Our 1 year Cambodia Anniversary

Well here we are! Exactly 1 year ago (and a day or two now...) from we arrived close to midnight, exhausted, excited, nervous, and at least for me scared. Wondering what we had just done, what we were thinking, and if we were crazy...

Now, a year later we are surprised by how much we truly love Cambodia. We miss people we love deeply all the time. I often long for family, and close friends that we left behind. It is amazing to see how God has provided for us this last year, and I look forward to seeing how He will provide this next year! Yesterday we spent the day reminiscing and celebrating all we have learned this year, and how much more dependent on the Holy Spirit we have learned to be in our day to day life. I know that now more than ever before I depend more on the Holy Spirit in my parenting, my marriage, and even when I go out to run errands. Listening to those nudgings, and promptings, He so graciously gives, and listening to the best of my ability even if it doesn't make sense. I truly believe this has been a critical thing to learn this last year, learning a new culture, and language.

Today, was a fairly normal Monday. The girls and I did school, and went to play group. We are helping a short term volunteer with somethings as she gets settled for her week of service at a clinic here, and I love how normal all of this seems now.

At this moment in time Chris and I both are slowing down our formal language learning, as the team begins projects and finishes up the start up things for the office. We are doing this for multiple reasons, obviously for Chris it is a transition into working in the office and finally doing the fun things he came to help do! For me it is more because my brain needed a break, a chance to catch up, review, and practice what I have already learned. I needed to just stop and review vocabulary and practice reading and writing. Language learning certainly hasn't stopped, but it has slowed. Anytime you are learning something new I think often your brain needs that time to process, and review and practice. So that's my goal. I am meeting with a  teacher 2 hours a week, and reviewing more on my own at home.

We have had a quite a few visitors and it is fun to see that we know things now. Things we didn't know a year ago. I now, for sure understand when people say they will never feel fluent in a second language, and I totally get it when someone knows English well, but it is still tricky to sometimes communicate. I often understand the main idea or the gist of what someone is saying in Khmer, but I couldn't translate it for you word for word, or I know 90% of how to say what I want to say but my grammar isn't correct or doesn't quite make sense... All to say we still have lots to learn but have come a long ways!

Celebratory 1 year anniversary in Cambodia lunch at the first place we ate food from after moving here last year! They had only been open a little over a week before we moved here and you can see it from our apartment. Yummy, and has coffee. 

Our beautiful sunsets here in Phnom Penh.

We had to have ice cream to celebrate! :)

In the last year Cambodia has truly become home in so many ways, so many friendships, finding daily rhythms, and learning how to cope with the heat. I cannot wait to see as we dwell here next year what God does, and the deeper relationships and roots that grow here for us.

Happy 2018 everyone. Enjoy where God has placed you, dwell in the land and trust Him.

Risk Taking and Weaknesses

I started this blog post probably about 8-9 months ago... wanting to take it as deep as I was feeling it, I left alone to come back to when I had more time, and had done more research into different people from the bible that are examples of this idea. However time went by, and I never got around to it. Until now. So I finally finished and so much of this idea filled my 2017, and retaught to me over and over again. So here you go!

Lately I have been thinking a lot about all the ways living in a small town of 15-20,000 the last 10 years prepared me for our move here to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a city of well over 2 million. God has definitely done things to prepare us for living here. There are so many things that culturally are similar, being able to talk and share life with people is important, here in Cambodia, to show people that you see them, care about them, and want to know them. I learned how to do this in Durango. The value of knowing and being known by people. This is just one example of how Durango prepared us for here. Sharing life with people is so valuable and hard, learning to do it as an adult is really hard. I am glad I was able to learn how with people who spoke the same language and similar cultural background. Now it is so much easier to reach out and work on building relationships here because we know how. (or at least where to start)

I can also see how He is using and will continue to use living here to shape me into who He created me to be. Often we focus so much on our strengths. We play to our strengths, and we see ourselves do well and God uses us to do things. However I truly believe that sometimes God pulls us into situations we feel ill equip or that we lack strengths in just to show us how awesome He is, and maybe reveal a new strength we didn't know we had. He may use us in a new way to use a strength He has given us. The cool part about this is then we know it is Him. It is Him because I could never do that. I think He does this too to help us combat our flesh and our sinful nature and lean in and trust Him more than we ever have before.

I often find myself stepping outside myself saying, "I can't believe I just did that." or "I can't believe this is normal for me now." See if you knew me in Durango you would know that I am a planner, I am cautious (but try not to be too cautious), I like feeling safe and secure, and I like sharing life with people, but I also like privacy. I worry about what others think, and how they perceive me. (sometimes to a point that things place a broken record or stuck dvd in my head wondering if I did the right thing, said the right thing, or acted the right way.)

Living here in Phnom Penh has made us have to be more open. Rely on more people, and trust people I wouldn't normally trust, I have to put myself out there more than I ever have before. I am often watched by the people who work here in our building, neighbors, vendors in the market...partly because I am a foreigner with two cute girls, and I think curiosity. Also we are in the city so even parenting, an area I think many parents are unsure of themselves in often happens (good and bad) in front of everyone.

God has used this to help me be more secure in who I am, more confident in who He made me to be, and who He is shaping me into. My confidence has increase because of this, but so many thing here in Cambodia do not play to my strengths. If I has approached living here based on my strengths, I am very confident I would have missed out on so many things God taught me, and that I now enjoy as a part of my daily life. Friendships would have been missed, blessing would have been missed, and opportunities missed.

Don't miss something because you are sure it isn't a strength of yours. Being willing to take the risk and operate in that weakness, and see where it leads you.

 

 
These pictures hit are from yesterday, playing in the street in front of our building. It is hard for me to go down and sit so they can play. But it is always so worth it. We played for almost 2 hours, and got to talk with many neighbors, collect rocks from the nearby potholes, and be totally covered in dust from head to toe by the time we came in. It was good. But in many ways was an example of God working in my weakness, in my discomfort... and revealing more important things and new strengths, and strengthening those weaknesses.

Happy New year!

As I sit here, the house cleaned up from the Christmas festivities, and 8 people staying in our small 2 bedroom apartment, I can't help but enjoy the quiet, the coffee, and the time to think. Time to reflect on our first Christmas away from home, and how blessed we are by the friends and family that love us so much all over the world. Thank you.

Christmas here came fast! As we tried to prepare, and celebrate, not wanting the season to pass us by. It was so fun to focus in on Jesus this Christmas season, and have Amirah so excited for Jesus birthday on Christmas. Christmas was full of presents, friends, and fun at church.

This week we rested. We had wonderful visitors last week, and played a lot, this week we enjoyed new toys, new games, and being together. I pray that this week, after the hustle and bustle of the holidays you found time to just enjoy the people around you, family and friends. Enjoy your spot, the place God has placed you in, and the people He has placed you with.

As I look back on 2017 I cannot believe all that has happened, at this time last year I was in a panic inside as we prepared to move our family in just a few short days. We were sick, man were the kids and I sick! Then on the 6th or 7th of January we landed here, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (time gets a little fuzzy with those long flights...) We settled into our home over that weekend and began language school.

This year has been full of language learning, which will continue on, preparing to open the office, culture shock, culture exhaustion, culture learning, and building new friendships. We have found new routines, and new rhythms, and we have grown so much as a family unit. We have had many blessings, and are excited for 2018.

Looking ahead Chris will be beginning more projects, and I will continue to do teacher training at an NGO here, and help lead English classes at our church! (This is really fun for me!) Amirah will turn 5 in March, and Layla will be 3 in April! Chris and I will turn 3 decades old! Crazy.

Whatever you are doing tomorrow to ring in the New Year I hope you are with those you love, enjoying the people God has put around you. I pray that you have a great 2018, and draw closer to Jesus.

The Love Language of Food

What do you do when you want to get to know someone better? Where do you meet? Where do you tend to gather? I would dare to say that most people, in almost all if not all cultures the answer to these questions would have something to do with food. When you want to know someone better you share a meal with them. You invite them to your home, you cook for them, you open up your heart, your home, and you family life. To share in deepening a relationship with someone. Often you may cook something special for those people too, you cook a meal that you love, or that represents something about who you are and who your family is. Turns out this was true in the US, and is true here too. :)

A few years ago Chris and I committed to continually inviting people into our home to intentionally develop relationships with people in our lives. We have hosted small groups, we have invited individual families over and we have offered ourselves and our home to whomever will come in our door. It is so fun and wonderful! We love having our home full of people enjoying each other, and having fun together.

I would say here in Cambodia there is a whole new element that is so much fun! It is the element of new foods. New foods for our family, and new foods for our friends here in Cambodia. It is so fun when we invite someone over and they cook something to bring that is special to their family, or we go to their home and get to try something they love to cook and often cook for their family. It is so fun to bond with friends while cooking together, whether it is them teaching me to cook Cambodian food, or me showing them how to make some American food.

Food is a connecting point. Here we seem to have many meals where people are teaching us not only what a new food is, but how to eat it. Or we are doing the same for them. Even when I am cooking just for my family and someone is here we discuss what it is, if there is something they make that is similar and what we like about it. When I shop in the market here my conversations with the sellers is often about how to cook with a certain vegetable, or what is normally made with that vegetable, or how to eat a certain new fruit.

It is so fun to share our home culture with friends here in Cambodia through food, as well as learn more about this new culture we live in through food. I often feel like just like learning to speak Khmer helps us understand and connect with our friends here, so does sharing food, and trying all the yummy things that they love to eat. (there are things we don't like that we have tried but overall it's usually pretty yummy.)

It is also such a comfort to us! We have friends here who cook amazing Mexican food and when we met them it was so fun have something that tasted like home. It also connected us with these amazing friends that we love so dearly now!

I love how God has woven this connectedness through out cultures, how He created food not just to nourish our bodies but to nourish our hearts, our souls, and do the same for others. I love that God made us to gather around the table/floor and speak about the things He is doing in our hearts, to gather around food and open up to others. I love how food can make someone else's home feel more like home, because you brought something to the table too. One of my favorite things is when people bring food to our home to share and they instantly have to make themselves at home to prepare the food they brought to share. It is so beautiful, and fun!

Get out there, invited people into your home, go to their home when you are invited, share food, and open up your hearts to each other! You need each other! If you have small children, invite families with small children over and let the sound so playing fill your home as you, talk more loudly to enjoy adult conversations. Share your heart. Share who you are.

New Normal

I was trying to figure out why it has been hard to think of things to share with you, recently, and a friend of mine here in Cambodia posted about life being ordinary. You can read it here, so good for the reality of life, I think overseas and in your home country. Just about the truth of living "normal" life. It also sparked some of why I have struggled to think of things to share, and pinpoint the many things God is teaching me. (some of it could also be that I just got out of the habit of blogging so then it's harder for me to think of what to share)

Though the first few months here everything was new and exciting, it is now our normal. So when I think about daily achievements or stories they are very similar to what they would have been living in the US. I mean I grocery shop, cook, do dishes, (though these look different) teach preschool to Amirah, deal with 2 year old tantrums, deciphering whether or not nap time days are really over...and trying to help keep my family's inside and outside time, screen time, and book time, and family time and friend time balanced. So much is just about normal life, and living it in a way that glorifies Christ in the day to day normal, isn't this the same anywhere we live?

The biggest thing that is new is trying to build new friendships. I forgot in the 10 years we lived in Durango, how much time, effort and energy is put into building new friendships and doing life with new people. The hardest part about living here in Phnom Penh is missing the people who we did life with for so long. Though it takes time, and can be exhausting it is so much fun, and refreshing. God has blessed us with wonderful relationships here. If I think about it too much, the great people we have met here and love here it brings tears to my eyes. (much like when I think about our dear friends and family in the US) Many of them are already so dear to my heart, and I cannot wait to go deeper with these friends.

Even in making new friends, it is kind of normal for our family. We have made most of these friendships just doing what we always do. Being involved in and attending church. We are a part of  a small group, our kids go to kids programs, and we participate in church activities outside of the "normal service time". Then any friends we haven't made at church have been from playing outside, playgroup, or relying on our beloved tuk tuk drivers. (these guys really are a huge blessing to us) It it is so fun how just living life as a family with little kids provides so many connections. (Language School has also provided many friendships, and we love getting to know the people we are learning Khmer with and from, our teachers rock!)

Overall, everything now seems normal. (I am sure I will see the differences when we have visitors soon, and I share our normal with them...) but for now I am enjoying the feeling of things finally feeling normal, even if it makes it hard to know what exactly to share here. I am so happy to be here in Cambodia, with our new people. (Sometimes in a tuk tuk or at church my eyes fill with tears because I am so happy God chose us to be here right now.)

Our God is good, He is faithful, trustworthy, and kind, He sees you, and if you are going through a transition in life, longing for the normal again, I will say that God sees you, hears you, and is with you. Your new normal will come. You will miss things from the old normal, but look for how God answers specific prayers you had for this new normal. Don't miss the little things in the hurt, the transition or the grief, that God placed there to remind you He is there, He is faithful, and He will see you through this as well.

He has never failed, and He won't start now. What a great living and active God we serve!

Hello

The last few months have been crazy! We have been so busy, and honestly what I've struggled with what to write about on here. I get amazing ideas on a tuk tuk, or between class hours at language school, or even waiting for Amirah at dance class, then I would finally get my computer out and I couldn't remember even one idea... I have one post I hope to have up next week, and another I started months ago right after we moved here, I hope to finish soon too. So there is more coming!!!

However this post I just wanted to give a quick update on our family... We are moving right a long! On Monday Amirah started Pre-K and we really enjoying our first week of home school this school year. I just wrapped up level 3 and 4 full time at our language school, and I am working hard on learning to read and write Khmer. Chris is back at full time language school now, and I am back doing part time. We are loving understanding and using Khmer more and more.

Just this week I had so much fun at the market because I hadn't gone in a while because Chris had been going while he was being the primary parent and I was focusing on school. When I was shopping in the market the sellers I have come to know, were excited to talk and catch up on life and I finally knew enough Khmer to do just that! :)

Our EMI office is moving forward and the need here is more and more obvious every month that passes, with ministries and places stating that they wish we were already up and running so they could give us work. In the last month or so I have began working with a friend of mine here to help with teacher training at her school! I am so excited about that! I love teaching, and I am getting to help implement some of my favorite things from teaching in a "typical" classroom. Like social emotional learning, center work, group work, and student centered type learning! SO fun! I have a feeling volunteering here will also be a wonderful place for using and seeing the value of my learning to speak Khmer as I gain enough for it be useful there also.

All of these fun things, and cool things and yet so much of our life is just "normal" too. Like caring for the girls, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc. I was laughing to myself about how normal everything seems now and how as we get some of our first visitors they will probably find our new normal unlike what they think of as normal. But because things seem normal it is hard to think of things worth sharing. More on that in another post! I am planning to post here 2-4 times a month so you can subscribe so you don't miss any if you would like!


 Searching for leaves during Pre-K today. Then leaf art work. I love teaching the girls and talking about how awesome our Creator is. :)

Radical Living...

Living radically for Jesus is being willing to lay down your life for what He is calling you to do. This looks so different depending on your life, and what God has in store for you, I am sure of this, whatever that looks like for you or for me, He is worth, and the adventure is worth it.

At 12 years old in my youth group I was convinced that the only way to truly live radically someday was to live in a place where my life would be endangered for my faith, and then boldly share Christ anyway. I was convinced that at every turn I needed to lay down all my comforts and sacrifice everything for the sake of the gospel. I was sure that if I didn't always do these things I would become a lukewarm follower of Christ, one who didn't really know what it meant to follow Jesus and one that didn't really love Jesus enough. This drove my heart to want to pursue overseas missions as an adult, it drove me to do a lot of things that were wonderful for Jesus. It also drove me to feel like I HAD TO do certain things or my faith wasn't authentic enough. God used this for so many good things, but I am now learning so much as an adult and a more mature Christian about how he grows us in our faith, and how little it is about me, and how greatly it is about Him! 

When I graduated college I was sure that I had gotten to a point I didn't care as much about Jesus or sharing the gospel, and discipling others... God took me through a season of learning about His delight in us. The way He loves to see us enjoy our life, and enjoy things He created us to be able to do. I still longed to serve Him in a radical way, hopefully someday overseas, but to do something big for Him some day. While we lived in Durango after college God taught me so much about living in community, loving others, sharing life with others, serving others because I genuinely wanted to, and trusting Him with what He wanted to do in the lives of people around me. It was so comfortable, and often I wondered if anything I was doing was radical at all. The great thing was... that it was. Loving people the way God was asking me to, was the radical thing He was calling me to do then, and there. Serving where He lead was the radical thing I was doing to advance God's kingdom. 

Now I am living overseas, serving as a missionary, and mom. Beginning to live cross-culturally, and at first it felt like it was a giant radical step of faith that I didn't know if I had enough faith to take. However now, 6 months later, I look at my life and wonder what is so radical about living in Cambodia? So many things are similar to life in the US, and so many things are completely different. I am realizing how our radical living for Jesus is so much about our daily day to day lives, the ins and outs of how we live that I think anywhere you live it probably doesn't always feel radical. It feels normal. The way  I parent, the way I take care of my family, the way I talk with and enjoy my husband. Some of the most radical things I am doing right now to show Jesus to others is the way I love and care for my family, the way I discipline my kids, the way, time and energy I put into learning Khmer. (Lately some of the most radical thing I do right now is study my Khmer alphabet and have the faith my head won't actually explode.) These are my radical things I am doing as I live for Jesus in a new country and culture. So much of it is "normal" yet so much of it is counter cultural to my home culture, my host culture, and even church culture, because God's culture isn't perfectly represented here on Earth, and the culture of heaven is what we are called to represent. So it turns out we continue to be the weird ones, but I think and pray it is in a good way that points people to Jesus.

 It's okay to be the weird different family. Reflect Jesus in all you do, and share Him with those around you. In fact I am more and more convinced that is how we live the a radical life serving Jesus.