Sunday, April 19, 2009

Snails, Ants, and Fish Eggs

This past week was Khmer New Year. During the holiday, everything shuts down in the city and everyone goes to their home province. My housemate Tabi and I went with our Cambodian housemates to their home for the holiday. It was a lot of fun! I loved waking up in the morning to the rooster crowing and pigs snorting. All the food we ate was SO fresh...maybe a little too fresh. Tabi accidentally walked behind the house one day and saw the chicken being killed for the next meal.

(My housemates' niece drawing wonderful scribbles in my notebook.)

While I was there I left everyone for a day and went to visit one of my Bible College students in a nearby village. He took me to meet his pastor and many people from the church. We had to eat at each place. The first house cooked eel, frogs and snails for dinner but I was only served snails (I am grateful because I don't know if my stomach could have handled all three at once). Later I was also served ant soup and fish eggs.

(Eating snails!)

The church that I visited seems to be really growing and it was amazing listening to the reports on how God is changing peoples lives. They just had a special youth meeting where all the youth were filled with the Holy Spirit -- praise God! The sad part is that I saw a lot of people still clinging to their cultural spiritual traditions. It broke my heart to go visit one house that had two spirit houses and a big table set up in front filled with food to offer to the angels.

Overall, my time in Takeo province was so refreshing -- spiritually, physically and mentally. It was so nice to be able to be in the country and just be surrounded by nature and find quite places where I could be alone to pray and meditate on God's Word. I did not want to come home, but now that I am, I feel ready to start back at work with a renewed purpose.

(While at my housemates house, we made a tasty Cambodian dessert which is kind of like a macaroon. I helped clean the banana leaves and fold them. They then stuffed with fresh coconut surrounded by a dough and then we cooked them. They were so delicious.)

Saturday, April 11, 2009

A Sad Conclusion

This week I finished teaching at the Bible College. We had our last class on Tuesday which consisted of a pizza party and the sharing of testimonies in English. It was awesome! Then on Thursday I had the honour of attending the graduation ceremony. I walked down the isle amongst the ranks of teachers instead of students. It felt really strange and cool at the same time. I really enjoyed teaching English at the Bible College. It was such an awesome opportunity to encourage and challenge the future leaders of this nation to deeper heights in their relationship with God. I will really miss my students.

(A group shot of my class!)

Monday, April 6, 2009

Sunday, April 5, 2009

What a friend we have in Jesus

This week one of my housemates was giving me a mini guitar lesson. She likes older music and so one of the songs that we started to play was "What a friend we have in Jesus" but while we were playing it the lyrics really struck me:


What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry, everything to God in prayer.
Oh what peace we often forfeit. O what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer.


It's just sooo very true!