Days 5 and 6!

Sunday means Church Day! We got to attend New Life Fellowship Church. First we went to the children's church, where we helped them hand out snacks. (By the way, their snack was a 'sandwich' of sweetened condensed milk between 2 pieces of bread. Maybe this should have been sad to me, but it was hilarious watching some of the kids open up the bread and just lick the milk out of the middle. I can totally see my kids doing that!) One of the pastors told us about all the ministries they do in the community, providing schooling and English classes, food and other ministries to the slums and the garbage dump folks. Very inspiring. We performed a few songs and a skit for the children and then just got to sit and listen to the rest of their service. It was so sweet to hear the kids worshiping and praying, even though we didn't understand any of it!

 One of my very favorite things about this day was speaking with one young man who was a teacher at the school. He talked to us about how he wanted to see his country change and especially to see this generation grow up knowing Christ. He said he believes that Jesus can do it and he asked us to keep praying for his country. Melt my little heart into a puddle. I just love this country and know I will be praying for them my whole life.

After kids' church, we got to attend 'big church' downstairs. It was wonderful to worship with them and thankfully a few of us got to hear the service translated through headphones. It was funny, part of his sermon was about not just focusing on church programs but on ministry and relationships, and I thought it would be perfectly applicable to a church in the States! I guess church problems are similar worldwide.

After church, we had one last family visit. Three of us got to visit with the adults, and the rest stayed downstairs with the kids. Now is a good time to talk about their houses. One of our team described them as treehouses, and that is just about right, at least in the villages. They usually have a couple of rooms downstairs, and then you climb up a wooden ladder to the top floor and it's like a treehouse. Also in the room where we met, they do sewing for the SHE home. That was really cool to see another direct impact of the ministry, especially since we had just spent so much money on that stuff the day before! Even though I know the conditions are still poor and I don't see how I could ever live there, in some ways on this day this house just seemed normal to me. They had such pride in their home and kept it clean and it just felt more like a cultural difference than a tragedy. Maybe that's also because we had such a great visit. I got to be with the adults, and two of the women were Christians and two were not. We talked to them about God's love, and the two non-Christians didn't really understand prayer so we spent some time explaining that. Then one of the Christian women just talked to us about how she loves to tell others about God and how happy she was that we were there. She said she knows that more people are coming to know God because of the foreign teams that have come in, and that was such a huge morale boost for us. She was just an encouragement all around. I asked her if it was ever hard or scary to share her faith, and she said no. What an example! I got to tell them too how God had put a special place in my heart for Cambodia and that I was praying for them. Best day ever. :)

When we were finished and went downstairs, the kids were playing duck-duck-goose and we watched them for a while longer. It was so fun to watch them run and play and just be kids. Later the kids' team told us they had talked about how God is always with them. At this point in the trip we were almost completely out of craft supplies so all we had left was some purple ribbon. They ended up making them 'reminder bracelets' with the ribbon so they would remember that God was with them. I don't think we had encountered or noticed this yet, but some of the kids were also wearing red bracelets which are for Buddhism, so it was actually really cool that they got to put on the purple ones.

The next day I already posted a little bit about. We spent some more time at Open Arms, did a ton of shopping at a place called Daughters (another cool ministry), and visited Empowering Cambodia. They do some awesome things in the provinces, from building water wells to providing education to microloans. In Phnom Penh, they have a sewing training program, which is where we visited. We had the opportunity for a couple of us to share testimonies and several of the women asked us to pray over them.

We had our last meal at Jars of Clay, then headed to the airport for the long trip home. It's a good thing I loved Cambodia, because the traveling was every bit as bad as I thought it would be. I think I counted it up and I spent almost 40 hours on planes in total. Movies and video games can only get you so far! Hopefully if/when I go back, I'll have someone with me so I can at least talk a little bit to pass the time! That's the last of the daily recaps, but no fear I still have plenty to tell about! And pictures, one of these days I'll get those in order and post them too. So far since I got home yesterday morning I've slept about 14 hours and still have lots of catching up to do. Thank goodness for cool rainy weather, perfect for napping. :) Also I just want to say a quick thank you so much to all those who prayed and supported me on this trip. I'm still working on an answer to "how was your trip?" that is less than 4,958 words long so for now you might just get "wonderful!" when you ask.