Welcome to Cambodia!

We made it to Cambodia!

We took off Saturday morning at 7am in a double-decker bus. It was great seeing some of rural Thailand while on our way to the border. The border town was really busy; think the Thailand version of Calexico with a little more craziness. After eating lunch we grabbed our bags and walked across the Thailand/Cambodia border (a little dirt road). We immediately went to customs. While in customs I got yelled at by a grumpy border official after trying to help one of my teammates. Thankfully he was not the one who dealt with my passport otherwise I might of been refused entry. Just kidding, not really, but seriously. After that we had to go and get our visas, take our visas to get stamped, and then we were finally officially in Cambodia and could head to our air con vans! Why am I so excited about Air Con? Cause it's 100 degrees (with some humidity) and intensely sunny here) Feels like a summer day in the valley. I definitely overpacked (as did the rest of my team) which didn't help. We have all decided and made a deal to remind one another about this when it comes time to pack for India!

Despite the heat I love Cambodia. Driving to Battambang we got to see lots of the countryside...some parts look a lot like Haiti, and some parts look like the Valley. Every time it look up at the sky and see the big white clouds it definitely looks like a summer day at home :) Another similarity to home is that they drive on the right side of the road AND use American currency! Driving through the countryside I saw cows for the first time since I have been in Asia, honestly this is the most spacious land I have seen since being on Asia (needless to say, I was starting to feel a little tired of living in a concrete jungle).

Battambang is a nice little town with lots of good cafés I am told. A restaurant down from where I am staying is fantastic! Why? Because they have good beef and it's not expensive! Whaat whaaat!

This week we are a part of the Nations to Nations conference at the  YWAM base. It's going to be a packed week but I am really looking forward to it!

Prayer requests:
-no one gets dehydrated
-while our rooms are pretty nice (hot water and air con) some rooms have had cockroach infestations...please pray that the problem is taken care of and we have no more visits from those critters.
-Team Unity!!!
-health!

Last week of Lectures

This week has come and gone so fast! I have been busy with outreach prep, commissioning night, and lectures. Monday and Tuesday were spent preparing for commissioning night (a time that YWAM Thailand and Ark send us out on outreach through prayer and support-basically like a sending out party). The DTS students prepared a skit for the event and it had to be one of the best skits ever! Wednesday, right after lectures, Oy, Shaneen, Kayla, Andi and I headed to downtown Bangkok to get our JE vaccination at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases. It was actually a fun outing and it was awesome getting to see Victory Square.

After getting home we had about 30 minutes until we had to head to Commissioning night. The Music DTS did worship, we performed our skit (our skit was a knock off of '12 Days of Christmas' saying 'On the first week of DTS we made some memories'), a couple of testimonies, Nicole (co-director of ARK) gave a message, and YWAM and ARK prayed over our team.

Thursday was our last day of lectures in our classroom :( It is SO weird being done! It was our application day. During the week we talked about Submission and Authority. Our speaker was fantastic! She talked about how the spheres of society (individual, family, church, government, and economics) function, what their responsibilities are, and what happens if they are abused. But on Thursday we focused on pride. We spent the application time confessing our pride, forgiving those who had abused their authority in our lives, or asked for forgiveness for the way we treated our authorities. I did not realize how prideful I am and while it was scary to confess I couldn't wait to get lay all that before God. God has already been showing me how much He blesses those who humble themselves; it overwhelms me how good God is!

Later that day we went to the mall to get outreach supplies. Val and I were in charge of getting medical supplies. We ate dinner at Sizzlers haha. Today we practiced our "cultural" dance that we are performing at the Nations to Nations conference in Cambodia. After that we deep cleaned the house and packed up our rooms and our bag for Cambodia. It is so weird to pack everything but not go home.

We leave for Cambodia at 6am tomorrow! We will be at the Nations and Nations conference the first week and then will be there for 2 weeks of outreach. I am not sure what we are doing there yet but I have heard something about helping build a café.

Please be keeping me and my team in your prayers!

Father Heart of God.

This week has been another busy week! Last Sunday I had the privilege of sharing my testimony at a translators workshop. It was an awesome experience to graduate the class and see the excitement on the ladies and men faces when they received their certificates. Tuesday we went to the community to do games and crafts with the neighborhood kids. Wednesday was community night, North American themed! We had Chili and cornbread. It's funny how chili is definitely a North American thing...everyone else had no clue what it was and Santy (Indonesian) made her first pan of cornbread. That night we had a Giving Night. It's a time of prayer and worship...and giving (no, duh). The needed funds for outreach did go down! We now have less then 2000usd we have to raise. Thursday we took the sky train to Downtown Bangkok :D We went to a mall to buy Indian clothing. I absolutely love Indian clothes and am so excited about wearing them while in India! Friday night was Youth night (our one and only). I had so much fun with the kids! I got to spend some time talking to the girls after; they taught me some Khmer language and then asked about where I live and then shared their dream about going to Paris. I really hope their dream of going to Paris does come true someday.

This week we learned about the Father heart of God. Our speaker was from California and was a fantastic speaker! He has been in YWAM for 40 years and knows a lot of the original YWAM people; his mother-in-law is Joy Dawson, a lady who had a big part in the start of YWAM.

So what I learned this week...
The world feeds us a lot of lies that come from pagan worship. Such as: God is changeable, therefore I have to constantly prove that I am good person. We prayed that we would all have a anger towards the apathy and the lies that Satan tries to feed us. On Thursday our speaker and male leaders had a time that they  encouraged, prayed and commissioned us, all girls DTS, to go out and make disciples, reach the hurting, and live our lives. Lea (who's Samoan) did a cry/call that the church from his culture use when sending people out. It was a intense cry but super awesome! We talked about a Father's authority, faithfulness, generosity, attentiveness, affection, and  acceptance. At the end of the week we discussed each of these points in depth and asked ourselves if we had any problems with any of these areas. It was a very eye opening time for all of us. I really had to deal with my perfectionism that, I realized, made it hard for me to trust others. We talked about unconditional love and that because Jesus shows us this love we should show the same to others. This says it perfectly: "Love is letting those we love be perfectly themselves, and not twisting them to fit our own image. Otherwise we only love the reflection of ourselves we see in them." I want to show unconditional love to the people in my life...so goodbye perfectionism! I am so glad God doesn't let me live with my mistakes!

We leave for Cambodia a week from today! Can't believe our lecture phase is almost over!

Visa week

I will start with the good news: Our Indian Visa applications went through!!! unfortunately it took three trips to the embassy for that to happen. In the last week my free time was filled with putting together and then editing visa applications. While I enjoyed the work, after editing applications for the second time it got old.

Besides our visa applications we were trying to prepare for our fundraiser that happened yesterday. It was a little nutty trying to do visa stuff around all the prep. I spent all day yesterday baking with Miriam while the garage sale went on. The thai's in our neighborhood are really into yard sales. There was a couple of fights over shoes and such...(thai's don't fight so it was strange seeing their aggressiveness). That night we had a carnival and concert (featuring our Music DTS band!). It all went well although I was totally exhausted by the end of the day.

As for other week events our lecture topic was Relationships. Pretty good although my week was so busy I really didn't have much time to process anything that was talked about. I am thankful that I got some time to talk with Averyl (our speaker); that helped the topic sink in a little. Community night was French themed. We watched a really weird French movie (Sarah knew the movie). A group went to the community on Tuesday night to do something for the kids at Pi Blahs church, but I stayed home and worked on visa stuff. Thursday night we all got together to have Indian food (chicken curry and chai tea) and watch Bride and Prejudice (a Bollywood film). Hilariously awkward movie and it made us all excited about India!

So yeah that's pretty much what's going down here...today I will be sharing my testimony at a translators training at YWAM. I really need to get to work on that ( I haven't had time to think about it at all) and finish homework.

Only 2 weeks until we leave for Cambodia!!!!  Which means that lecture phase is over and we are half way through the DTS :o

Prayer requests:
-preparation for Outreach goes well
-Lynne had severe food poisoning this week, she is currently in the hospital and should be coming home  today. Pray for full recovery for her.
-money to be raised for outreach. I think we still need to raise 8,000 usd.
-prayer against sickness and accidents!!

Outreach Jobs

Three weeks from today I will be leaving for Cambodia, the beginning of my outreach phase! Outreach preparation is in full swing now. We got our outreach job assignments this week. I am in charge of getting all our Indian Visa information together (19 visas total) and then once we are in Darjeeling I am in charge of transportation. That means I have to look at maps and get the teams from point A to point B, keep track of transportation finances, and what type of transportation we will be using. I am currently in the middle of all the Visa stuff because we have to take our visa applications to the embassy by Wednesday. India has the toughest visa application process ever but after this I will be set to go to any country! [

So besides lots of outreach stuff I had a FANTASTIC week of lectures! I am really sad this week had to end. Tuesday night we had our last Lights in the Community (the school we have after school programs at), after finishing that I really noticed how little of time we have in Thailand now. Wednesday night was Indonesian Community night. I found out that Americans say 'orangutan' totally different then everyone else. Thursday night Sarah and I got to "babysit" Nicole and Sopo's (the founders of Ark) kids. I had a blast! We played Dominoes until their bedtime and then Sarah and I told the two youngest kids a bedtime story. They requested that we make up a story, I don't know how much the kids liked it but Sarah and I had so much fun telling the story and being total dorks. We got to pray with both the kids and they, of course, both requested that Sarah pray in French (I love it when she prays; it sounds so cool!). After I prayed the son who is 9 asked me why American kids pray on the side of the bed with their hands folded. I told him a lot of kids don't do that and asked what made him think all American kids did that. His response: They always do that in the movies. I never that of that as an American stereotype thing haha. So yeah that's life here. We have the whole weekend off. Yay! I have time to get all the Visa stuff, reading for my second book report, and catch up work done!

Prayer requests:
-Outreach fees for those who still need them (we are having a fundraiser next Saturday)
-Praying for unity in our team
-PLEASE start praying that no one will get sick or injured on outreach!!!

True Worship=Adoration+Obedience

Making Jesus Lord of your life:
"I submit myself wholeheartedly to Jesus as Messiah and Lord of every area of my life.
Lord of my spirit and all my spiritual awareness and worship.
Lord of my mind, my attitudes, my thinking, my beliefs, and my imagination.
Lord of my emotions and my expression of my feelings.
Lord of my will and all my decisions.
Lord of my body, my physical health, my exercise, ...my diet, my rest and my appearance.
Lord of my sexuality and its expression.
Lord of my family and all my relationships.
Lord of my paid work and my voluntary service.
Lord of my material good and my perceived needs.
Lord of my finances.
Lord of my plans, my ambitions and my future.
Jesus thank you that you laid down your life and suffered in my place to free me from the consequences of my sin, iniquity and rebellion; I am now free to love, worship and obey you with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.
Jesus you are my Lord and I willingly submit to completely to you today and forever. Amen."

 

We prayed this in lectures the other day. Our topic? Worship. When you hear that word most probably think of singing but that is only a small part of the meaning. True worship is to adore and obey someone or something; and everybody is created to worship. Sometimes what we choose to worship is far from the true God, our Creator. People choose to worship other gods and idols made out of stone, but idols can also have other forms: money, education, relationships, security, power, comfort, and success (etc). Everything listed are good things until they take the place of God in our lives. Ask yourself this question: What does my mind wander to effortlessly? The true God of your heart is what your mind goes to effortlessly every time you let your mind wander. *BAM* I don't know about you but that convicted me. I am not saying you have to think about God every single minute of the day and that its bad to daydream.; because it isn't. God gave us the ability to daydream but if we think about one thing constantly that thing is becoming an idol. Heavy stuff and this was just the first section of day 1.

 

Day 2: Our speaker (whos name is Jason from Australia) gave us this analogy: A father is out mowing the lawn and his little boy wants to help push the lawn mower. The dad lets his son "help" him push it although it makes the job take longer. After the mowing was done the son runs into the house and tells his mom "Mommy I did it! I mowed the lawn!" So why did the father let his son help? He did that so he could have a sweet moment this child; to have intimacy. That is how God is with us. We go out to do missions or do something for God like the little kid "helping" his daddy push the lawn mower and at the end we say "Look God I mowed the lawn". The point is that God doesn't NEED us to do missions and share the gospel, He WANTS us to "help" him do missions and share the gospel. God wants to have those sweet moments; to have intimacy. God doesn't want to see the back of your head. He wants to hold your hand and lead you, looking into your eyes.

 

The root of all of this: Worship is obedience. Those who go out from the presence of God into the world are the ones that change the world.

 

So yeah I have been floored numerous times in the last 2 days. And what I am sharing is just scratching the surface.

 

Beyond being floored this is what's been happening here:

-We had our last Lights In the Community today (the school we go to weekly and have a small after school program with the kids). Finishing that made us realize that lecture phase is nearly over!

-Only 3 weeks and 3 days until we leave for Cambodia which means I am almost done with the lecture phase!

-We are having a fundraiser next weekend for outreach

-We are starting to learn the dances we will be performing on outreach at morning exercises

 

Prayer:

-Team Unity!

-Funds for outreach to come in for those who are lacking the funds