Newt wearing my shoes
Swim day
Working on a collaboration with The Greatest Missionary Rapper Ben Norcia
Angkor Wat
Doug, Malachi, Ceciley, and me sighting land up ahead
Hey everyone! Cambodia update time! As of today we only have a little over a week left here until we head to Eswatini. Wow! Time truly has flown by! The past couple weeks have been incredible and I can’t wait for you to read about them. Enjoy!
Angkor Wat:
A couple weeks ago on one of our adventure days we went to Angkor Wat, which is a wonder of the world. Cambodia is a pretty poor country and isn’t known for much, but one thing people will come to see from all over the world is Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is the name of a group of ancient temples close to Siem Reap. One of the girls teams that’s two hours away came down to come see it and so most of my team, our squad leaders the Swans, and members from two of the other girls teams from the squad that are relatively close to the area came to all explore it together. In all we walked through four of the temples. I walked through each of the temples looking fly in my MJ Bulls jersey I found at the night market and my Jordan kicks. The temples were truly spectacular! Almost as spectacular as how I looked. I decided to give all of them names to differentiate them. First we walked through and around Sun Temple. I call it that because we left super early in the morning to get to Angkor Wat earlier and be able to see everything without getting hit by the heat of the day and so we saw the sunrise at that temple. Then there was monkey temple, which was my favorite temple to walk through. Why your favorite you ask? Because there were monkeys everywhere! I had so much fun watching the monkeys run around, wrestle, and jump around on the temple walls. Two of the girls from the squad even got the monkeys to come to them and climb on them. It started out great until one monkey got violent with one of the girls and she had to get it off. Then we walked through Temple Run temple. That temple was the smallest we walked through, but I dubbed it Temple Run temple because it reminded me of that game with it’s long entry bridge thing like the entry bridge thing at the beginning of that game. Then we walked through the final temple-tree temple. That temple was the most incredible of the 4 we walked through. There were massive trees all in and around the temple that had grown up through the temple and were slowly destroying it. It was beautiful and really showed the power of God’s creation. Overall, our day of touring Angkor Wat was so much fun and awesome to see God’s creation and also the beauty of human creation, which we get from God.
Ministry:
Something I forgot to mention in my previous blog was that in addition to kids ministry and construction we also do Bible studies with some of the older ladies in the villages we serve in. This past week we got to witness more baptisms and two of the five baptized were from one of the Bible studies we help with. One of the others baptized was the guy that drives us to ministry every day, So Viet. That baptism was incredible to witness because I knew three of the five that were baptized, and getting to see them take the next step in their faith and get baptized and declare that they know and love Jesus was just so beautiful. What’s truly so amazing that I’ve seen in every country we’ve been in so far, including Cambodia, is that people are hungry for the Gospel and it’s spreading like wildfire. Individual to individual, family to family, it’s spreading and people are being reconciled to their Creator and Father. And that is one of the most beautiful things you could ever witness. Something else we’ve been doing lately in ministry has been doing skits for the kids based on their Bible lesson for the day. That’s always super fun. We’ve done skits on Rahab and the spies, Elijah and the prophets of Baal, and Job. In my last blog I mentioned that John was trying to start a swim program for the kids. Praise the Lord 1800 of the 2000 dollar goal has been raised! That means we’ve been able to host two swim days so far and we have one more to go. We hosted one last week and one yesterday and have one more coming up this week on Monday. What we did was each of us had three to six kids we had to teach to swim and also keep track of to make sure they didn’t drown. A lot of the kids did know swim basics already, but there were also others that have never swam before and it’s been a true privilege to teach them the valuable skill of swimming. Even for those that can swim, they still have a blast. Most of the kids have never been to Siem Reap, the city we took them for the lessons, and most if not all have never been in a pool before either. None of the kids have swim clothes either. They just wear their normal clothes to swim in. So what was cool was getting to be part of teaching some of them to swim and giving all of them one of the funnest days they’ll ever have in their lives. Most of these kids will never again leave their village and likely won’t have day of fun swimming like that again. I don’t know if you guys remember, but our ministry in Vietnam was with college students. The last week we were in Vietnam one of our students that was a nonbeliever accepted Christ! I got a text last weekend from one of our hosts telling me that she was growing in her faith and that almost all the other nonbelievers in my group are drawing closer to the Lord as well. It was such an encouraging reminder that the Lord is working throughout the world saving, reconciling, healing, and furthering His beautiful Kingdom. Sometimes we’ll get the privilege to see and be part of that process, and sometimes we’ll never see or even hear of it but the Lord does it anyway. The Lord and His Kingdom are so much bigger than we’ll ever know.
Adventures in Cambodia:
One of my favorite experiences here has been going to the night market by the river. It’s a really cool place where there are multiple streets of vendors selling everything from paintings to shirts to bracelets to weird things like dead scorpions in bottles. It’s so much fun to just go and walk around and look at everything. One thing I did last week which was a big life decision was that I got a tattoo! It’s the word beloved in Greek surrounded by a crown of thorns. I decided to get it for two reasons. One because it’s a good reminder to me that I’m loved by the Lord and of my identity in Christ as His beloved. The second reason was because I know people often ask about tattoos and I can easily go into my testimony and the Gospel with a question like that about my tattoo.
Spiritual growth:
The Lord has been working mightily in my life throughout my time here just as I got the feeling He would. One thing that He’s been helping me to learn is to manage my time better. That is someone I struggled with before the Race a lot and also something I really struggled with in Vietnam too. The Lord has also continued to grow me in believing and living in my identity in Christ. He’s also continually reminded me that He loves me and that I need to really believe that and live that out because only when I do can I love others well as I’m called to. I’ve also learned to enjoy ministry and do my best in it even though our ministry here isn’t what I’m gifted in or passionate about. The final big thing the Lord has grown me in the past couple weeks has been my approach to prayer and hearing from Him. I’ve struggled with that most of the race and my life. I’ve struggled with a lot of doubt and fear that the Lord would actually speak to me and that’s been really hard when on the race we’re encouraged to be hearing from the Lord and seeking words for others from Him. Recently though, God has taught me a couple things in this struggle. One is that I need to stop comparing how I hear from the Lord to how others do and wanting their prayer lives. It’s not bad to want to have more intimacy with the Father, but it’s not ok to covet others’ relationships with the Lord. Plus God speaks to me in other awesome ways and I need to be grateful for those ways and my unique relationship with Him and press into those things more instead of trying to be like others. The second thing the Lord has taught me in all this was that He does speak to me. He does through Scripture and through other believers and sometimes through music and other things too. He also speaks to me more in prayer than I originally thought. Sometimes it’s a thought I wouldn’t have had on my own. Sometimes it’s a reminder of something in the Word or to pray for someone. He does speak to me though. And more often than I thought. Sometimes I just don’t realize it’s Him. Thirdly and most importantly of the three, God reminded me that I need to not be focusing so much on trying to hear from the Lord every time I go to pray. Instead I should just go and spend time with Him like I would a best friend. Talk to Him and yes, listen too, but also just sit with Him and enjoy His presence. The Lord has definitely been teaching me a lot recently and it’s been incredible!
Thanks for reading! Until next time,
Luke
