to have this life? Because this life comes as an exchange. Ours for His. Our small, sinful lives for His righteous, satisfying one. Intellectually and whole-heartedly, we must make a decision to lay down our small dreams for His big vision. Yet, the human struggle is that of losing control. We all like to be the boss of our lives. Believe me, it is a daily struggle. But one thing I've learnt in the short years I've been on this earth: God's plan always trumps my own. And He always provides and helps me lay down my life for His. Always.

Now this all may seem outlandish, perhaps too good to be true. Or maybe typical and tripe. But let me ask you this: When your time here is up, what's your next step?

Brunch

It's 1.52pm and I think it's about time I got out of my sleep clothes and walk out the door of my room into the windy corridor and say hello to the world. You see, us teachers rarely get to sleep in. So my roommates and I veged out last nigh on Friday. I ate cornflakes and a banana-nutella-peanut-butter-sadwich (there was a typo with sandwich but I thought this was more fitting) for dinner and watched Glee and Briget Jones' Diary. This morning, we just cleaned up our mess off the floor - bowls, cups, crumbs, laptop, wires... And ate a huge stack of french toast. My roommates are out at the beach but I'm home taking it easy. But now I think it's time to take a walk outside and have a good chat with God.

Apologies

This blog has become quite scanty of late. For whoever reads it regularly, I apologise. Things are well - although I am getting a little physically, emotionally and spiritially tired and would love some prayer if you're able. 

Our kids are.. well, kids. Frustrating, endearing, crazy... 

Almost 8 months here and about 4 more to go so there's still much going on and much to do yet. The race is not over! Please pray for these things:

1. Spiritual strength and stamina for myself, the other teachers and professors. Physical protection too!

2. Financial and other forms of support for our organization and schools - Life University, Life School (Khmer primary and secondary school), Life International School (the school I'm at).

3. Encouragement for our English Church Service which as far as we know is still the only English service in Sihanoukville and does not have too many resources.

4. Our students. So many of them have made amazing progress in academics and spiritually also. A number of the children in Life International School have made personal decisions to follow Jesus. Pray that God will continue to be with them as they learn more, grow and go through life's ups and downs.

Thank you.

Welcome to Wonderland

Hello readers,

My name is Kim, and I am guest-blogging today as an honour from Camille.  I've been visiting her here in Cambodia for the past little while, and spending some time learning and being refreshed by the change from Canada.  Something that Camille told me one day, during one of our many discussions (this particular one was on the movie "Alice in Wonderland" and the meaning and themes behind Wonderland), was "Cambodia is a lot like Wonderland, it changes how you see things and challenges your view of reality, turning everything upside down."  (Camille says that "this is not a direct quote, and that it is only your interpretation of what I said", I say, "whatever".)

The other day we witnessed just such a reality challenging occurrence.  Camille and I had spent the day at the beach, just chilling and spending time with God.  Towards the early evening, we decided to take a walk on the rocks to watch the sunset.  The particular beach that we were on had a lovely board walk along the sea, and further on rocks jutting out right up to the sea.  Other tourists were passing us by, mostly going the other way, from the rocks to the sea.  When we came round one bend, we reached a spot where a couple weeks before we had eaten a picnic lunch.  Instead, we saw a group of seven little people clad in brown Tarzan-like outfits, and three little fairies.  On closer inspection, there was one little girl fairy, and one little boy brown-clad, and the rest were all... little people.  And then there was a woman, in a short flashy dress, brightly coloured, with a wig and heels, very flashy caberet style, sitting around, texting on her cell phone.  On closer inspetion, "she" turned out to be a "he", and there were two other cross-dressed men, just like him sitting nearby.  The tourists were all just walking by, (much like they would in Toronto, as if this happened every day, and was completely normal, meanwhile Camille and I stood there for at least 10minutes staring...).  Then, who do you think would saunter down the walk then prince charming himself, clad in a gray cape, and knee high boots.  He walked down to the rocks at the sea, and was followed by a collection of photographers, at which point we realized that this was some kind of strange photoshoot that we had walked into.  Prince charming takes a seat on a rock at the edge of the sea and begins to ruffle his cape so that it billows in the wind, meanwhile tossing an empty can onto the rocks.  "Is that Diet Pepsi?" I ask Camille, "No," she says, "I think it's Ankor, the local beer".  At this point the brown-clad little people and the fairies, and the cross-dressers began to stare at Camille and me, giving us dirty looks, as if we were the ones who were cross-dressing, so we decided that it was time to move along, which we did.

But as we were passing by again on our way back from climbing on the rocks, Camille said to me again "Cambodia is a lot like Wonderland..."

From what I've seen of this country, and learned from talking to people and hearing about their experiences, this land really turns peoples expectations on their heads, and always seems to dish-out the unexpected.  In a different way God is like that too, and has been using this Wonderland to surprise me and change my own ideas about Him and about how He works - revealing to me greater depths of His goodness and His Character.  It has been quite a time of refreshment and discovery.

It's now Easter, when we celebrate the time that God turned all of our expectations on our heads.  When Jesus, who deserves everything, all of our honour and praise, instead humbled himself and took on all of our sins and inequities, and in exchange gave us His righteousness.  How amazing and crazy, and reality-redefining is that?

I hope and pray that you have a happy and blessed Easter.

 ^{Isaiah 55:1-9}

¹ “Come, all you who are thirsty,
   come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without cost.
² Why spend money on what is not bread,
   and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
   and you will delight in the richest of fare.
³ Give ear and come to me;
   listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
   my faithful love promised to David.
⁴ See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
   a ruler and commander of the peoples.
⁵ Surely you will summon nations you know not,
   and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the LORD your God,
   the Holy One of Israel,
   for he has endowed you with splendor.”

 ⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found;
   call on him while he is near.
⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways
   and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

 ⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,”
            declares the LORD.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Village

I love being in Cambodia NOT because I change lives everyday, but because I get to witness God changing lives everyday. Most intimately, my own broken life.

The beautiful face of Cambodia

Kids playing ingenious games in the sand. Much more clever than my drawings in the sand!

Making gentlemen out of roudy boys

S'aat! - Khmer for beautiful!

Miss Cutie Pie

Mr. Cutie Pie

More cutting!

The little village church where we were stationed for the day

Everybody! Dr. Baek, in the safari hat and light blue scrub shirt a true medical hero displaying much humility, grace and love

Little sisters on the steps of the church

Sarah, my roommie, hard at work with the girls' hair!

Updates

Unfortunately, things happen faster than I can type or than I can find TIME to type out on my blog or respond to emails or send out emails. So this is a short snipet of some highlights:

1. I'm going to my second Cambodian wedding tonight. Should be a hoot. They always are. Especially if there's Khmer dancing emo boy bands in the mix. 

2. My roommate, Sarah, and I went on a medical missions yesterday with nursing students. They did health check-ups and consultaions in a small village about 2 hours from our town. Sarah and I obviously didn't do the medical aspect but I cut hair and played with the children. Very sweet. Will blog about that soon, God-willing!

3. This one's pretty current: NO WATER and limited electricity.

 So those of you outside Life University, don't mind me if I seem rather distracted and M.I.A. The running water's been cut off for majority of the day and night since Monday. Water gets turned on around dinner time and cut off again around 8pm. So we spend our post-teaching hours rushing to use the water, stocking up on more water in our little bucket or scrounging from generous water-donors who have much bigger buckets. Some of us teachers have been going down to school to take showers. This also means no laundry, dish-washing, cleaning and cooking. It's a bit of a pain and a bit of a pain on top of 8 hour teaching days and having to find water at 6.30am. But all in all, we've had more times laughing out of helplessness than crying so, thank God.

4. I've decided to go running whenever my roommate goes running. She goes at least once or twice a week and is quite a stallion. So I figured if I tag along, I could definitely shape up over the next few months. My first run was Tuesday in the rain. Quite the adventure, let me tell you that. Grit my teeth and challenged the rain, as I did laps around manly, muddy football players on the football field. Felt very tough. Also a very spiritual experience - been learning to pray as I run. Good times to vent emotions too as I listen to heart-pumping music. Hoping that when I'm done I'll be a force to be reckon with.

5. The university's in a bit of a hard place financially (hence the energy/water crisis) so that's something to really pray about.

6. My school, the Life International School, is starting to raise funds and prayer support for a new building next school year. It's a big need of ours because we have no more classrooms for next year. A hefty undertaking, but nothing God cannot provide for. It's actually really exciting being able to be part of something so big that will definitely affect many children and their families. We have about 120 kids now and more to come next year. That's a bit less than 120 families that will benefit from a solid primary education and access to Christian education. I need your prayers and support!

6. My kids are well by God's grace. It's intriging to see them grow and learn to read right before my eyes! It's hard work and I fall short so often but my grade 1 class is getting there! Thank God. 

7. My dear friend, Kim, is coming in less than a week! And we'll be heading over to Vietnam for Khmer New Year :)