Hello!! I cannot believe we are already 6 days into our time in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. I have learned so much about my teammates, my self, Cambodian culture, and the wonderful people of Cambodia. We are serving at an orphanage in a village. I love the simplicity of village life. Mornings are slow and peaceful. My team and I eat breakfast together and then we complete whatever projects the orphanage needs done. Currently half of the team is painting a mural, while the other half works on lesson plans for teaching English to the kids. The children go to school Monday-Saturday from 7am-11am, and then they come home from 11am-2pm for lunch. After lunch and sometimes a nap, the big kids go back from 2pm-4pm and the little kids stay home.
After lunch, we typically go the orphanage and spend time with kids. We are helping our friend Courtney, who helps run the orphanage, paint the children’s beds black. Two days ago we walked over to help him, and about 10 minutes into painting it began raining. We looked outside in the front yard and some of the boys were playing soccer in the rain. I convinced my teammate Tylor to go with me and play, even though I know nothing about soccer. “Soccer” quickly turned into throwing mud at each other in the pouring rain. Even though I ruined my white shirt (oops) it was SO fun and I’ll never forget the laughs of the children as they slapped mud on my head. They would sling mud at us and then say “sorrrrrry” while laughing hysterically. I would let them sling mud at me anytime just to hear those belly laughs over and over again. Here is a picture of us after our mud fight!
So far I love that I don’t have to try and be someone I am not when I am here. The kids don’t care what I look like (or smell like, yikes) they just want to spend time together. I feel like I can just love like Jesus would and nothing else is expected of me. It is SO freeing, and I want to bring that concept home with me. I don’t want to be a person that spends more time picking out my outfit than I do loving my neighbor. I am also learning the importance of self-care. My leader Courtney has challenged all of us to spend our free time wisely and to use it for being filled up by God so we can overflow Jesus, rather than ourselves. The first few days I spent my free time with the kids because they are so cute!!!! But I could feel that I wasn’t overflowing Jesus, I was overflowing Megan, which doesn’t glorify Jesus or benefit anyone. Spending my free time in the word has been so refreshing and I could feel a distinct change in how I was able to love the people around me as a result.
Starting Monday we are going to be teaching English in the afternoons and I am so excited!! We still have some planning to do, but I am pumped to step into an opportunity to serve the Lord through teaching. Also, my team and I decided to only spend our off days on social media so we can be fully present and fully envelope ourselves in the culture. So hopefully I will post more next week!! Bye for now!
