Hello Everyone! It has been a couple of weeks since I have last posted but I am back and am trying to post more regularly. We have officially been in Cambodia for a month and I love it. I really had no expectations of the country or what my daily life would look like, and because of that I couldn’t of been let down in any way. When you set expectations low they are easy to exceed. But I truly do love it here. The people, the city of Siem Reap, the ministry we are doing, my living conditions. Honestly, if I could learn Khmer (the language they speak in Cambodia) I’d consider living here sometime in my life. 

Here is a quick update of what’s happening to in Squad K in Cambodia right now. We spent 3 weeks doing different ministries all in Siem Reap (my team along with another team drove up to Angkor Chum which is 1.5 hours north to work in the villages). Anyways, we just split up for the next month. One girls team is going about 3 hours away to work in a preschool, one guys team is in Kampot which was a 12 hour bus ride and they are doing soccer ministry. The other boys team is about 2 hours away teaching English (I think). And then three girls teams are left in Siem Reap. One team is living at a church, one team is living at the base, and we are living in a house by the base and going up to Angkor Chum everyday and I will explain our ministry in a bit. This month is our month to just be as a team, team manna, and fully focus on our team and ministy. I love my team and have already seen so much growth and their will continue to be more.

Now for the ministy that we do everyday as a team. The main host organization that we are working with is called New Day New Life and they are a Christian organization that does different things around Siem Reap but primarily teaches English and the bible to kids in 4 different villages in the Angkor Chum district. If you read last blog I was explaining this a bit and how we weren’t doing anything while we were there but things changed. Every Friday we lesson plan for what we will teach in the village (one village a day so we only plan one thing for the whole week). We get a bible story and have to come up with ways to share it with the kids. We come up with games and songs to teach them. The current songs we are teaching them is Father Abraham in both English and Khmer and Joy to the World in Khmer. Next week I want to teach “My God is so big, so strong and so mighty. There’s nothing my God cannot do” Anyways, this is how a day of teaching usually goes. Get there and Peach, the amazing Khmer teacher, teaches the kids English letters and their sounds while they work on letter worksheets. After the kids are divided into groups based on age/skill level and get put with one of us and we get about 15 minutes to go over letters with them in any way that we want. We also are teaching directions such as up, down, front, back, And are teaching them body parts. These kids speak very little English and we speak even less Khmer but we make it work and it is absolutely incredible. We have 4-7 kids in our group in each village and that will be our group for the next four weeks so we will be able to build off of what we previously worked on. Another part that I am working really hard on is remember their names. We’ve been told that the kids love it when people remember their names, I mean who doesn’t love when someone calls you by your name after only meeting once, so I took videos of them all saying their name so I can practice and hopefully have them memorized by next week. (I’m posting this on Friday and I currently have 16/19 kids names remembered) I have the older kids in both villages so far and they are so funny and sweet. I will try to see If I can get a picture of us together next week. But my dreams of being a teacher are coming true and it couldn’t be better, I mean maybe a bit easier if we spoke the same language, but still amazing. 

We have been in Cambodia for a month and a lot of growth has occurred. Every Monday we do these things called journey markers and they are questions we get each week to answer and send back to coaches and leadership so they can see how we are doing and this weeks was all about looking back at this month and preparing for this coming month. I thought I would share my answer to a couple of them because I think it will give you a bit of an insight into what has been going on for me. 

The first question was where have we seen the most growth in ourselves over the past month. An area of growth I’ve seen is allowing myself to feel my emotions. I’ve been learning a lot about emotions and what the Lord thinks of them and how he uses them. So instead of when I’m really sad for someone, or about a situation, I don’t try to hide my tears or get them to stop, but allow myself to feel and express them and so many people have told me that it makes them feel so seen and loved because of how much I care by allowing my emotions to show. So even if it means crying quite often, I will do it because I can’t stop the emotions from coming but I can work on how to steward them in a way that glorifies the Lord. Another question was what I am asking the Lord for this month and my answer is a better memory. I want to be remember the kids name in my group. I want to be able to remember different phrases in Khmer to better communicate with them. And to be able to remember bible verses to be able to share with people when fit. So that is what I am working on this month. 

Now one more thing. Christmas is coming and the ministry we are working with is making gift boxes for each of the students. The boxes include a new public school uniform, notebooks, bible coloring books, colored pencils, pens, hygiene products, noodles and some treats. Here is a picture of the box. Each box costs $20 so we are trying to fundraise so each kid that regularly comes to school in the village, which is 300 students, can get a box for Christmas. So if you would like to help my students get a gift this year you can Venmo me @LKLafferty and I will give the money to the organization here. I can’t even express to you how much I love these kids and how sweet they all are. If you are looking to give this holiday season this is a great place to. I know and love these kids that the gifts are going to and am so excited for them to get these gifts. 

I love you all and want to thank you for your continues support. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments below or can direct message me either through a social media or my phone number if you have it. Or my parents.

With Love, Lauren

This is the only picture I could find without kids faces in them. I am still trying to figure out if I can post their faces. If so, I will post just a pictures blog soon.