Hello everyone, and welcome to my new blog platform. I hope you found this alright. It’s been a while since I have posted which I apologize about but it has just been really busy and writing blogs are low on my priority list. But our time in Cambodia is coming to an end and I wanted to update you all. If you were wondering how I am feeling about leaving Cambodia, just know that there have been a tremendous amount of tears. I am so sad to leave this place and these people. Although we’ve only been here for 2.5 months, it feels like home and I am going to miss these people dearly. We have been working with the same kids in 4 different villages for this whole time and I don’t want to leave. I’m starting to cry just writing this. I cry every time we say goodbye to a different village because I love all these kids so much. If you know me you know I love people and places very deeply and hate saying goodbye. For a while I thought being sad was a bad thing. Crying was a bad thing. But I’ve been learning that it’s ok to be sad about leaving things you love. It means you loved well and fully gave it your all.  So although it pains my heart to leave these kids, I know it means I loved hard. But anyways, let’s focus on the good things that have been happening. To begin with 3 people got baptized!!! A grandmother and grandson in the village who are spreading the love of the Lord so much in their community.  The grandmother goes around and talks to people about Jesus and has led nearly 35 people to believe in Jesus. It is still really difficult for people to leave Buddhism, which makes sense, but they now know about God and believe that he is real. And then the Grandson, who was adopted by this women when he was 7 months old, has his friends over to his house and tells them Bible stories. They are making an impact. In their community. They got baptized which was incredible. And then our bus driver, who has been driving to the village this whole time, slowly started listening in on our teachings and sings the songs and plays the games with the kids also got baptized and that was exciting. That is one thing that has happened. We also  got to form such strong  bonds with the children in the village. Although very little words are exchanged, the love is deeper than I have ever experienced in such a short amount of time. Over the past 2 months we had a group of 5-8 kids in each village that we met with every week and I got to know those specific kids well. Specifically in Tuesday village. I had 5 13-15 year old girls who knew enough English that we were able to have short conversations and could express that we loved each other. They would come give me hugs when we would leave and say “I love you teacher”. Saying goodbye to those girls was so hard because they hung around for a while when we were packing and would just continue to give me hugs. Multiple were crying and telling me they miss me, tenses aren’t really a thing in Khmer. I was alone the other night, rare thing on the world race, thinking about how much I loved these kids. I feel it in my whole body. And I had the realization that that’s how the Lord views each of us x a billion. I barely know these kids but God knows everything about us, so how much more does he love us. I’ve also known that God loved me but didn’t have much to compare the love too. I’ve heard people talk about it and always say, once you have kids you start to understand it, and through these children I have a better understanding of how strong Gods love is for us.

It’s so hard for me to think of what to share. Words don’t do justice of what the village is like. Life is much simpler. This past month has been the kids summer break, so they are out of school and just play with their friends and cousins all day long, if they are not needed in the rice fields. It’s also been rice harvesting season so a lot of our older students haven’t been coming regularly. And if you aren’t in the rice fields, you are watching your younger siblings. The kids all have much more responsibilities at a younger age, than we do back in the states. We all talk about how we like Khmer kids much more than American kids. They are much politer and don’t complain. I’m sorry American teachers. You can come to Cambodia. You’d get paid about the same you already do and cost of living is cheaper. Sorry, that was a bad joke, I’m praying for you all. Anyways, we spent 4 days in one of the villages, and camped at the public elementary school. The village chiefs daughter studies with us so we have a good relationship with him. The first day after teaching we came back to the school and a group of boys came to see what we were doing and we asked them if they wanted to play soccer. So they rode their bikes away and went to get a ball. We played barefoot soccer on the dirt for hours. We played worship music over the speaker, set up two goals made of bricks and through our very limited Khmer, and their limited English we set up necru, teachers, vs them. So it was 4v4, the boys were around 10 years old and play soccer daily, and 4 18 year old girls who have little too no soccer experience, I pulled out some skills from SYSA, and we got destroyed. We were all laughing the whole time. Eventually we convinced them to have one of their players on our team. After a few hours we all got tired and had to eat our dinner. After dinner we set up a projector and played the Jesus film for the kids to come and watch. We had over 80 kids come to watch. The next day we woke up to 3 little girls dancing around our tents, playing games and singing. After breakfast we were doing Bible study and the girls just came and sat next to us and were quietly listening. The next evening we showed the Jesus film in a different village and came back to the school and had a fire. We were roasting marshmallows and the chief and assistant chief came to check that everything was going well at the school and we fed them a toasted marshmallow. They were so confused and it was so funny. We all really enjoyed staying in the village because it was so calm, quiet and peaceful. I wish we stayed longer.

I want to thank you to each and everyone of you who donated towards the Christmas Boxes. Each kid who comes regularly got the whole pack back of goodies, and two school uniforms, which was close to 250 bags. And because we raised nearly double the money needed, the kids who don’t come regularly or came for the first time also got a full backpack. I believe total, we gave out around 350 Christmas gifts, and we were able to add more things to all the gifts. So thank you all. I made a video of all the Christmas parties and the pure joy each child had about the gifts. They screamed and shook with joy when each item was shown. My friends and I were talking and we were saying if a child gets that excited about getting a bar of soap, some shampoo, even a 10 cent water bottle, I will give them all my money. They can have it all for the amount of gratitude they had. How frequently do I take for granted that I have things to wash my body with. So thank you all for financially providing so these kids can get these gifts. I will try to put the video below and if not the video is on my instagram and Facebook.

We are heading to Thailand on the 3rd and spend a week there, debriefing Cambodia, and just get to explore some of Thailand. And then we head to South Africa. If you know me closely, you know change is really hard for me, so pray that this transition goes smoothly. These goodbyes will be hard but that means I loved well here.

I love you Cambodia, I will come back.

Thank you for reading, another blog should come soon, as we process our time in Cambodia.

Sorry Papa, I will do better about posting more. 

Lauren