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.)