We have been partnered with Shekinah Glory Ministries with Bishop Ben Tanguli & his wife Christine, they live on a house in a compound with Gilgal High School, Ephriam Church, and orphanage. The town is called Namanjalala (I probably spelled that wrong) in the city of Kitale. The Tanguli family has truly welcomed us into their family. We do morning devotions, pray, and memorize scripture with them. We live inside the church inside out tents. At 9:30pm we lead the evening devotions for the 104 Gilgal students who what up at 4am everyday to start the school day... and to think, I used to complain about an 7-3 school day...
Here's a snapshot of what life has been like in Kitale...
[These are some of the orphans that we live with.]
[We spent the first week walking around the village evangelising. These are some sister in Christ that we met and were encouraged by them ourselves. They were excited that we would come into the field that they were working on.]
[Here's a typical house made of dung and mud.]
[This is Essnas. She's about 8 years old and has more life in her than most other kids. She is packed with joy and loves to be held. She may have one of the best laughs ever.]
[Junior is the boy on the bottom. He loves to be picked up and thrown in the air. He's a lot of fun to be around.]
[Skies in Kenya are beautiful...] [Amazing clouds everyday. It also rains almost
every afternoon while we're here.]
[Markets like no other country.]
[I caught a sunrise over a misty sky one morning.]
[Chapati flatbread and mutton curry.]
[We met this woman while evangelising and she has maybe 10 kids. She was widowed early in life and never remarried. She encouraged us by sharing how she has trusted in the Lord and he has provided for her needs above and beyond what she expected. She welcomes all people into her home.]
[We went to a small village called Bikeke. Here are some of the many kids that come to follow the muzungus (white people).]
[We spent a day at Liberty School in Bikeke.
I taught my first class ever to about 20 fourth graders. I talked to them about the power of life and death in their words and a second lesson on keeping clean in terms of our bodies, environment, and spirit.]
[Here are some students from Liberty School. They did some traditional singing and dancing accompanied by banging on a plastic water container.]
[One day we were visiting houses and this woman saw us praying
and came up to us to ask for prayer for her legs while on the
way to a hospital appointment.]
[This was an amazing house. The father Samson saw us praying and went up to some of us and said 'My daughter is sick, can you come pray for her?' Our whole team went here and prayed for the family. Lanette is 24 and has never been able to speak. Her parents went to witch doctors who were never able to do anything for her. We prayed for her. Her parents were so excited to have us there and hear their daughter make audible sounds. We are trusting and believing that the Lord will help her to fully communicate with words. We left them with hope and new freedom in the Lord.]
[In this house we met 3 alcoholic men. One man, Riddick, was in desperate need for the Lord. He wanted so badly to be freed from the life of addiction that he had been living. We spoke life over them, Jaime had shared part of her testimony, and I had shared about the freedom that they could have in Christ. We had led them to the Lord that day. There aren't enough words for how much the Holy Spirit was leading and guiding us in that room.]
[We are a walking sideshow. 'Muzungu! Muzungu!' is what we hear everywhere... We draw crowds of children all the time...]
[Lucky has been living at the orphanage for just over 4 months. He was found in a dumpster and has a timid peresonality. He has warmed up to most of us on the team, and it was a pivotal moment when Lucky allowed Jeremy and Kat to carry him. Most of the time he is fearful.]
[Kat has such a gentle and compassionate
spirit that draws many of the kids to her.]
[Jeremy is amazing with speaking life into everyone he meets. He loves to play with the kids by playing just as hard as they do.]
[One day we accompanied Bishop Ben and his wife Christine into a refugee village to hand out some food and nutritional supplements. It was a hard thing to see people fighting over resources and not being unified in their difficult situation.]
[Here is one of the homes in the refugee village.
There were dozens of them.]
------------------------------------------
There are countless stories from this month,
and we finish up ministry on the 31st. This month is going to be so difficult to leave.
More pictures to come...
T.I.A.
[THIS IS AFRICA]
--------------------------------
Stay tuned.
God Bless!
Dan²
---------------------------------------
Just one more picture...
These are the fancy mugs one woman pulled out to serve us tea after lunch.
The last two weeks in Malaysia were spent in Kuala Krai.
We partnered with Pastor Yesudason and his wife Theresa.
We had actually worked with Pastor Yesudason in Gua Musang to lay down the concrete slab on prayer mountain, so it was good to be familiar with him before switching towns.
The big project for us was more manual labor.
The main task was to complete the walls that you see in the back of the pillars.
What walls?
The ones between the pillars.
They're there, we just had to assemble them with some concrete.
So... we woke up many a mornin' to walk to the work site by 7am and work for a few hours and leave some time before noon when the sun becomes unbearable.
[Here's the sun mocking us through the cloud cover]
And so 6 of 8 of us worked on laying down mortar and brick.
Andrew was our cement mix master.
What did I get?...
God gave me a heaping pile of ***t.
DIRT :)
[you can also see how many walls were in need of assembling]
Yep.
I got shafted dirt.
In all honesty, as I said before, I don't like manual labor very much. As Jeremy would say, "It just doesn't fill up my love tank."
The first day or two, I did my best to keep the complaining to myself because... it's just not necessary.
And then I remembered...
----------------------
RejoiceintheLordalways; again I will say, rejoice.
-Philippians 4:4
----------------------
Sure it's easy to rejoice when God gives you a little kid that smiles at you.
But when you are given the opportunity to do ministry by taking a hoe & shovel to a pile of dirt...
it just doesn't smile in the same way.
And thus, I sucked it up and did it anyway, but with a change of heart. Other World Race teams have come and set up the pillars so that we could build the walls; pastor showed us those pictures.
He also told us that the funds for the building aren't in...
?!
[Dat's cray cray]
We are building walls for a facility / ministry center that is currently no money to build. Pastor shared that we are building the walls for a fence around the facility that he is trusting that God will provide the money for.
Now that's putting your money where you mouth is.
No money for the building?
Just build the fence in the meantime.
There's some faith in action.
And as my perspective changed, my attitude changed...
And I leveled the dirt.
Like a boss.
But even in the dirt, God gave me little nuggets of beauty that kept me working with a joyful heart.
And the walls were finished off as well.
[And I just love this picture so much, I'm going to use it again]
And that concludes one project in Kuala Krai
-------------------------------
Extras:
Pastor's church is small and consists of maybe 8 believers. We went to worship and pray with them at the church. A few of us shared testimonies with them as well.
One day we got to lead a youth program at the Chinese church just below our living quarters.
So we smashed all their heads together to show them what was up.
Just kidding. We played some games with them after sharing a Bible story and singing a few songs with them.
As if Wade wasn't already tall...
We also led some activities in another village in an Indian community.
Kids would come from all over the neighborhood. Parents would come and we would also distribute cans of nutritional supplement powder for kids.
This is Mhusav. He likes me.
It was beautiful here too.
We went to a different Indian community across the Tako River to distribute more cans of the nutritional supplement powder.
Pastor visits this village on a monthly basis. There is not a single Christian here, but pastor comes and shares Christ with the families and his love for them.
---------------------------
O look, a monkey!
We got the opportunity to visit this beautiful waterfall and go swimming. We may have also burried a Malay boy in the sand somewhere.
And that's all she wrote.
Malanistry. Done.
Asia. Done.
I am writing this in a McDonalds in Terangganu, Malaysia.
In just a few days, B-Squad is continent shifting to AFRICA.
Kenya, here we come!
------------------------------
Love y'all.
Stay tuned.
- Dan²
---------------------------------
BONUS!
Congrats on reading this far.
Malanisty's Manliest Manly Man Moments...
We started the month off in Kuala Lampur and went to more malls than ever on the Race.
Stopping cement work to chase butterflies.
Watching Pocahontas before going to bed.
Watching A Walk to Remember after working on a brick wall.
Afternoon tea time on multiple occasions.
Getting my hair cut and styled in a salon.
Going to even more malls in Singapore.
Skin exfoliation with sand at the beach.
Listening to Justin Bieber while packing our packs, followed by Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA.
[They're awesome guys, check out their blogs too!]
Our team for Manistry or, Malanistry month (ya know, since we're in Malaysia),
consists of the men from 3 different teams.
[This mall had 6 levels, an indoor roller coaster, and archery place... ]
After a few days in Kuala Lampur...
We took an overnight traing to a little town called Gua Musang.
The terrain here is beautiful!
[Cliffs and caves everywhere]
Meet Papa Chua and Auntie Kim.
They are wonderful servants with hospitality like no other. They made us feel so loved and cared for everyday that we were with them. I miss them already. It was a pleasure to serve alongside them and bless them by helping out on the estate.
This is Guna. Without him, we couldn't have done most of the projects we did. Guna is the handiest handyman. He drove us around in the van, operated the tractor, fixed the generator, got us the tools we needed... Guna does it all!
For the two weeks that we stayed with them, we helped do various projects around their estate.
The estate has a bunch of palm trees that produce palm fruit.
It gets sent to a factory and gets pressed for palm oil.
They took us on a tour of the factory on the first day.
This is home for the month:
[Complete with bucket showers, 2-3 a day]
We weeded out a pond next to the house. We pulled out almost all of the plants you see in the picture.
We were asked to kill any snakes we found while weeding out the pond.
One was beheadded and a few minutes later a dozen baby snakes crawled out...
We filled in pot holes in the 'roads' and put up a few gates around the estate.
This is Prayer Mountain; we put down this concrete slab.
We did some prayer and worship on Prayer Mountain.
Branches were cut down, revealing this beautiful view.
We formed a band - The Ocho Gringos and sang at a few church services.
Once for the Indian community, and another time for the Chinese community.
Next to me is Eli. She is a missionary from Acapulco, Mexico and is learning the Malay language and spreading the Gospel in Gua Musang. She's awesome. I never thought I'd be using my Spanish in Malaysia. We hung out with Eli for just a few days, and all enjoyed getting to know her. We had the opportunity to bless her by painting the walls in her house. She made us home made salsa and chips one day, and fried quesadillas another. Good stuff.
While working on prayer mountain, Brian and I came across a few Malay boys who spoke very little english, and ditched school. We spent time with them and loved on them the best that we could. The language barrier made it difficult to build a better relationship with them.
--------------------------------------------
These two weeks were a lot of manual labor, perfect for... a group of men. While manual labor is not exactly my favorite type of work, it was good to start projects and see them to completion. I know that everything we did was greatly appreciated and a blessing to Papa Chua and Auntie Kim.
--------------------------------------------
Extra stuff:
[This one's a twin!]
There is a village of a bunch of cookie cutter houses near the estate that the government had built.
We went there one day to fly Dan's kite, and played with some kids there as well.
Malaysia has some beautiful clouds.
I love this picture. I think it looks like The Sound of Music...
After working on the various projects, we would go swimming in the river.
We found some kids swimming as well.
One day, we found a dead monitor lizard stuck under a bridge.
It was water logged and smelly, and so I pulled it out. I swear it was about to explode...
Yea, I touched it...
-----------------------------------
After the first 2 weeks in Gua Musang,
we took a few days off and visited Singpore!
[We made our way to the 57th floor of the Marina Bay Hotel and caught a view of the city]
We went to the Night Safari.
We traveled to Sentosa and saw the Underwaterworld.
But nothing beats a good sunset...
-------------------------------------------
And that's just the first two weeks...
the following two weeks will be another blog.
Hopefully it gets written and posted before we go to Kenya in a few days.
I cannot believe the Asia leg of the Workd Race is over!
***I started this blog a few months ago in Nicaragua, and am adding to it in Vietnam***
So... guys, I have something I've been meaning to confess to you all.
I... am.... not white.
There. I said it.
The secret's out.
… So what? It doesn't matter, right?
It doesn't 'matter' but it seems to have an effect.
For 7 of 11 months I will be able to fly under the radar when it comes to standing out from the local people.
In Nicaragua, we went to the small village of Bethel. Nineteen gringos jump hop in the truck. We drive down the bumpy dirt road as dodge the low hanging branches as we make our way into the town. Kids hear the sound of the truck and begin to emerge out of their homes as if the ice cream man were passing by. But instead of ice cream, it's a bunch of gringos who have been wearing the same clothes that they were wearing for the past few days. We didn't come with loads of gifts, or food, or clothes; just our presence.
The groups split off into the community.
Some play soccer.
Some visit homes and talk with others.
Sometimes you just sit and hang out with kids in front of a building.
Sometimes you just walk around and kids seem to follow you wherever you go.
I took moment and found myself standing alone. Just watching and observing interactions- it's interesting.
There are many times where I wonder what the locals think when a truck bed filled with gringos rolls through the town. Many times men whistle at the girls. We hear people shout out whatever English phrases they know, such as “How are you? I am fine!” or even“I love you North America!”
Being white in a country of non-white people makes you stick out.
Unless you're not white.
For a moment, as I stood in the field,
I felt like I wasn't special.
I don't mean that as in a sense of entitlement, as if I expect some sort of red carpet to roll out before me or something , but sometimes I can't help but feel a little left out when I'm the only one who doesn't seem to get any attention because I blend in with the locals. I knew that being non-white would add a little something extra to my 'Race' experience. At times it seems like I have an extra hurdle to get over, and other team mates have an automatic 'wow, I want to know the foreigner' factor.
[Thailand]
[Nicaragua]
Sometimes I feel an unspoken bond is immediately established.
[In Cambodia, I felt like I became one of the family.
I received lots of love and affection from our friend's family,
especially from his brothers.]
Other times I feel like people find me of less interest because I'm not so evidently foreign and just kind of blend in. It's not uncommon for me to get mistaken for Hispanic; once in a while customers at work would come up to me and start speaking in Spanish. Or, when I went to Ecuador last year, everyone else I traveled with got a tourist's customs form and I got one as if I was returning to my homeland. Everyone else also filled out an extra form when they got their passports stamped, I did not.
Sometimes I struggle with racial frustrasian.
Growing up, even in a racially diverse community, I didn't know where or how to fit in. My feelings fluctuated with the degree of wishing I was white; it took a long time to accept who I am as a first generation US-born Filipino.
[Guatemala]
I think I grew up with the sentiment of feeling different as a minority, and being in Central America, I feel... different as a minority. It's almost like I'm not used to the feeling of fitting in. It's like I so badly wanted to fit in and be white in the States, and for a moment here, I wanted to be white so I didn't fit in.
You just don't win when you always want what you don't have.
I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.
God makes me who I am, notmy feelings in any given situation.
Growing up, I learned how to be content as a minority.
Here, I learn how to be content when I don't feel like a minority
... and when I do.
[Honduras]
I must say, in Honduras I got called 'Chino gringo' plenty of times. Sometimes it was even accompanied with kids pulling at their eyes and yelling “ching, chong, chang.” This may have been a time that I thought it would have been easier to simply be a gringo-gringo... And when I hear kids speaking Spanish, look at me, and then say to someone “I don't speak Chinese,” I look at them and reply, “me neither...” *facepalm* You'd think by now I'd have thick skin about these sort of comments but it's been so long since I've heard them, they get brushed off soon enough though.
**** Continuing in Vietnam ****
So... in Central America I've been able to blend in at times, or be 'chino-gringo.'
In Thailand and Cambodia, I would get asked if I was Thai or Khmer.
This month has been the most interesting of my race experience.
[This was a sign a customer made at the coffee shop in Vietnam
so people would stop ignoring me]
This month we have been working in a coffee shop as the English speakers. The set up is this: there are two rooms on the second floor of a building with chairs and couches around the rooms. Customers come in, order a drink, and then come upstairs and get to practice their english.
Many Vietnamese people are studying english in order to get better jobs in their companies. They learn english in schools and english centers, but all the customers come in and tell us that they read books and listen to tapes and teachers lectures, but they do not have the environment to practice any of the english that they learn. As a result, the people here are very shy to speak english and also have the expectation of being able to speak well if they listen and read enough- but they are scared to speak.
As with anything, they just need to practice.
And that's where we come in.
In each of the speaking rooms there is a designated native english speaker in each room, i.e. one of us. We just sit in the rooms and facilitate converstion. We don't come in with grammar lessons or anything. We get to ask the customers whatever we feel like asking them and remain available for questions as well.
Each day is different according to whoever shows up in the rooms.
One thing that hasn't changed is the amount of confused looks I get from customers who ask me where I'm from, and I tell them- America.
"You are American?"
"Yes."
... "but you look like Asian."
And I say...yes.
"I thought you were Vietnamese!"
"Nope."
And this sort of exchange happens every single day for me.
I have had days where people will look in my room, I wave to them and motion to them to come in, and they turn around and go to the other room.
One day this happened several times and nobody was in my room. I sucked up my pride and pouting and went into the other room--- only to find that three customers chose to sit in silence in the other speaking room without a speaker, rather than come into my room.
I was more annoyed than hurt, if I'm being honest.
I had to earn my credibility as an english speaker- many times.
I have had days where people asked me:
"who is the speaker in the room today?"
"Me!"
"We want an American."
*frustrated*
And so, I just have to accept the little bit of prejudice opinions towards myself as a westerner here. I am told that an native english speaking asian from America with a degree in english would get paid significantly less than an white person who speaks something other than
english as their native language, from anywhere, with no degree.
So... I have had some not so fun moments here in Vietnam.
I've also had a bunch of compliments as well. It's quite flattering for one person to call you handsome in front of a room of people, and then for a lot of people to affirm the compliment. I'm just not used to that.
I guess what this all boils down to is...
identity.
I have wasted too much time in the past trying to figure out what my identity could be, should be, was told to be.
My identity is found in Christ.
Though all the mess of people wanting to know 'what' I am and all the mixed emotions I get when dealing with the comments that sometimes rattle my cage,
I can be grounded by knowing that
I find my value and worth in who God says I am- one of His children.
This month I have been able to form friendships at the coffee shop and speak life into people. I get to share my story of what God has done in my life. I get to tell them about all the things that I see them chase are things that I sought to be fulfilled in as well, and how I found that the only thing that pulled me out of a depression was learning that my identity and joy are found in Christ and his crucifixion.
I'm learning a lot about myself on the race and processing things that I never really thought about before and seeing things with new perspective. I've gained confidence through dealing with different situations in the english rooms; sharing my life and beliefs with strangers, and doing so without fear of judgement. I know what Christ has done for me and no one can take that away from me.
This is what I saw, firsthand, yesterday afternoon.
We went to visit an orphanage to drop off some food and see the kids for just a little bit. It's not our main 'work' this month to be in this orphanage, but an opportunity I wanted to take.
[And it was worth it.]
When we walked inside the building, there were tons of kids around. A few kids here are deaf, and a few others are special needs kids.
I was so surprised to see all these Hollister Co. bags around. In fact, I was a little naieve to be honest,
until I saw the kids gluing the bags together...
We were told that the orphanage makes these bags in order to support itself because it doesn't have a steady source of money coming in.
[If you look at the company website,
this is the current bag for the season]
They make 5 cents per bag.
They also have a sewing room and make clothes to sell. Many of the girls who grow up in the orphanage stay here, because in the culture here, it is very common for the kids to live at home until they get married. Some of the kids here are able to go to school, but I'm sure the transition of living in an orphanage to integrating into the work force is difficult.
This was so hard to see, because the kids aren't making bags to turn a profit for someone else, it's for the orphanage that they live at.
It's not like they are mistreated unless they make enough bags.
They aren't kicked out for not working.
Is this child labor or kids helping to support the family?
It's a really tough call to make.
Either way, it is unsettling to me.
Im sure that the company is aware of this in some fashion, whether they actively seek this kind of labor or turn a blind eye to it.
Some times I just don't know the answer.
What do you think?
The purpose of me writing this blog isn't to try and take down a company, but rather to question what our society has come to.
Hey y'all. I know it has been a while since my last blog.
I'll try to catch everyone up on what's been going on this month, I usually don't like to do such long posts, but when it's one blog for the month I can't help it.
I cannot believe we are finishing month five of the Race, here in Cambodia.
Ministry Contact:
We are paired up with Rock Foundation Cambodia, located here in Phnom Penh. Brett is our ministry contact and founder of RFC, but we have spent most of the month with our new friend and translator ThyVenn (pronounced like Steven, without the S). For the first half of the month we had the opportunity to do our visits with Dom, ThyVenn's best friend who is currently in Phnom Phen Bible School.
Living Conditions:
This month Team Siloam is paired up with the Salt Shakers. We live in a small village next to ThyVenn's parents and maybe 30 minutes from the city. Fourteen of us are living in the bottom floor of a house that we rent out with three rooms filled with mosquito nets, sleeping pads, a few electric fans, and two tents inside. There are 2 or 3 tents outside as well, along with ThyVenn under a mosquito net. My tent's poles have snapped in two different places this month, which makes me reluctant to want to haul it around anymore.
Our new best friends this month, other than the electric fans, have been Venus and Serena. They are two tennis racket shaped bug zappers that we use to kill the hundreds of mosquitoes that rest on our packs during the heat of the day.
During the night there are all sorts of fun sounds here in Cambodia. They include geckos, bats, terrible sound systems blaring music, motobikes, barking dogs, cows, rooster, and the sound of mangoes plummeting to the ground. All have made for interesting nights of sleep.
Ministry Overview:
Our basic schedule is this:
Sunday- go to ThyVenn's church in the morning and give a sermon. After the service we have lunch at the church and teach an English lesson after wards.
Monday is our day off of ministry. This is usually when we would scour the city for internet that works. Most of the time, it's quite hard to find reliable wi-fi, especially when 14 World Racers are fighting for bandwidth for Skype and uploading photos and videos. I tend to work on photos before I blog, because I love to use the in my blogs.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we visit a mix of three different villages. One is the area where we live in. The other two, we visit during the same day. The first is what we have called the flooded village and the second is the dump community. We teach a English class at the church in the evenings.
On Friday we visit the rock village, which is about an hour and a half away from where we live.
Saturday we may visit the surrounding village during the day and help lead a small prayer meeting at the church.
Focus:
This month has been all about relationship building coupled with follow up. It may be easy for us to think that we may be building relationships with people around the villages, but you can only get to know people on such a surface level over the course of a month, especially when it' not just one village we visit. But that doesn't negate the fact that we go in with the desire to meet people where they are in life and love them with the love of Christ.
What I love about this month is knowing that our relationship building is coupled with follow up. Sure you can tell people you love them and even share Christ with them, but if there is no follow up, then the reality is that in a few months, you will probably be forgotten. ThyVenn and Brett are highly dedicated to visiting people repeatedly and consistently, and through the pursuit of getting to know the people they visit can they really get to understanding the villagers and meeting their needs. Though our teams leave at the end of the month, the villages we visit are hopefully more encouraged by our partnership with the people who visit them regularly.
--- The Villages, The Stories, The People ---
Home Village
ThyVenn has many relationships formed around the village we live in. On our house visits we hang out with families and simply talk to them. It's difficult to try and have good conversation when there are fifteen or sixteen of us at a house, so usually a couple people talk with the family and the rest of us play with the kids. We have learned a couple new skills on home visits, including peeling morning glory for selling in the market and hacking open mango seeds for planting.
The story that sticks out the most from the home village is about a newly widowed woman. We passed by her house and a new of us noticed that her head was shaved, along with her sons. We asked Dom why her head was shaved, and he said it was a sign of mourning a loss, so we turned around and sat with her as she shared her grief with us.
She ended up inviting us to the funeral type service, seven days after her husband's death. So we showed up that morning and served a rice porridge.
Our team visited her another day and ThyVenn got to meet her (he was at a conference the day we met her and for the funeral). I wasn't feeling well the day the team visited her again, but hear that she really opened up with how she didn't know what she was going to do now that she lost her husband.
Though we may be leaving soon, ThyVenn and Dom are still here to continue building on this relationship that we helped form. They can follow up on her and see how she is doing and help meet some needs.
The Flooded Village
This village is located near the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, the site of one of the many killing fields here in Cambodia.
This village consists of maybe a dozen or so houses near a small creek near a bunch of rice fields. During the rainy season, the village homes get flooded and people used to pull their sleeping mats up to the road to sleep. Brett and ThyVenn's dad built them houses raised up off the ground so when the rainy season comes, the people have a dry shelter to live in. They are currently working on the last house to raise up off the ground.
There is a large group of women who have come to know Christ through the relationships ThyVenn and Brett have taken the time to invest in. On our visits here ThyVenn and a member of one of our teams shares something to encourage them. We have enjoyed spending time in this village and praying for them.
One little boy in particular has captured all our hearts. We think he has cerebral palsy. His legs are very frail and crossed. He is probably eight or nine years old and cannot really speak or even crawl around. Though he may not be able to play like the other kids, his smile will melt your heart and his laugh will lift your spirits.
This little boy stole our hearts as well.
The Dump
There's a community of about fifteen families that live near the dump, which is less than ten minutes from the flooded village. It is one of many dump communities and Brett found it one day while riding a dirt bike. He stopped in a decided to invest in the families and form relationships with them.
The people here pay $5 a month for rent here and live in shacks made with assorted pieces of trash. The walk to the garbage dump sometimes having to wade in dirty water just to get there. They then proceed to sort through the trash and collect whatever it is that they can possibly sell for money. One of the things we saw a woman doing was breaking apart old electronics chargers to find the tiniest coil of copper in each one. It must take hundreds and hundreds of these little coils to equal the kilogram that maybe sells for $5.
The people here work so hard, and live in unsanitary conditions just to get by. I don't know that they really know where the next meal comes from everyday.
We have played with the kids here. They still know how to have fun, even in the midst of poverty. They play with all sorts of broken stuff from the trash. One day we played makeshift skip-it with an old flip flop tied to a strip of old tape. Sometimes we kick around the half inflated ball or play catch with a ratty stuffed animal that would make any parent in the States cringe if they saw their child with it.
We got to see a newborn baby that was delivered in the dump community. The baby was delivered by a midwife for $12.
The Rock Village
This village is about 150 km from Phnom Phen and we had the opportunity to visit the community three times this month. Every Friday for over a year, Brett and his wife would visit this village and help prepare a meal for them. There are about 30 working adults there plus their children. Though this community may be just as poor as the dump village, some of the kids are privileged to go to school and the sanitation here is not as dangerous for their health.
The people here are squatters on government land. At any point, someone could come in and kick them out. Some of the people here have been chipping away at this quarry for over 16 years. Brett has greatly invested in the lives of the people here and helped to build them houses. Some of them were literally living underneath a tarp underneath some trees and had no walls to shelter them.
Their source of income here is to pound gravel by hand. They start by chipping away at the rock walls, harnessed by a single rope around the waist. The larger stones are smashed into rocks of varying sizes.
It takes about one week to pound enough stones into a desirable size to fill a truck bed. So thirty people work together to fill a truck bed with gravel, and all for about $25 for their week of collective labor. I don't even know how the community survives on that alone.
Brett and ThyVenn pour into these people lives and share to love of Christ through both words and action. They come back week after week to spend time with the community and share God's word with them. Some of the people have come to believe in Christ and even got baptized in the waters of the quarry.
Brett recently acquired some land with 100 mango trees that will need to be cared for before they start producing fruit. Brett is taking a married couple and their two children out of the quarry and to his property to care for the trees. They will have an income from taking care of the land and better living conditions there. Once the trees start producing fruit, the fruit can be sold and the land will start paying for itself.
Extras
We volnteered a few hours at a place a few houses where we live to help paint some windows. The organization is caled Yodifee and equips people with disabilities with trade skills such as making bags, repairing motorbikes, carving wood, playing music, and learning English.
During one of the Saturday prayer meetings, Ben led us all in a foot washing. It was an awesome symbol of serving one another, just as Christ demonstrated.
We not only washed the community's feet, but they in turn wanted to
serve us as well and wash our feet.
On one of our days off, a few of us decided to go to the wildlife preserve.
This picture sums it up.
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While there is still much to be said about Cambodia, I may have to leave it for another blog or two.
So much has happened, and we only have a few days left before we head off to Vietnam.
If there's one thing that's been drilled into my mind about the World Race, it has been getting rid of expectations.
This month in Thailand, I had no idea what to expect in terms of ministry.
We had not discussed what our ministry contact would be before leaving Bangkok.
I ended up staying back an extra day in Bangkok with my team mate Jaime, who was supposed to have a dentist appointment the following day after the rest of the team had left.
Talk about no expectations:
- the dentist got into a car accident a few hours before Jaime's scheduled appointment
-I was told that we had a ministry contact change the day the team left for the bus station
-I asked to stay with Jaime to travel with her less that 30 minutes before I thought we were leaving for the bus station
- I didn't know anything about where our new contact was or what we were doing...
And it was ok.
[with Jaime on our bus]
And here I am in Nakhon Phanom, about 12 hours away from Bangkok and a 10 minute walk to the Mekong River where we can see Laos.
Team Siloam has partnered in with Pastor Sam at his home/church.
[Back in the day, Pastor Sam -> awesome Thai kickboxer ]
Now he's a Pastor & part-time masseuse.
He said it has been almost 10 years since he has had a YWAM team sent to his church, and was very excited to host the 7 of us, plus our translator Yod.
Our month consisted of visiting people around the community, many of which Pastor Sam had not been able to visit, or visit regularly in the last few months, or in some cases years.
One example of a Thai home we visited a few times.
We called her Grandma Thailand. We visited her and her family underneath the house pictured above. They were making baskets. We invited Grandma Thailand to church and saw her next week!
Most home visits looked like this. Sitting in on the floor and sharing parts of our lives and getting to know the people that Pastor took us to see. Many times it felt difficult to build relationships in such a short amount of time and it was hard to feel like I was making a difference. But, if we came to Pastor Sam and were sent to him to encourage him and rekindle his existing relationships with people in small villages, then I'd say we made an impact; even if it doesn't always feel like it. Sometimes you have to look at the big picture and learn to be thankful and present wherever God has you.
We would share the Gospel with groups of people and about the adventure God has sent us on.
This group happened to be in the middle of some festivities...
On multiple occasions we were brought places and randomly asked to take pictures. This was in the middle of Children's Day. These are some teachers on the school board here; they even wanted us to sign a guestbook. We played with just a few kids and were treated special - that mean's they gave us ice cream.
We did a little drama/skit in the middle of the night market in front of this sign, just off the Mekong River. That's Laos on the other side. This was definitely a new experience for me.
We visited this woman several times. She used to sing and dance at Pastor Sam's church, but runs an internet cafe and is unable to go to church anymore. We brought church to her one day and spoke life into her. We are praying for her daughter's vision because it is blurred and she can't see very well.
I enjoyed re-visiting places. This is the same house where we met Grandma Thailand. We called this guy Grandpa Thailand (no relation to Grandma Thailand). He seemed to enjoy out antics and presence as he showed us how to make our own chopsticks as he worked on framework for the bamboo sticky rice steamers. Pastor Sam talked to some of the women in the village
as the Siloam wolf pack played shop class.
Thai people are so sweet. We went on a boat ride on the Mekong with this woman's son and grandson.
I like to hold strangers babies.
They're so cute.
SOOO cute.
This is Dollar. His younger brother is in the picture above. We made friends with his parents, mostly their dad. It took a few encounters before he really seemed to open up a little bit more. By the end of the month, he would drop by with the boys to visit and eventually say goodbye.
This is how he showed up to the house. Unsafe? But it's pretty normal here.
This little girl reminded me of my sister when she was little.
We made friends with a girl named Haley who works with World Teach, teaching english. She let us infiltrate her classes. I led a song with the days of the week. Many thanks to my little niece who unknowingly helped equip me with a song.
Can you find me?
One of the boys in one of the classes was very surprised with the brown American. We played hangman. My message was "Dan's parents are from the Philippines." Then they all made the "Ahhhhhhhh... now I get it" face.
Haley introduced us to her teacher friends at the school.
There's a teacher at a different school who leads worship at Pastor's church. He introduced us to some of his students.
On our last day of ministry we played Big Booty and Ninja with them. After the games, we sat in a circle and talked with them for a little bit.
I took the opportunity to share a condensed version of my testimony with them and the impact Christ made in my life. I hope to hear from them even after we leave. They were so shy at first, but warmed up to us and even sad to see us go so soon.
This month has been another month that enforced the value of building relationships. As many visits as we did, as a team we felt that there was a heavy emphasis of doing our best to try and pour into, and encourage, Pastor Sam and his family. Although there is freedom of religion here (which cannot be said for some other countries nearby), there are still very few Christians in this nation. It is our hope that Pastor would be able to have people speak life into him on a regular basis and encourage him as well - even pastors need it too.
It's been a blessing to be so welcomed into Pastor's family. The month has flown by so quickly. As I write this at 1:24am, we are leaving at 3:30am, aka 2 hours from now; heading for our translator Yod's home town to visit his sister and family for a day before heading to Bangkok for 2 days. Then it's off to Cambodia.
I don't know what to expect on the World Race,
- only that God would reveal more and more of who He is in my life,
and use me for his Kingdom purposes.
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This one's for you daddy!
[Gotta enjoy all the good food here. And I mean ALL of it!]
We left Vision Nicaragua on December 31st, stayed at the Surfing Turtle Lodge on the beach for 4 days without internet, and left on January 4th for a few days of travel:
[Within a span of 24 hours we went from being on the beach, waiting for a boat to pick us up, along with our baggage and take us across the water - to being in a hotel in Atlanta with Chick-Fil-A.]
Somewhere along the way a proper farewell blog to Nicaragua got lost. I'd hate to leave any loose ends between transitions, because I'm pretty sure once I start on a new country, it's hard to backtrack to the previous month.
So... here goes...
Earlier in the month we helped host, ref, and coach 4 soccer teams in tournament.
The kids also came to the Vision Nicaragua compound and heard talks about having clean bodies and the importance of good hygiene. We had split up prior to the tournament into the communites of the teams and helped pick up trash; they heard about the importance of keeping their communites and environment clean. The kids also heard a talk about having a clean heart and how it is only possible through the forgiveness that Christ died for.
The kids also had a few swings at a pinata or two
and watched Kung Fu Panda on the projector.
We didn't finish the roof that we were working on. However, a lot of progress was made with our help. The walls were raised and the new metal beams were put together for the new roof. Though we didn't see it to completion, there are still people who will finished off what we helped start.
The house didn't get finished either, but we did get 3 of 4 walls put up, and the fourth one was over half way up when we left. There is a team of missionaries who came a week after we left, who will probably finish off the house. Estella has had a place to sleep on the Vision Nicaragua property while we were constructing her house, don't worry, she's not homeless.
I'll miss my construction buddies: Eleazar, Kevin, Josue, and Eddie.
On New Year's Eve, our last day with Vision Nicaragua, we stopped into Bethel for the last time to say our goodbyes. We have had a ton of fun getting to know families and play with the kids.
This is my buddy Loren. I enjoyed spending time with him in Bethel. I was able to work on my Spanish with him and make a friend in the process. Loren is 19 and going to school for veterinary studies. He was like a younger brother to me during our stay in Nicaragua.
The kids all ran after the truck as we left Bethel.
I'll miss Connie, one of the first people I ever met in Bethel.
She has a big heart filled with love and always had encouraging words for me every time we met.
Dan & Kathleen, I enjoyed doing ministry together with you guys!
Enjoy your time in Nicaragua, keep doing what you're doing.
Dan and Kathleen drove down from the US to Nicaragua with a bunch of tools in their 4-Runner. Dan is teaching all sorts of mechanical stuff to Nicaraguans to help equip them for better work, outside of the sugar cane fields.
While in Nicaragua, we learned that many men work in the sugar cane fields and in some cases, in as little as 6 months to a few years, men suffer from chronic kidney failure. From what I have heard, there is a certain pesticide that is manufactured in the United States, banned from use in the United States, but exported to countries like Nicaragua. There are no laws against the use of the pesticide in Nicaragua, and more than likely is the cause of the kidney failure. Many Nicaraguan men have had little choice but to work in the sugar cane fields in order to provide for their families, and as a result, end up getting the kidney disease. We met a man named Ernesto in Bethel who has the kidney disease and his little daughter. We prayed for Ernesto during our visits and have heard that he has been able to eat for the first time in months and feeling better. But before we left, I heard he was in the hospital again. We pray that Ernesto is out and experiences continued healing.
Here's where we spent our last days in Nicaragua before leaving; in our tents on the beach. We spent time together as a squad an also in our teams. Before heading off to Thailand and making the continent switch, we were given news that we would all have new teams. Thomas, Ryan, and Kayla got raised up to squad leaders. Our 8 teams got condensed into 7 teams; two of which are all girl teams. I was on Team Freedom and now am on Team Siloam (blog links to my new team mates are on the side). While we were all sad to part ways with our family for the first three months of the Race, I am excited to grow in different ways from my new family and see what God has in store for all of us in Thailand.
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I never thought I would enjoy Central America as much as I did. A piece of my heart will always be there. I made a lot of new friends and family and God has definitely shaped and refined me in new ways during the past three months.
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