Brave

I will jump into what we did this past weekend.  Saturday was a busy day and drained us pretty quickly.  First, we went to the National Museum.  A group of us kind of breezed right through it.  There were many similar statues representing Buddhism and Hinduism.  It all started looking the same to me.  Don’t get me wrong, I love museums…but it wasn’t very exciting for me. We walked to a restaurant called Friends.  The owners teach street kids a restaurant trade that they can learn and have a successful future.  Aaron said we could order tarantula and bugs there.  I decided before I ever left the U.S. that I would not touch or even eat a bug or spider!! The waitress brought a bowl with 3 live tarantulas to our table.  I cringed at the sight of them sitting there.  A few of my teammates, who barely think twice about doing strange things, just picked them up and let them walk around in their hand. 

I was shocked when I let the words “OK, I’ll hold it” came out of my mouth.  It really wasn’t as terrifying as I envisioned.  It was soft and just walked slowly through my hands.  I think I was still panicking a little inside.  I even got the courage to eat a tarantula leg!  It was crunchy, a little salty, and hard to swallow.  A couple others even ate bugs, but I stopped at the spider.

Next, we went to the Russian Market.  I have been looking forward to going to buy some gifts and souvenirs. One thing we discovered quickly was the Russian Market is H-O-T!!! Outside in Phmom Penh is hot but inside where all the vendors are packed like sardines and no airflow takes the heat to a whole new level.  I did have the most amazing iced coffee, though.  They like to put in condensed milk to give it that extra sweetness.  I had fun haggling to get a good price on gifts. 

  

Last, we went to the Royal Palace.  I wish I could say I was really impressed but I certainly did not think it was worth $6. The buildings were interesting.  We saw several Buddha statues where people would bow down and pray.  It was so sad to see as they were putting all their hope and belief in this false god.  I wanted to tell all of them there is a God who is alive and He loves them!  The coolest part about visiting the palace was seeing monkeys.  There was a building under construction and all these monkeys were on the scaffolding just looking out at us.  They were so cute!!! We got home early evening and were so exhausted that we put in a movie and crashed! 

Our plans for church on Sunday was to visit a traditional Khmer church.  It is the church that Vibol, our tuk tuk driver, goes to.  They do a lot of filming there so he called to tell us church was cancelled.  My team and I decided to get together for a devotional and debriefing time.  Each Sunday at 4:00, the school we teach at has a church service in English.  Many missionary families attend and students from the school.  This week, we had communion and a fellowship time afterwards.  They were having “Fuh”.  They called it “Fuh”lowship…Get It? LOL! It is like a soup with noodles and meats and tends to be a favorite of the locals and tourists.  I have to say that I am not a fan.  I certainly am missing Western food.  The first meal I will want when I get back into the states will definitely be Mexican and a Mountain Dew! 

Monday was a bit of a rough day for me.  I did not want to get out of bed, or be at school that day.  Several of my students speaks very little English, and so they usually spend their time bothering one another.  They are a very chatty group as well, so it made it frustrating to try to teach something that they didn’t seem to care about.  We also had a long day and I think I was just in a mood.  But school went very well and they kids did a much better job at listening.  Most of them are use to me now and me them so we have fun and are silly together.  Between school and VBS, we went to visit another school where we will be teaching at a few days a week.  There, I am teaching the preschoolers and helping with a 7^th grade class.  I still love seeing the VBS kids.  Even though there are over 150 kids that come everyday, the same ones that I have a connection with will still find me and I continue to form new connections each time. 

Today, we travelled to New Life School.  The preschoolers are learning the letter Rr this week, so we made rainbows with fruit loops and practiced writing sight words with rainbow writing.  They are so adorable.  Most students call us teacher and they are in awe when they see white people.  All they want to do is hug you and waveJ I want to take them all home with me!!!

Prayer Requests:  Pray that God will continue to give us rest and energy to love on the kids and to shine for Him.  Strength for one of my teammates.  She hasn’t been feeling well the last couple of days.  As returning home approaches, I don’t lose focus of why I am here.

I love you all! 

Blessings,

B