The blue pumpkin.
I am sitting at a table across from my husband in a restaurant called The Blue Pumpkin in Siem Reap. We just finished the work portion of our second team and now have a day to relax. And relaxing it is :) I am enjoying a large iced vanilla coffee in the air conditioned upper level of the restaurant as I attempt to gather some of my thoughts regarding the past week.
We had a team of five come in from Iowa who ventured out with us to do a construction/painting project at one of the orphan homes in Kompong Thom. We finished up yesterday working beside a contractor to help raise the floor of the home's cafeteria (to prevent flooding), and to repaint the entire home. The two teenage girls from the Iowa team and I sat at dinner last night talking about the fact that we would never again be able to look at a wall with chipped paint and not want to grab a tool and start taking off the paint, following that up with some plaster, sand paper, and finally a fresh new coat. We haven't quite devised the most effective way to carry all of the supplies around with us.
Our days last week would begin at 7 each morning, and we would find our way back to our rooms somewhere between 7 and 8 each night. It was a glimpse into what my life will look like for the next several months :)
We worked hard and saw a great deal accomplished in our time there. The cafeteria floor got finished and we scraped and painted more than any of us ever had before. We also interacted with lots of amazing kids who jumped in at any opportunity they saw to help with the work going on. They didn't seem to mind the fact that the sun allowed us no escape, or to notice the feelings of exhaustion that can potentially set in after carrying bucket fulls of rocks and sand in the afternoon. They smiled, they laughed, and they served, free of the notion that maybe the work shouldn't be so hard or that they should begrudge what they were doing because it didn't fit with what they wanted to be doing at the moment.
I tried to ignore the fact that my inner attitude and energy didn't always align with what I saw these kids convey. I also tried to not pose too many "are you sure you meant for me to do this?" questions to the Lord as I attempted to bring my vast painting and construction knowledge to the efforts of this team...
This will be a stretching season I have quickly discovered :) I will wake up to many long days, consume hundreds of bottles of water, encounter countless new people who I will connect with briefly during their time on foreign ground, learn how to speak Khmer flawlessly (or at least enough to understand some of what's being said in the church services), get attached to a lot of smiling kids, step into leadership opportunities, learn the Cambodian way to mix cement, attempt to steal away brief moments of quiet and solitude, learn how to have a God-honoring marriage with an amazing husband, see things in me that the Lord wants to change, and (hopefully) agree to let him do so.
Luke 17:33 "Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it."
Luke 12:48 "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."
Luke 14:11 "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
"Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real." - Thomas Merton
We had a team of five come in from Iowa who ventured out with us to do a construction/painting project at one of the orphan homes in Kompong Thom. We finished up yesterday working beside a contractor to help raise the floor of the home's cafeteria (to prevent flooding), and to repaint the entire home. The two teenage girls from the Iowa team and I sat at dinner last night talking about the fact that we would never again be able to look at a wall with chipped paint and not want to grab a tool and start taking off the paint, following that up with some plaster, sand paper, and finally a fresh new coat. We haven't quite devised the most effective way to carry all of the supplies around with us.
Our days last week would begin at 7 each morning, and we would find our way back to our rooms somewhere between 7 and 8 each night. It was a glimpse into what my life will look like for the next several months :)
We worked hard and saw a great deal accomplished in our time there. The cafeteria floor got finished and we scraped and painted more than any of us ever had before. We also interacted with lots of amazing kids who jumped in at any opportunity they saw to help with the work going on. They didn't seem to mind the fact that the sun allowed us no escape, or to notice the feelings of exhaustion that can potentially set in after carrying bucket fulls of rocks and sand in the afternoon. They smiled, they laughed, and they served, free of the notion that maybe the work shouldn't be so hard or that they should begrudge what they were doing because it didn't fit with what they wanted to be doing at the moment.
I tried to ignore the fact that my inner attitude and energy didn't always align with what I saw these kids convey. I also tried to not pose too many "are you sure you meant for me to do this?" questions to the Lord as I attempted to bring my vast painting and construction knowledge to the efforts of this team...
This will be a stretching season I have quickly discovered :) I will wake up to many long days, consume hundreds of bottles of water, encounter countless new people who I will connect with briefly during their time on foreign ground, learn how to speak Khmer flawlessly (or at least enough to understand some of what's being said in the church services), get attached to a lot of smiling kids, step into leadership opportunities, learn the Cambodian way to mix cement, attempt to steal away brief moments of quiet and solitude, learn how to have a God-honoring marriage with an amazing husband, see things in me that the Lord wants to change, and (hopefully) agree to let him do so.
Luke 17:33 "Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it."
Luke 12:48 "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."
Luke 14:11 "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
"Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real." - Thomas Merton
Comments
Trying to get my blogger account to publish this note to you. I'm so looking forward to seeing you in 6 weeks. I need to know where you got your fashionable yet functionable wide brimmed hat. I'm a baseball cap sorta girt but I MUST get one like yours. We can wear them on the same days. :) OK let me send this short note to see if it works. I wrote a long comment and then lost it as it wouldn't go through. Here we go. Hugs and a big kiss to you.
Susie