Woah time really flies. I cannot believe that it is officially our last week doing ministry here in Cambodia. It has been filled with some of the coolest house visits. It started off Tuesday when we headed out to a village of farmland about an hour away. We met with a family who had lost a son two months ago due to a lightning strike. The mother had lost a total of 4 children due to all different causes and believed it was because she was not sacrificing enough to the Buddhist Gods. Her husband however drives an hour every Sunday to come to the church that we are staying at to praise God for all the blessings in his life. He listens to the JOY4U radio every morning and talks to his wife about the gospel. When we went to pray over his wife, Sydney held her hands and started sobbing uncontrollably. It was almost as if she could feel the weight of the grief this woman carried and it was heavy. Sydney was an emotional wreck for the rest of the day trying to recover but couldn’t shake the feeling she had experienced. This family had also prepared a meal for us of fresh river crabs and snails that my whole team had fun trying except for me,, I’m so scared of seafood! We then left this first house to go to another house, the mom of one of my college aged students. There, the mom had boxes of eels all over and convinced each of us to try picking them up. Our Pastor had a lot of fun scaring us by pretending to throw the eels at us. We then proceeded to do 3 more house visits before Lecru stopped to get us some snacks from a shop on the side of the street. They were his favorite, these little pastries filled with a frosting of some sort. They were so good! Finally we were on to the last house visit where we met a family who lived in a rougher neighborhood. There was a lot of prostitution in this area as well as gambling which is illegal in Cambodia. We watched some games happening when we were told that if we called the cops right now everyone would start running. We were also offered beer by some of the neighbors which we declined but it was a very unusual house visit.
On Friday, we had our last classes with our students. During recess with our younger students, they started to realize that today was our last day together and that we would not be back for class on Monday. They all started crying and we spent the rest of our time just sitting together and holding them on the soccer field. We were all crying pretty hard and were pretty emotionally exhausted by the time our evening classes rolled around. We decided to just have fun on our last day so instead of doing class we all played soccer, duck duck goose, and a variety of other games together. At the end of class, all of our students were still hanging around and told us they had a surprise for us. They all put their money together to buy food so that we could all say goodbye to each other. There was one long table set up so that all the evening classes could sit together for dinner. It was so kind of them to want to celebrate our time together. All of my students from the evening class also wrote me sweet letters and bought me so many gift. I am so grateful for all the relationships I built over my time in Cambodia!
On Saturday we then hosted a Beauty for Ashes event, which is our women's ministry program. This evening was dedicated to building up the women in the community and creating a safe space for them to share their struggles and build one another up. Often in this culture, women are solely responsible for their children and do not receive help from their husbands which means that they also brought their kids to this event. This meant that Sophie and I were put in charge of entertaining the kids while the rest of my team got to host the women inside the church. We got to have lots of fun running around, playing games, and reading the kids bible stories. I heard stories later that the women attending the event got a lot of encouragement and felt really seen during our event which was amazing.
Finally Sunday night rolled around and it was officially our last night with the family. They hosted a big dinner and invited all of our new friends that we had made over our time in Cambodia. We spent the night reminiscing on sweet moments together and laughing at inside jokes we had created. These people have truly become like a family to us. At the end of the night when it was time for everyone to go home, it started raining, just like our first night in Cambodia. We asked if we could have a private moment with just our team and the host family that we had grown so close with. We swapped cards and notes with each of them and told them how much we had appreciated them bringing us into their community. They told us that it was not goodbye but see you later. We hope that Rebecca, Lecrus' oldest daughter will be able to attend Liberty University sometime in the near future and are working on getting her a sponsor. I hope that I get to come back to Cambodia and visit with this family again!
November 20 - November 26 2023