Dear Cambodia
You’ve wrecked me. I left your soil just over 2.5 years ago, yet
my heart remains broken for you. My feet
yearns for the day that they will walk upon your land once again. My eyes cannot wait to look upon the beautiful
faces of your people. My soul is restless, begging me to return to you and
share with you, the hope in which you have renewed in me. I’ll be honest- I never thought I would fall
in love with you in the way that I have.
Truth be told, at the time I thought you were ‘just another country’ in
South East Asia. A country in which I had
to spend time in before returning to the red soils of Africa.
Isn’t that how God works
though? Revealing Himself to us in ways we sometimes least expect it? Ironic isn’t it? That you, Cambodia, were the
one country in which I spent 2 months in?
Cambodia, I miss walking
among your streets; taking in the many sites and smells. I miss buying fresh pineapple for 10 cents
from local vendors and walking among the rice fields. As the rain hits the ground outside my home
here in Canada, I recall sitting beneath the shadows of palm trees, sipping
fresh coconut milk while enjoying the company of the local people. Oh the lengths I’d go for a roadside
smoothies consisting of dragon fruit/pineapple and apples and to taste a deep
friend banana for breakfast once again. Playing
hide n seek among a Buddhist temple (opps!) and even hearing off tune karaoke…praying
that it would end, now becomes a moment in which I yearn for. Waking up early, reviewing the English lesson
for the morning and then finishing up the day with worship, songs and
testimonies from local Khmer university students, renewed my soul in a powerful
way. Time spent with my Phnom Penh Cambodian
contacts, turned family, at “Beautiful Feet” dorm, are precious precious
moments that I will forever be grateful for.
Words cannot express how they changed the course of my life in 3 short
weeks. To Ango, Asui and Kaka…thank
you. From the bottom of my heart, with
everything that I got, thank you so very much.
Your friendship, your mentorship, means the world to me.
Is this all Ironic? Coincidence?
Perhaps a ‘freak thing’ that the one country that I had to spend two months in,
is the one country in which I yearn to return to the most?
Or is it a part of God’s
continual plan to break my heart for what breaks His?
Cambodia through you, God
began to begin to stir a passion deep within me, not only for a foreign land
and its people, but a future career as well. Yes Cambodia, it is because of
those two months of teaching English to your people, that God revealed another
calling within my life, to me. A calling that came full circle in just over a
year, when God led me back to Zambia to teach English. February 18, 2014 while I was in the middle
of my second month teaching English to local Cambodian university students, I journal the line, “I want to use my TESOL to be able to go back to
Zambia, and teach at Seeds of Hope.” May 1, 2015 I found myself back at Seeds of Hope at
the start of a 3 month term of teaching English. So Cambodia, today is April 16, 2016 and I
cannot help but wonder at what point I will look back upon this entry and
realize that it has once again come ‘full circle’.
James 2:14-19 says, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have
faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If
one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does
nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by
action, is dead. But someone will
say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my
deeds. You
believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder."
Cambodia, you are no longer
simply a place on the map to check off that I have been too…rather you have
become a ‘home away from home’ and one day I will return. More so, now that I have seen, I know that I am
responsible. I know that my faith also
requires action. I know that it will be
a few years yet before I return, but know that God is preparing me during this
season of my life to better able to serve HIM among your people and your land.
You have captured my
heart, Cambodia, in a very unique way. You’ve
captured my heart in a way that I thought only Zambia would ever hold. I don’t know when God will lead me back to
you, but I am praying and believing that He will…all in His due time. Until that day; know that I am praying for
you. That God will continue to move
through you and your people; to bring darkness into light, bringing about rescue
and restoring justice in places of injustice.
Until that day we meet again, I promise I will continue to do all that I
can right here and right now, trusting God each and every step of the way.
