Happy New Year!
In the year of 2014 I have celebrated 3 New Years...our new year, Chinese New Year, and now Khmer new year!
On Wednesday we headed to the outskirts of Battambang (30 min drive or so) to a orphanage that a pastor and his wife runs. I couldn't believe how hospitable these kids and pastor were. The kids even let us use their mattresses since we were sleeping on the pastors living room floor. We were definitely living in outreach conditions...no A/C, squatty potty, bucket showers. All that wouldn't of been half bad but....I was sick. Yep, I managed to get a cold (along with one of my other teammates) the day we headed to the orphanage. Burning throat, stuffy nose, icky stomach, and body temp changing is not a good combo when it's nearly 100 degrees outside and the only way to cool yourself off is to sit in front of a fan, which drys you out even more. Needless to say I was feeling close to miserable. The room we slept in didn't have very good air flow but I tried my best to sleep.
I was hoping to wake up Thursday morning ready for the full day of kids activities we had planned but I woke up feeling worse. I tried joining in for a little but I just couldn't keep up. I tried to get myself cool but nothing I did worked. We had been talking about how important it was to have a grateful heart and I was trying my best to keep a positive attitude; but by the afternoon I just broke. I felt like I couldn't do it anymore . At that time God brought over a few girls to pray over me and Val gave me a daytime cold med. At that same time it became overcast and a breeze started blowing. Within a half hour I felt alive again. I was even able to participate in the evening activities! The worship time was amazing, I love seeing the kids give their all when they sing to Jesus. We had a time when we prayed for the kids and then the kids prayed for us. I got to pray with a very sweet girl who had lived at the orphanage growing up but now she is going to university. After worship I shared my testimony and we played games. Because I was sick the whole day I never connected with any of the kids which was a bummer but I know God is doing a lot through those kids and will continue to. We got to witness one of their big prayers get answered. The pastor told me that the kids had been praying for bikes and before we came they had just had someone give them money for the bikes. The pastor bought the bikes while we were there and we had the awesome privilege of watching the kids receive them :) They were able to buy 15 bikes! As for what the team did with the kids: we had teachings, songs, dances, sports, crafts, games, face-painting throughout the day. That night Sarah and I decided to move into the church because it was much cooler. We were going to just take mattresses and make sure we were sprayed down with mozzie (mosquito) repellent. But when we came into the room Grandpa (idk what his name is but he is a super awesome and kind old man) wasn't going for our idea. He made sure we had a mosquito net and a fan.
It was a much better sleep although unfortunately everyone was awaken by a rooster at 4:30am. Oh but that's not all. At 5am Khmer music (basically the sound of a creepy carousel playing over a dying boom box at the volume of a rock concert-front row) starting blasting. We found out that it was a funeral...across the street. Not a wonderful thing to wake up to. Our day had to start by 6:30. After worship our wonderful leaders bought us our first cold drinks (cokes) since being there. Then at 9am we were off to a village. Our transportation? A tiny Nissan truck that literally looks like it was in it's last leg. How many people did we have to fit in the truck? 23. How did we achieve this? 6 inside and 15 in the bed of the pick up, and 2 on the roof. #lifeofamissionary. The village was about an hour and a half away. Awesome thing about this trip? We were the FIRST FOREIGNERS to ever come to the village. That's right first white people to ever be seen! The pastor said he had never taken a team to that village because the roads are dangerous (lots of flooding and you are traveling on dirt roads for an hour). When we got to the village they served us lunch and then the kids arrived. We had coloring pages for them, taught them some songs, performed a drama, and Andi shared her testimony. These kids looked almost scared of us at first...like they didn't know what to think of us. After the program we had a hair washing and a nail painting station...along with games. I got to paint nails :) It was so cool to serve these kids in that way. Unfortunately, that part if the day was a little rushed because a storm was coming and we wanted to leave before it hit. But once we had finished with the last child the rain started to fall...in buckets. We decided to head back anyway! It was crazy! We jumped into the back of the truck and took off in this heavy rainstorm. The rain drops were the size of little bouncy balls and when I said it was coming in buckets I am not exaggerating. We were soaked after only 2 minutes of being in the rain. The trip back took a hour and a half...raining hard for a full hour of that trip and just a sprinkle for the last half hour. It seriously was a miracle that we made it back. The mud was so deep that we should of gotten stuck and we almost did multiple times. During the drive we almost ran out if gas but thankfully we made it to another village to quickly refuel. Once we were out of the major storm our driver pulled to the side of the road so he could pee. Seriously?! Overall our team kept cheerful throughout the drive back, even though we were cold and wet. We sang songs at the top if our lungs as we drove through the storm. Of course we avoided songs like "let it rain, open the floodgates of heaven" haha. We were already living those lyrics-literally. That had to be one of the most awesome adventures I have ever had!
That night back at the orphanage we watched "Prince of Egypt" with the kids (or "Queen of Egypt" as Sat, our translator, calls it haha). We were exhausted so it was a good ending to the day :) We left early Saturday morning (after being woken up by the rooster and a wedding blasting music at 5am again) to head back to our hotel near the Battambang base. Last night we went to dinner with our translator, Sat, and the Titus team that we will be working with this coming week. The Titus program is the outreach phase of the SBS (School of Biblical Studies). The team is from Taiwan but they are all Americans. Really cool group :)
Today is Sunday so we served at the same church we went to last week. It's funny, I am known to be from Bangkok now. I am: Brittany from the Bangkok DTS. Not just: Brittany from America.
This week is going to be packed! Our days start at 7:30am and go until 8pm. Mon-Wed we will be getting some teachings from the Titus team in the morning and in the afternoon we will be helping with deep cleaning Eden Cafe. It is also Khmer new year so there are lots of festivities going on (they celebrate it the whole week). We don't know what's going on Thursday yet and then we head back to Bangkok on Friday! Can't believe our time in Cambodia is almost over!
I have been in Asia for over 3 months now!
Prayer request:
-a good majority of our team is getting sick with the cold please be praying for recovery and good health!
-continue to be praying for perfect health for the rest of our outreach phase!
-team unity
-that we all keep grateful hearts throughout any circumstance!
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