So many things have seemed to relate ever since I came back from Cambodia. We had FISH today, and we invited Christine Ma to speak about “Acts of Service”. The last series on the 5 love languages. Worship at the beginning was a little hectic having to get everything ready. Even when Christine started to speak, I was still a little all over the place. Until she asked us to meditate on where God is calling us to and to whom is he calling us to serve.

She referred to Jesus going on his knees to wash His disciples feet, to show his Love for them and to be a model to them. Jesus is not telling us to go to everyone and wash their feet, but it is a gesture of love and care for another person. She continued to do something that I’m sure shocked many of us in the room.

She called one of the students, one of her youth at her church whom she loved dearly. Took out a basin, a bottle of water and a towel and began to wash her feet.  Tears began to fall down the students face. It wasn’t a time only for us to watch Christine’s gesture of love, it was a time for us to meditate and connect with God. With the melody of a guitar in the background and watching the action in front of me, I bowed my head to ask God where He is bringing me.

Ever since I went to Cambodia, I have had an idea of taking a gap year before going to college to serve and to grow. It seems that is where my heart has always headed to, but is that where God wants my heart to be? He has showed me many signs, but not enough to be sure that it is His will. But it amazes me what He puts in my mind above other things that aren’t important.

All I can do is keep praying for God to show me His will, what he wants me to do next year, and if that is what He plans for me, He will give me the strength and the mercy on my parents because that will be a big obstacle. Please pray for me as I go through this stage as well as college applications.

In the name of our Father,

Although I arrived just at the end of worship for church today, I tried my best not to be aggravated and to relax and listen to God’s word for the morning. We continued our sermon series on fruit of the spirit this morning, and today we looked at “Faithfulness”.

Following everything that happened this past week, it was the perfect sermon. Pastor Tobin started off by giving us an example that sounded incredibly familiar to me. From then on, all other noises were shut off except for God’s word being spoken to all of us.

For many of us, our spiritual life is like a speed boat. We control where we want to go and where our destination is, we are zooming through without any interference.  God tells us that our spiritual life should not be a speed boat, but rather, a sail boat. You have enough control over the sail boat that it doesn’t fall over, but when we wind blows, we have no choice but to head in that specific direction. The wind is the spirit of God. When the Spirit of God moves, we move and follow. That is how our spiritual life should be, but somehow we are never patient enough to sit on a sail boat and wait, we lack the faithfulness to trust in the ‘wind’.

Our spiritual life is a cycle that we keep going round and round. When we are happy and have everything we want, life is great, we tend to forget God until we fall and get stuck in bondage. Once we are stuck, we cry out to God asking for his help and with his overflowing mercy, He sends his deliverer to free us and we see God. We worship and praise Him until life is good again. Does that sound familiar?

We have to understand God’s faithfulness until we have the freedom to be faithful ourselves. We have to understand that no matter what circumstances, He never leaves. To be faithful, we have to be honest with ourselves and most importantly, we have to remember that God sees everything we do, whether good or bad, yet He still faithfully moves towards us.

So many more things are making more sense to me now. One’s faithfulness is hard to have. If you don’t understand God, his truthfulness, his faithfulness and his Word, you are just on a speed boat zooming through life heading to your own destination until you realize you have crashed and realize how hard it is to pick yourself back up.

What do you think?

WARNING: This will be a long post. But I promise it will be good.

I honestly don’t know where to start. The last few days were one of the best days of my life. For those who know, the last few weeks have been a bit rough, and it finally got to the peak Tuesday night. It was painful and even until Wednesday, I couldn’t help but tear up every time I thought about it.

Once I was at the airport, checking in, eating some food, and the closer I got to knowing that I will be in Cambodia in a few hours, the more excited I got. Charmaine, Dominic and I were going alone. Not with school, not with parents for 4 days 3 nights. I was out of my mind, I couldn’t believe we were actually going.

We have all been preparing for it, but Charmaine has been busy booking travel, accommodation, etc. Before we went, I was still pretty nervous about what we would do. We didn’t have much of a set plan. But this trip has been so much more than we expected.

It has been so perfect, the timing, the people, the place. God has the time and the place to bring us closer to him and to pick us back up from a hard fall.

DAY ONE
We arrived and Kim (a DHL employee), along with the hotel airport shuttle bus was waiting for us. We headed back to the hotel, got settled in and found Vannak and Rind coming to the hotel in no time. While the three of us along with Kim sat on Dominic’s king size bed planning out the next two days, seeing them was all I could think of. I volunteered to go to the lobby to get them, my heart was racing and I wanted to run up to them and give them a big hug.

We finished planning out the next two days, then went out for a nice dinner before crashing for the night The traveling over, accommodation, transportation and everything worked itself out.

DAY TWO
I was woken up half an hour before my alarm because my lovely roommate was afraid we were late. I wasn’t cranky or anything because I was so excited about the day ahead I could barely sleep.

Once we headed out, we managed to buy 400 loafs of bread in the morning to hand out at the landfill. We went to CCH, an NGO near the landfill that takes in kids under 18 to educate them and allow them to study. Then they were gracious enough to drive a truck out with us to hand out bread as well as survey any new orphans. We spent quite a bit of time there, went to lunch, then went to the Tuol Slang Museum to do some more filming.

In the evening, we were invited to a thanksgiving dinner at Grandma Peggy’s house. She is a missionary from Missouri who works with the Open Gate Fellowship Church. I have known her since December and she is an amazing lady. There were about 15 people at the thanksgiving dinner. Being able to give thanks together, fellowship together and just catch up was the best thing I could ask for.

I had a grin and a smile on my face all night. To be able to see everyone from the church in Cambodia was absolutely amazing. To be able to run up to them and give them a hug, to joke with them, to know that they are just as happy seeing me and having me company. It was a great first thanksgiving.

DAY THREE
Rind and Kim joined us today as well because it was their holiday. So as usual, we met up at the hotel and headed out to the killing fields. I was able to be on the motor bike with Rind driving and Vannak behind me. I was sitting in the middle, I’m sure it was entertaining watching us. After doing more filming, the rest of the day was pretty relaxing, even got a little bit of shopping done before lunch.

We went back to the hotel before heading back to the dump to hand out another 400 loaves of bread. It was a little overwhelming with families coming back for more, climbing on our truck trying to get food. Hearing their voices and seeing the expression in their faces breaks my heart. It made me realize no matter how much bread we buy, it will never seem enough. We cannot just go everyday and give out bread, it has to start with educating the children.

We were able to take Kim, grandma peggy, vannak, rind, and rachel out to dinner before we left the next morning. We went to a nice restaurant near the water festival so the street was packed every where we looked. Seila came for a drink before he had to head out again. It was incredibly nice to see him again.

I was no less hyper than the night before. Just a little too happy 🙂 We had a fun experience with the tuk tuk’s that we rode that night. We were heading up a slope and the tuk tuk’s stopped. Being on the second tuk tuk, we stopped as well and watched Dominic and Rind get off to push it up to get it going again. Vannak and I pointed and laughed.

Who knew, a few seconds later, our driver was telling us to push the tuk tuk as well. We pushed and had to run and jump back on afterwards. I guess that’s what happens when you point and laugh at someone else.

We headed back to our hotel room, we all sat and ate some fruits that I bought earlier in the day at the market. It was a nice down time with the TV on, although I was definitely a little out of my mind. I had to say bye to grandma peggy that night, it was sad but I know I will be back.

Vannak and Rind sent us off at the airport. Every time, it’s the same. I could not say good bye, I held on tight to them and told them I love them. Looking out the airport to Cambodia, the motorbikes, the people, I was determined to be there again. There is something about Cambodia that makes my heart race and puts a smile on my face. I guess no one will really understand.

We all survived without getting sick or having any major incidents happen. We are all incredibly surprised at how smoothly it has gone and how everything just flowed. We had no time restrictions and therefore, was more flexible with everything. I would never had dreamed of it.

It was my first thanksgiving dinner. A great dinner, great people and great fellowship. I am so thankful for everything.

For my parents for supporting me, Charmaine and Dominic for coping with my craziness and occasionally crankiness, for everyone who put in their time to help us organize this whole trip, everyone in Cambodia who constantly puts a smile on my face.

And most importantly, God for showing me himself again. For picking me up so quickly, He always has perfect timing and He puts the perfect people in your life to make you the way you are. For guiding me every step of the way.

Please pray for the next couple weeks as I get back into school and have to work hard on my college applications. God has put Cambodia into my heart and I would love to take a gap year and volunteer there with CCH. But please keep praying for God to show me where he wants to bring me next year.

Thanks for baring with this long post, I hope you have enjoyed it. I have Charmaine’s entry which has many details that I haven’t written as well as the photo albums from this trip under my posted items. So please feel free to check them out. Feel free to talk to me about it as well, I would love to tell you more about it.

Love from Cambodia,

This have been a very unproductive weekend so far. It frustrates me but the one thing that I did and would do any day, any time was visit Violette Marie LaTour at Lamma Island.

I was very determined to go see them this whole last week. On the half day of Friday, I headed over to Lamma on the 1:30 ferry and stayed for a few hours.

I wasn’t able to catch a 52 until 1:05 from Stanley so I was pretty scared and nervous about missing the ferry by a minute or two, but ended up being on the ferry 5 minutes before 1:30, thankfully. I got off the ferry listening to my ipod, with the wind blowing against my face, blue skies and white clouds, it was great.

First thing I saw was Lillian, about to get on the ferry to go to her play group. Too bad she had to leave and wasn’t home when I was there.

I made my way up the hill to the LaTours house and was looking forward to spending a  nice chill afternoon laying on their couch and talking. Seems like these days, I barely have the chance to talk to them.

Cindy and Violette was a little preoccupied when I arrived but it was great to see that Cindy was doing well, recovering well. When I got the chance to see Violette, it was incredible. She was so small and it was strange seeing such a small baby in the house. She was beautiful, she was so precious.

God is so gracious and good. Looking at Violette puts everything into perspective, that God has made everything so good. He has created us just the way he wanted and will continue to mold us in incredible ways.  Her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, even her extremely long toes, makes me smile. The feeling is incredible.

What a great family. I am so grateful that God called them to be in Hong Kong to serve. I am so thankful to be a part of their life and to watch Lillian and Violette grow.

Spending 18 straight hours at school is tough and definitely not something I do very often. Starting from taking two hours of SAT subject tests in the morning, then frantically starting to get everything set for The Game – the Fourth Annual Christian Youth Conference.

For the first time, I was working the whole time.. I wasn’t just a normal attendee. For the past few years, I have always helped out with registration and welcoming which meant I still got to be a part of the moshpit during worship. But this year was different, I worked the live video switching all day. It wasn’t a tough job, but it required concentration if I wanted to give the camera men a break and wanted to make it entertaining for the crowd.

I was so focused on the videos that I was having trouble connecting with God. It was difficult to hear God speaking to me but it gave me a different perspective. While I stood in the back, I watched one hand after another reach out to God. Listening to Carlos Choi sing and watching all my peers cry out was a special feeling. It’s amazing to see what God can do, and it was refreshing to know that I am not the only one and I have so many Christian peers around me.

For the most part it went well, and I enjoyed myself working the video switch board and I enjoyed being a bigger part in creating the event. It was a little upsetting knowing that it was the last CYC that I will be attend, but I will be praying about it and my spirit will be there in the coming years.