Cambodia

This summer was yet another incredible Fuge experience for me. God provided many rich conversations with campers and staffers that opened my eyes to something that I used to know about myself but let it get lost in the shuffle of my "work" life. I LOVE missions. I love being involved with serving others and sharing the Gospel.

This summer, I also spent a lot of time in prayer about my missions track and especially the beach ministry times. I didn't know what to do for the beach ministry as I was piloting this. During these prayer times, God spoke and spoke in volumes. God reminded me that He called me to a missions when I was in high school. This call at the time was not a specific call to career missions but to a life focused on serving others and sharing His Word. But this summer, God called me to a more of a life of missions - to career missions. I don't know how God plans for this to look in my life but I know that He desires for me to follow Him to being a missionary instead of being a teacher (teaching could still be a path used to be a missionary but my focus will be on sharing the gospel).

During this summer, as I shared this with others and continued to pray about how God wanted me to follow him I knew that this call was to international missions and not to North American missions. Many asked where I felt called. At the time, my answer was "I don't know but that I would love to go to Cambodia." Since my short 2.5 day trip to Siem Reap Cambodia in February 2008, I have loved that place. When asked about my favorite trip, it was always my trip to Cambodia. Something happened when I was there, God gave me a heart for the people.

Since the summer ended, I have continued to seek God's direction of where to go next. I am considering seminary but I know that He is calling me away from teaching and that I will not be returning next year. This is a scary proposition even though I am very happy to be moving on past teaching (for many reasons but none that I need to share for this post) financially this can present a large hardship. I own my house and will need to either rent or sell it in order to cover my mortgage while also paying for school. But I am excited about this possible next chapter.

While seeking direction in where to go, Cambodia has continued to be on my mind. Not only that but my desire to go back to Siem Reap to share the name of Jesus with those beautiful people has grown exponentially. If I could, I would leave now. There are faces of people I met there that are burned into my mind. People that I want to do my best to share with them the riches of knowing Jesus even though they live in such poverty. I love Cambodia and pray that God will lead me back there one day.

I still do not know where I will be after May (well hopefully working another summer of Fuge so I guess after Aug), but I do know that I am following Christ as He leads me to a life surrendered to missions. It is my heart and my passion and I eagerly anticipate the changes coming to my life. No it is not going to be easy and at this point in the process it is easy to see the good and not see how difficult the change will truly be.

Last night, I took some time to read my reflections of Cambodia that I wrote for my blog in February 2008. They are very insightful because over the time I knew that I enjoyed my trip to Cambodia but I really did not remember how God had pricked my heart for those people while I was there.

A few highlights from those reflections are below:

"I left not really knowing anything about Cambodia but left Cambodia in love with the country. ... It seemed like a great place to live (just for the record, I'm not planning on moving there anytime in the near future)." Haha that is exactly what I'm planning on doing now :)

"I left Hong Kong not really knowing anything about Cambodia and what I learned was incredible. I really cannot put into words my feelings." Still not sure if I could put into words my feelings about this country.

"We had been looking at several groups of rocks, even rocks that had fallen and no longer look like any part of the temple. It was fun to take a break from it all. You could easily spend a week exploring the Angkor ruins but after two days I had had my fill for a while. I would willingly go back but it starts to get really repetitive after a while." I not only would willingly go back but am praying to go back but not to just look at rocks or Angkor temples to meet the people, to build relationships with them, to have conversations with them, and to share the name of Jesus with them.

"It reminded me though of how many orphans are in Cambodia. We saw several orphanages and even though I am excited to know that they are taking care of those children it still breaks my heart to know that there are so many." Orphanages are a place that I could work as a missionary. Maybe... It will be up to God where I go and what I do though.

"I have seen poverty in pictures my whole life but to see the pictures as reality completely changes your perspective. I have seen poverty in other places but this was just different to me. We were all moved by this experience. However, we were not sure how to respond. How do you respond to what you see without forcing our Western views and culture upon them?" I still don't have an answer to this but know that I want to share with them the riches of heaven. Oh God, I pray for the opportunity to return to this place to share with these beautiful people who you are and what you have done for them out of love for them. God I pray for direction of your will in my life.

"All in all it was a fantastic trip. A trip that I will not forget and a people group that I have developed a heart for. I really loved Cambodia..." If it isn't obvious in this post that I have developed a heart for these people then I guess I don't know what that means. What shocked me about this when I read this sentence last night, was that I didn't remember putting into words or realizing at that time (right after returning) that God had given me heart for the people. I only remember loving the place and being moved by the poverty and the way they lived their lives relaxed and happy amongst such poverty. God is good and I know He has a purpose and plan in all of this. I just pray that I will follow him and not let my selfish ambitions get in the way of following HIM.