Howie(Finished in Khmer)

Today marks my last moments in Cambodia. What a trip it has been. I feel as if I have lived here for years but yet seconds at the same time. Every single moment has been precious and life altering. I have seen a world that I could have never imagined. I have experienced a world that has broken my heart. The 3rd world, is something that movies can not depicted. I have climbed mountains, water towers, I have taught English via the bible to buddhist teenagers, I have spoken the gospel to those who, "only heard of it once, a long time ago." I have walked over the clothes of the dead thousands and watched as 100's bowed to golden images that have stolen there lives. I have set and talked with people who live in homes that are falling in around them, known people that can't feed there children. I have spent time with a mother, with a beautiful baby girl, and the world around her tells her to kill her daughter. However, Jesus tells her to value this beautiful life. I have seen cruelty. I have spent time with a Cambodia family, I have experienced the poverty of village life, I have gotten sick from drinking water. I have seen poverty! I have watched a grandma fall down a mountain in pursuit of dirty water. I have befriended 35 Cambodian orphans. With this friendship I have lost 35 pieces of my heart, for they hold them, each of them has stolen a part of me. By the grace of God I will see these children grow up. I will see there weddings and graduations. I will see there great purpose unfold before my eyes. I will have great Joy watching there lives play out. Watching them become who the Lord has already predestined them to be. What Joy they will bring me!! I am leaving a part of myself here. I have made friends with the Carson family and understood just a blink of what sacrifice and heart strain they experience in there day to day lives. They have given there lives to Jesus, and though it is a beautiful life it is marked with sacrifice and suffering. The Lord has built a friendship that I pray continues for a lifetime. The Lord has used me here. He has taken my tiny talents and used them for His great purposes. The Lord has met me here! He has met me personally in a way that could not be described. He met me in the secret place, in laughter, in dance parties, in the eyes of hungrey children, in the face of poverty and darkness, in Ream, in Kit. In the darkness, He has showered light. Rained Joy. He has given me revelation of his character and that has made all the difference. He has shown me who He wants me to be, who He is in me. He has given me a revelation of life and Joy! I am different. I have come to a clearer understanding of what life is, and what I want my life to be about. I have come to understand that I love the science of OT, and this is what I want to do with my life. I have come to understand that I love people, and this is what I want to do with my life. I have come to understand that Jesus is everything, He is satisfaction, and this is what I want to do with my life. Oh I could write for days of what these 3 months have been to me. These 3 months have been a treasure, a little ring of gold that I will hold with me for the rest of my life. They have been a respite from real life, a wilderness, that the Lord brought me too. In the wilderness, He has spoken kindly to me, and given me my vineyards of fruitfulness. (Hosea) I pray as Paul prayed that the Lord will allow to return soon, to complete my Joy, and encourage those in Christ. Oh, and I understand Hope! I understand why hope is so important to our Jesus. Whisper the promise of Jesus to the hopeless and you will see the effects of Hope instantly. This place I have lived over the 3 months is called the "Greater Hope." and that is just exactly what it is. Kit and Ream are raising children that look just exactly like hope in the face of Cambodian destruction. Thank you Jesus for this time. I praise you Jesus for your kindness. Goodbye Cambodia.

PRAYER!!

Things seem to be falling in just days before I leave, however, I know the Lord loves to be the valiant hero and save the day. We are trusting that He will save the day!! I need you to partner with me in prayer and intercession. He is the only one that can do this:

1. The baby I have been working with has been sent to the best children hospital in the country. We have given her all the money and information she needs to get the tests that will hopefully make a difference in diagnosing and improving this sick babies life. She has arrived at the hospital and everyone she meets ask her why she is doing this, her baby is worthless, not worth helping, and just a waste of money. This mother and family continues to endure and press on. Now they have taken the scan, taken the money, insulted beyond repair, and now refuse to give the needed scan. They say that it is against their policy to hand out information. They are doing this because they do not want to have a baby helped by a foreign influence...it looks bad for them. Also they refuse because now they have gotten there money and feel no need to actually help this family. You would not believe the cruelty that a normal family has to face on a daily basis. It is nothing but cruel. We are contacting and doing our best to find a loop-hole or someone powerful to make things happen. The Lord has provided for this family each step of the way, now please pray that He will provide us a window, when all the doors have been slammed closed. We need a window!!

2. two of children have returned home, praise Jesus, that the families weren't allowing to come back to the orphanage. However, the grandparents of Pecktra(5) and Witchika(10) and wanted to persuade the mother to sign the papers to get them back. The grandparents are dying which is terribly sad but if the children return home to them, they return to horrible poverty. They return to an environment that does not encourage studying, working, or any type of effort to step out of the poverty they are currently in. They are also stepping out of the protective cloud of Jesus that is this orphanage. Pecktra has chronic ear infections, and a torn eardrum, his family will not be able to afford the medical care to treat this constant issue. He will go deaf within a few years if he goes home. Pray that the Lord will give the mother the strength to stand up to the grandparents, and the wisdom to give her children a future. The mother is the deciding factor, we have no legal authority over the children. There is no law or justice in Cambodia. The word Jusitce is nearly a joke concerning the Cambodian government.

3. Nune, Nyng, and Ly have still not come home. They are with there families and Ream and Kit have made a date to meet with the families and figure out what is going on. Ly the youngest boy is saying that he wants to stay home, because he is teased at the orphanage. Teasing is a part of culture:) The oldest 2 girls are just staying home because that's what there brother is doing. If the oldest girls stay home they will be shipped off to make money for the family in the factory. They are 12 and 13, they will live in the city alone, and work long and hard hours in factory life. More than anything they will again be stepping out of the protective cloud of Jesus. I need my children home!! Nune has spent hours with me doing her best to relay to me her favorite bibles stories with picture books, and reenactments. She loves Jesus! This is her home. The parents are terribly poor and are already out of rice for this season. Please pray! I trust that the Lord will work for the good of those that love him, and these children love him!

4. Also there are several children that are having a very difficult time with my leaving. They are all pulling for attention and love. I wish there were 35 of me, to love them each individually. To hold them before I leave, to tell them just exactly how I feel about them. I am spending a special night with both the boys and the girls. I pray that the spirit would fall on these nights, for I need to speak love, faith, trust, eternity, promise over them. I need to impart on them the peace that transcends all understanding. Time is also running out, I need Jesus to give me time for each of them, and to handle all the end of trip priorities. Each hour of my last days here is being quickly swallowed up. I want to finish all I have started well. I need the Lord.

Stand on promise

Village life.....WOW!!

First my fish. If some of you don't know. I caught this fish with my bare hands. I was trained in the art of stalking my prey by Channee the boy in the picture. The other girl is Rachana, who has such a strong sense of adventure and challenge...this is why I love her so. This was a terribly fun moment that I will hold dear for years. I was so excited I could do nothing but scream at my fish. Out of humility, I must admit I caught this fish in a micro-pond, as you can see in the back ground. However, it was still difficult to wrestle the fish and hold on to it when it twisted and growled. So so fun!!


So I spent Cambodian New Year with Sadong. Cambodian New Year is a huge deal! I spent 3 days with her and her family in a village near the Vietnam border. It was beautiful to drive through the green green rice fields and mountains for the first time. We only have one mountain, singular, in our area, and its more of a hill. I had a beautiful time getting to know her family and village. I was welcomed with open arms and a healthy interest. We climbed 2 mountains! They were pretty difficult climbs but completely worth the time and effort. We found crystals on our first hike, and Rylee I am bringing one home for you, and you will freak! I know how you adore nature! In the evenings we went to the "Pakadah" which is the local temple. This is where the entire village gathers to have food and dancing. It was so entertaining to watch the boys fling their bodies all over the place, and the girls barely move due to their modesty. Ashley, Steph, KC, I wanted you there so bad. I know that we would have dominated that dance party. The villagers would have never forgot it. However, I could not be so bold without your presences. For most of the day we set and talked with the family and neighbors. This was so interesting, to get a peak at real Cambodian life. I got to share the gospel with Sadongs family and extended family. I also got to share with a neighbor lady that had grown quite fond of me. This was completely thrilling, because when I ask the neighbor if she had heard about Jesus, "She said, "I heard them talking about him before, many years ago, but I never understand." It was amazing to be able to present the gospel in a real and relational way for the first time!! Truly if you need adventure, talk about Jesus, in a different language, in a hopeless village, with the poorest of the poor! Tell them of hope and promise! Still when I think of these moments, Joy pours over me! I saw poverty on a level that I have never even imagine. There was a very poor grandma living alone on the top of the mountain. They lived there to serve Buddha and take care of the temple. They had to make the steep climb completely alone, I do not know how they are still alive. I watched as one grandma, walked down ancient, dangerous stairs, I asked her why, and she said, "mduck, knew." Which means water over there. She fell in her attempt. We retrieved her water for her, which was heavy and took all of our energy to make the climb back up. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Grandma, all I could think about was you and how I am so thankful that you love Jesus, and that your God takes care of you! I also saw a 6 year-old tiny girl dying from Spina Bifidia. This was difficult, because I asked about surgery and her mother said that she was too sick and would die. Her head was huge and her body so tiny. The picture would urrk your insides, but I did not take one out of respect. This hurt me because I have so many friends that live good and healthy lives with this same disorder. Also I watch a Cambodian divorce, which is cruel and evil. Sadongs cousin is very poor with two children. She lives in a tiny hut, with little to eat, and her husband is never home. Well, he came home why I was there, and took everything. He took all of there money, there possessions, and wants to come back for the kitchen roof. He left nothing for his new born daughter and his parting words to his loving wife were, "I hope you get hit by a car." She was left with nothing and her only hope is to be supported by her family and village. There were so many sweet moments and so many terribly difficult moments. I went into the experience prideful that I could handle it with ease, but that was not the case. I have never seen poor like this, much less experienced in first hand. The food was dirty and water dirtier. Everything was dirty dirty. We slept in a hot, stuffy, room on mats with dirty pillows and blankets. We used the bathroom in a open field and showered by the well as the neighbors walked by. I was a constant show, everyone wanted to touch and feel me. Villages came to touch my skin and hair. They asked me to walk back and forth many times. If I left the house, people on the street would stop their moto's and just stare until I passed by. My every expression and motion was closely examined by the family and village. It was humbling because I mostly felt like a zoo animal on display. I had to swallow my pride many times to preform and entertain them out of love and hope for relationship. It is a very strange feeling to be constantly stared at, it kind of makes you want to hide in a hole. One of the neighbors would constantly feel up my skirt and ask to see my breast...this was a tad to far for me:) I would politely change the topic quickly. It was hard to see and hard to experience but so very life altering all the same. I got sick upon returning home, I thought I would never desire food again. My body just can't take that type of living. I had a high fever and thought my insides were falling apart. I have recovered quickly, praise Jesus. I learned so very much from this experience and left with Joy knowing that I know had another Cambodian family. They plead with me to stay a few more days and plotted to get me to return again. I hope to return and continue to water the seed of the gospel that has been planted!! Lots of pictures, I hope they allow you to fully understand the experience.


*Everyone! Every beautiful Cambodian that I got to spend time with. They are not sad, they just don't really know how to take pictures. They don't know that smiling is generally the norm. However if you look, the little one has a beautiful big smile. He loved have his picture taken.



*Sadongs family! I stayed specifically in there home. Her mother was wonderfully caring, she took care of us like we were her own.


*Cousins family that lives next door, and set of newly weds and now twice divorced mother with two children. Hope! Is what I spoke over this family.


*This is where the poorest cousin lives, alone with her two children, and no hope for remarriage. Without a miracle from Jesus she will know nothing by poverty and heartache.


*Our kitchen, were all meals were prepared. It was amazing to see how well everything is prepared with so little. However, difficult to eat because everything was so dirty. Many times cats would walk over the tables and dishes.


*My drinking water, dish water, shower water, cooking water, hand-washing water, the same scooper is used to wash the body as to take a drink. All sorts of bugs love to hang-out and die in it also!!


*Washing clothes:) The trees is were we kept any clothes that weren't on our bodies. The trees were our closet. I kind of liked this:)


*The well where we got our water, took a shower, and washed our clothes.


*The alter to a dead ancestor that was in my room.



* Me, Sadong, and Te-a bed. Mat on the floor. Also were all the sisters would brush out there hair in the morning. Which meant that sometimes I would wake up unaware that I slept in a pile of hair.


*At the top of the mountain..totally worth the effort



*The grandma we got water for. She lived in a tiny hut all alone. She shook constantly like she had some type of Parkinson.



*Another Grandmas home, near the edge of the mountain...as I said you can not imagine the poverty.


*The group of Sadongs relatives and friends that joined us for the hike. The smaller boy in the red shirt is Te-a and he came with me from the orphanage. It was the first time he has seen this part of Cambodia as well. It was so wonderful to share the experience with him.


* At the temple!! This temple is thousands of years old and still mostly intact. This temple was built, used, and left before America was ever even considered. Cambodia was once a great empire, how I wish I could have seen it in all of its splendor.


*Me, Sadong, and Te-a, at the temple at night. Sadong is so pretty and had many interested boys come for a visit in the evenings. However she said, "I think they are nice, but I don't want any of them to understand about me." Which means that she is completely uninterested in any of her pursuers, she is waiting for a faithful christian husband. I love her so much!!



*The last bit of climb to the temple, these stairs were so steep!



*Grandma , making her way down the horribly dangerous stairway, she fell half way down, and then she let us get the water for her. Oh, she has to do this every couple of days...it hurts me to think about it.



*This is the water she was risking her life to get!! There were many dead bugs floating on top of the water. I can not describe to you the color and smell of this water.



*What they give there life to worship, you can not see it but one of the images is of a frog. A golden frog. I now understand, "Jesus desire of the nations." I pray that Cambodia will come to desire a God that lives and breathes and is not restricted by temple walls. In fact when my God appeared to his people in temple form. He said, "If you touch it, you will die, if you think about touching it, you will die."



*This is a Cambodian favorite. This is a fetal chicken, that they crack out of the egg and eat whole. I could do nothing but say Oh My Gosh over and over again. It was an experience I will remember for a lifetime.


*Te-a eating his fetal chicken...I can not really put into words:)



*CUTE!! Little cousin of Sadong, that lived close by. He was mostly afraid of my white skin but loved having his picture taken all the same. He is holding a pop gun, that is the joy of every Cambodian child. They simply call this toy, "Pow."



*CUTEST! He is a naughty little one, but they tend to be my favorite. He was afraid of me as usual but to0 interested to stay away. He would poke and pinch me when I wasn't looking. He giggled beautiful every time. So stinking beautiful!!



*The newly married cousin. Her husband in the temple DJ. She told me about there engagement. She said, "I had many people that want to engage me, but I not love any. I only piety my husband because beg me like this (bended knee position) He said he would die without me. I piety him so I marry him. I love him now though, only one I ever love because He beg me like this." It was an interesting reason to get married but they seem happy all the same. I got to have a great long conversation about this women's hopes and dreams. It was so wonderful to hear such desire in such poverty. Most people have lost all hope, they don't really know how to dream.

So that concludes my village travels in was hard but beautiful. I am thankful that I got to live and experience first hand poverty that most have never even imagined. I now understand more fully the great need of the country that I have come to love so dearly.

To friends and family at home. I will be home in 10 days. I can not thank you enough for your pleas for me to return. Truly they mean so much to me. I feel so loved by family and friends and know that I am returning to a unbelievably loving and safe community. I can not wait to be in your arms again and walk through life with you. The Lord has shown me that people are my Joy! This was a beautiful revelation, that I wish I had time to go into detail. However, to sum up. People and their hearts and souls are my Joy! I am always surrounded by Joy. I can not wait to be home with you because you are my Joy! As Paul says in one of his letters, "Don't you know that I long to be with you because you are my Joy!" These children are my Joy as well, so leaving them will be difficult but again as Paul writes, "I pray that by the grace of God He will allow me to return to you soon, to encourage you in your faith, and make my Joy complete." Not an exact quote but it means so much to me. All my kids have chicken pox's, the older boys are terribly sick. I set up with one of them with a raging fever until he fell asleep. Pray that will recover quickly, its terribly hot and a horrible place to have a fever. I love you all and will be home so very soon. God is so very Good!

Update on the happenings...

1. We went to see the baby yesterday and she is recovering from her cold and doing very well. Things are well on there way with getting this baby diagnosed and treated. Ream and I love visiting this family because we know that the Lord has us there for a reason, however, its hard. The baby is very sick and we know that only God is big enough for this job. So we place our hope in Jesus that He will complete His good work. Please continue to pray for this family and baby, we need prayers of intercession. We ask for divine healing, wisdom in treatment, medically trained members of the body to come and help this family. We pray for the Lord to come and save the day, whatever that looks like. The mother nearly moved me to tears as she said, "I don't know what I will do if she doesn't make it. She is my life, and if she dies. I die." This is truly beautiful considering everyone in her community continues to pressure her to let her daughter die, for everyone else only see's the baby as a burden. However, the Lord sees this little girl as a gift with a purpose. We continue to help fulfill this beautiful little girls purpose.

2.Church is still going well. Our kids enjoy the service very much and its wonderful to be a part of changing church for them. However, many of our new attendants have faded away. Many claim they are to busy and its clear that Jesus is not even on there radar. We continue to invite them day after day, and I pray and hope they will come to understand the importance. I have turned about 15 mins of English class into a bible lesson. We use scripture to teach English...it has been wonderful to hear them reading and professing truth even though it has not touched their hearts yet. I have faith that "His word will not return void." I love my English students and have become very close to most of them. Sometimes when I talk to them, my mind fades into a picture of the darkness they are surrounded by. Since many will bring offerings to their ancestors this time of year, see witch doctors for medical help, and believe that spirits are the causes for illness. They are covered in darkness. I will continue to plant and water the seed, with full faith that the Lord will send other laborers to complete the harvest! Pray for the harvesters!!

3.If I could bottle one thing it would be laughter! Since most of the time, I can't understand the conversation around me. I have come to know these kids by their various other sounds. I could identify Tong, Tate, Pecktra, Long, Vuthy, Rachana, On, laughing from about a mile away. I pray that Jesus will always allow me to remember there laughter, for it is my Joy! In Khmer there are various non-verbal sounds that communicate feelings, much like in English-a sigh communicates sleepiness. Khmer people have this very specific sound for being annoyed by something. It sounds like, "EEHHaaa." I can hear Channee, La, John, and most of the staffs specific sounds of annoyance in my head. I wish to never forget the sound of Tee, Darow, On, Lim, singing randomly about the house. There is always someone singing, loudly and confidently somewhere in the house:) This is what I want to carry home with me!! I wish to bottle each of there specific sounds and take them home, and open them when I miss them so!! I don't know what I am going to do without them.

p.s. precious moment! I was sitting with Tater on the steps, joking around with him. Then he started punching me over and over, really hard. I said, "what are you doing, why are you hitting me." He responds in almost a squeal, "I just love you so much!" I felt instant kinship with this little 13 year-old, because not only do I love him dearly but generally express my love in a similar fashion. I understand what it feels like to love someone so much that you can do nothing else but hit them....or bite them:)

4. WATER PARK! We took the kids, and the English classes to the water park in the city! Holy Cow! I have never seen our kids so overjoyed! Every single child was nearly coming out of there skin when we arrived. We rented two large trucks, all the English students rode in the back. This was so comical to me, we would have been arrested for this type of transport in the US. Then our kids followed in the van. Sam, the Carsons oldest, when I arrived shortly after him. He shouted from the van. "Auntie! Were here!" Then pumped his fist Rambo style in victory! We played from 8-3 in the afternoon. We had to pull a few of the older boys out of the water. The park was really nice for Cambodia. They had 3 huge slides that the tiny little kids rocketed down. Everyone went time and time again. Truly a day full of JOY! I left with a sunburn and migraine..some of the kids were very confused about why I had suddenly turned red. I did my best to explain. Fun day had by all. Water Park pictures are above. The one of the tiny kid eating a red blob, that Long and he is munching on a chicken heart for lunch.....I was amazed:) All the kids say its the best part:) Oh and the peace sign plagues my pictures...I don't know what it is about Asian teenagers and the peace sign..Stephanie Whisman this was mention specifically for you:)

5. I had a wonderful conversation with Ream a few nights back! The Lord is so insane! He connects his body in ways we can't even imagine. I was talking with her about how things were going and how the Lord was moving. She told me that she had been having a rough time before I arrived. She was over-worked and stressed and prayed to the Lord for relief. She told me stories about how Satan has relentlessly attacked them through broken friendships and relationships. She said, "What we really need is a friend." Then during my quite time I was reading through past journals and stumbled upon an entry right before I left for Cambodia. I was reflecting on a sermon I had heard a CRU, based off of the loaves and fishes story. The preacher highlighted that God first ask the disciples, "what do you have to offer?" and then he performed a miracle with there offerings. The Lord ask me this question before I left. I responded, nothing, I have no skills, no degree, I don't know the language, I have no idea what I have to offer. Then I jokingly wrote, "I am good at being a really good friend." Shut-up Jesus!!! Are you serious? Did you take the one talent that I seem to have and use that specifically on the mission field....um yes you did! I praise you father for your work! How you choose to use even the most under qualified to complete your good work. I am so excited to continue my relationship with Kit and Ream in the future, not to mention to be a part of these children life as long as I can. I have already planned my next visit around Channee, one of our older boys, weddings:) He has a crush on the neighbor girl:)