I yearn to fall in love with being uncomfortable.
Yesterday a huge frog jumped out of the packing cube I keep my clean clothes in. Last night I couldn’t fall asleep because it was so hot that my sleeping pad, mosquito net, and shorts clung to my sticky skin. The dim light in our room went out on the second day, so after 6:00 pm we do everything in the dark. I wake up at 3:30 am, stumble to the squatty potties, and brush my teeth while wolf spiders watch me from the walls. I eat rice, mystery meat, and eggs for every meal. I am startled from sleep at 1:00 am because the dogs that live here like to bark and howl for fifteen minutes each morning. We cannot close our door because it’s our main source of ventilation for the room we sleep in, so we cover the opening with a mosquito net. We sleep on thin pads and find fire ants in them some days. Mosquito nets keep out some bugs…but not all.
But I also teach camp songs to kids (“there was a moose//and he drank a lot of juice!”) and watch them sing with pure joy shining out of their faces. We play a game where they say something in their language (Khmer, pronounced Kuhmai) and I repeat it–I usually give up and just shout “chong chong chong!” and they laugh and tell me “good job, Leelee!” I chase them around bushes and when I catch them I twirl them around until we can barely stand. I fall asleep laughing until my stomach hurts every night as the girls in my room try to figure out the best way to position our single, stationary floor fan so everyone gets some air. I rest better here than I do at home, despite the early sunrises and the howling dogs and the heat. Everything is calmer here–despite the lack of comfort, there is a peace and a strength that suffuses everything we do. The children here are content in a way I have never seen before–they love, and they love, and they love, and that is enough.
I meet Jesus each morning and marvel in His promise: My mercies are new. I ask him to open my hands each day and practice letting go of anything that holds me back–my need for comfort being one of those things. At the beginning of this trip I asked him to wreck me, to break me, to completely change me, and He has already started. I am in awe of my Jesus and I am falling in love with being uncomfortable.
