Friday, July 30
Thanks to the insight of 25 high schoolers from LA currently volunteering with us, I've realized that the word for thank you - accune - is very similar to 'hacuna', as in hacuna matata... we've been singing Lion King for over a week... this has to stop! (But they haven't forgotten to say thanks to staff and villagers, so its a mixed blessing!)
These are pics from my first-ever retreat. It was so cheap and fantastic and necessary... more work pics in a minute... if the internet cooperates.
These are pics from my first-ever retreat. It was so cheap and fantastic and necessary... more work pics in a minute... if the internet cooperates.
Monday, July 12
Its another rainy afternoon and I've pulled my comfy chair up to my open door to smell and see the rain better. I like rainy season so much better – my clothes haven't had problems drying like everyone said – and am already dreading dry season that's still 4 months away. It did just occur to me that my shirt I hung out to dry earlier is still out there, so in this case, yes, my clothes do take longer to dry! Oops.
I can smell Ming Tan grilling bananas next door, and I can hear some neighborhood kids playing with the whistles they've gotten from somewhere. I wonder if the team today made it out to the site without getting too wet riding in the back of the covered truck. I have 2 of the airport runs today, so I won't join them until tomorrow.
After being able to just be still and rest at the beach this past weekend, I don't have a new big vision or answers to my questions, but I do have a renewed passion. For making each encounter, each trip to a village, intentional. And its hard, I've seen it already today, because you are stuck in either routine or truthfully not really caring about every person you see. You can't just make a conscious decision to be a nice person, your heart has to change so that out of the overflow of your heart your mouth and your body language speak. Otherwise you fail after 1 day and call it quits because its hard. But to only accomplish easy things in life doesn't seem that fulfilling – its the harder things that give us a greater return or greater reminder that we can accomplish so much more than we ever think we can.
I'm inspired by a lady here this week that nervously said she's been working at pushing herself – doing things like riding a zip line on a family vacation and now serving for 2 weeks with us here in Cambodia. (Sidenote: obviously I'm sitting here on the internet and drinking a sweet tea, so the level at which people rough it here is a sliding scale. If you've seen any of my pictures you know we're not in the jungle... but we can send you there if you want.) She said the anticipation is always worse than the actual thing, and I would agree. Do not fear is said over 200 times in the Good Book, which says 2 things: we're going to have fear, and don't let it control you. Try new things! Help someone! Play in the rain with your kids even if your neighbors are watching or you have a meeting later! Let me show you true need and the fight to survive, and maybe it'll help your fear of failing, or not having enough money, or that others will laugh at you fade away.
I'm blessed.
I can smell Ming Tan grilling bananas next door, and I can hear some neighborhood kids playing with the whistles they've gotten from somewhere. I wonder if the team today made it out to the site without getting too wet riding in the back of the covered truck. I have 2 of the airport runs today, so I won't join them until tomorrow.
After being able to just be still and rest at the beach this past weekend, I don't have a new big vision or answers to my questions, but I do have a renewed passion. For making each encounter, each trip to a village, intentional. And its hard, I've seen it already today, because you are stuck in either routine or truthfully not really caring about every person you see. You can't just make a conscious decision to be a nice person, your heart has to change so that out of the overflow of your heart your mouth and your body language speak. Otherwise you fail after 1 day and call it quits because its hard. But to only accomplish easy things in life doesn't seem that fulfilling – its the harder things that give us a greater return or greater reminder that we can accomplish so much more than we ever think we can.
I'm inspired by a lady here this week that nervously said she's been working at pushing herself – doing things like riding a zip line on a family vacation and now serving for 2 weeks with us here in Cambodia. (Sidenote: obviously I'm sitting here on the internet and drinking a sweet tea, so the level at which people rough it here is a sliding scale. If you've seen any of my pictures you know we're not in the jungle... but we can send you there if you want.) She said the anticipation is always worse than the actual thing, and I would agree. Do not fear is said over 200 times in the Good Book, which says 2 things: we're going to have fear, and don't let it control you. Try new things! Help someone! Play in the rain with your kids even if your neighbors are watching or you have a meeting later! Let me show you true need and the fight to survive, and maybe it'll help your fear of failing, or not having enough money, or that others will laugh at you fade away.
I'm blessed.
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