Teaching and Scraping Walls

I'll give you a short recap of the last few days. Sunday we went to church. It was actually not too bad considering it was mostly in a different language. On Saturday the pastor asked us to do part of the service. We said we would do our drama and share 2 testimonies. The morning of he asked one of the guys (Brent) to preach that day. We are learning to be prepared for anything and really listen to what God wants to say through us in every situation. Next week we will be doing the entire service, including worship. We actually have almost a full worship team within our team so that has been awesome to worship almost every night. We go on the roof of our guesthouse where we can see the entire town and the ocean. It's beautiful up there at night and a perfect place to meet for worship, prayer, and team bonding. We are so thankful for God blessing us with such a nice place to stay.

Monday was our first day with the school. Some of us were going to observe the English classes to get an idea how we can help teach. That observing turned into teaching right away. We walked into a 2nd grade class after lunch and the principal let us in. I guess the teacher was gone that day. He just said, "you teach." So we looked around the room and just started throwing stuff together. That happened the entire day. Despite not being prepared to actually teach, let alone be in a Cambodian classroom with no Cambodian teachers it went really well. It's surprising how much the let us do. I don't think you would have known that we were coming up with stuff on the spot. The loved the songs we taught them. Now we have a few lesson plans so hopefully we'll get better every day. We also led the teacher devotional this morning and will every morning. They are super willing to let us do anything. The rest of the team has been scraping paint off a wall all around the orphanage and school. We are about half done scraping after 3 days of work. Then we will be painting the wall. That should go a lot faster.

The team is really starting to come together and we're getting serious about why we're here. We're starting to talk to more and more people around us about God. And we've been doing intercession twice a day. Tonight and on New Years Eve we will do a prayer walk down at the beach. That is where all the prostitutes are as well as men who hire them and men who abuse children are. Pray that we would be bold and talk/pray for whoever God leads us to. We've been praying for healing over some of the beggers and will continue that. We want to see miracles. Happy New Years!

First day in Sihanoukville

Yesterday we took a four hour bus ride to Sihanoukville on the coast of Cambodia. It was a pleasant ride and we had air conditioning. We arrived and took tuk-tuks to our guesthouse. It's quite funny trying to pile all our stuff inside a vehicle meant for just 4 people. We got checked in and had some dinner at our guesthouse. After that four of us (Brent, Isaac, Keara, and Megan) left to go check out the town. We ended up at the beach. It's a really nice beach but this area is filled with lost people who came here to do bad things (such as sleep with prostitutes, drugs, alcohol, and even abuse the children who wander at night). They call this area the Pattya of Cambodia. We got down to the beach last night wanting God to move in some way. The four of us prayed as we started walking that God would take us out of our comfort zones. We saw this guy begging in the sand who couldn't walk. He was crawling on his hands. We walked past him and the stopped and prayed a little ways off. Keara heard God say that if he came and sat behind us we would pray for him. As we finished praying there he was. We asked if we could pray for him and he had a friend come over to translate. He said yes. We did and he was very grateful. But the best part was after when we wanted to tell him about Jesus but ended up talking to the translator. He said he wanted to know Jesus and have him come into his life. He wants to talk to us more about it. We got his number and plan to go back soon to meet up with both guys. We are trying to get our hands on a Bible in Khmer but the goverment makes it hard to get them in the country. Pray that we can find one for T-Ruk I think is his name and possibly locate a wheelchair for the guy who is disabled. Our plan especially over the next few days with so many tourists here for holiday is to do prayer walks and evangelism with the people here. It will be pretty intense and really challenge us to step out and be obedient to God's leading. Most of that will be on our own time. The rest of the time here we will be busy working at the school, orphanage, and with the church. We are taking on the task of repainting all the walls at both the school and orphanage. First we need to scrape them then paint. At the school we will be teaching English, teaching devotions, teaching sports, and I'm sure a lot more. At the orphanage we will do more of the same and just spend time with the kids. We just found out that tomorrow we are performing our drama in church and sharing testimonies/a little preaching. So basically we arrived yesterday and now outreach is full on. It's awesome to see though cause we felt too much like tourists for the first few days. Now we're diving in with all we have. Please pray especially over these next few days as we go out on the streets and pray with people and tell them about Jesus.

Heading to Sihanoukville

Good news: They do have room at the guesthouse in Sihanoukville.  We will be staying across the street from the orphanage and school we will be working with.  The only bad news is that they charge more over the holidays (double what we have in our budget per person/per night).  Our budget is pretty tight already (mostly cause they use the US dollar and we came in with Australian dollars).  We don't have any other option to stay elsewhere so just pray that somehow everything works out and we have enough money for everything.  Some people are out right now trying to get the bus booked for tomorrow.  It will be a 3-4 hour bus ride.  We plan to leave Friday morning.  Thanks to everyone who sent Christmas notes and gifts to the students.  They LOVED them!  I will update you more once we arrive at our next location.

Merry Christmas from Cambodia

Merry Christmas to everyone back home! Today we really saw the sights of Cambodia. It was a pretty intense day but we also got to do some great shopping at the Russian Market. Everything was super cheap and we bartered some great deals! Today we went to see the Killing Fields, the museum (where prisoners were kept), and a temple. The Killing Fields are a big part of the history of Cambodia and the fighting has only been over for less than 30 years. The country is trying to rebuild itself. The things we saw today were hard to see, but the hardest thing was all the beggers. We had children running along side of our van everytime we pulled away trying to get money from us and tugging at our shirts. It's very sad and brought some of us to tears. It's a bit overwhelming right now the need in this country. We are still taking it all in.

Tomorrow we will have a Christmas celebration...pizza and ice cream for dinner...and then hopefully head down to Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Right now they don't have rooms available for us there so we are trying to work that out. We will be working with the Assembly of God church and they also run an orphange with 84 kids. There is a school there too we can work with that has 300 kids and we hope to do some soccer ministry. Everyone is doing well, nobody has had any problems with the food so that is a blessing. Please pray for things to work out with getting a bus to our next location and having a place to stay. It's pretty booked up because of the holidays. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Arrived in Cambodia

We have arrived at our guesthouse in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This country really feels like a 3rd world country. Flying in we looked down and I thought I was in Africa. I saw dirt roads and huts everywhere. The place we are staying is pretty nice. We have beds and a bathroom. We will be here in Phnom Penh for the next 4 days (including Christmas). We are probably taking the team out for pizza that night!

We are all doing fine. We aren't too tired considering we flew all night. Bangkok airport was easy and getting through immigration and getting our visas in Cambodia was so easy. Pray that we can start to come together and get focused on why we are here. We have orientation tomorrow and then we will tour the city a bit and see the killing fields (a big part of Cambodia's history). There are so many opportunities for ministry here. Pray that God leads us to the right ones for our time here.

We love you all!

Arrived in Bangkok

Hey,

We are in the Bangkok airport just waiting to board our flight to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  Everything has gone smoothly so far and we didn't have to pay extra to bring the team stuff.  Everyone is in good spirits and excited to get outreach started.  Thanks for praying so far.  Talk to you in Cambodia!

Meet the Team