My Life By a Snapshot

Hey there, So, the other day I saw a man pushing his son in a stroller through a park. They got to a road with a large drop down from the curb. The father was concentrating, trying hard to gently lower his son safely to the road below. The toddler strapped in inside was just staring blankly at the sky above without a worry in the world. He was just chilling there probably dreaming about the shapes of the clouds and the dinosaur he could see in them. He didn't seem to realize that his father behind him was working so hard to keep him safe and comfortable. He had such a total and oblivious trust that his father would take care of him. His father had total and complete control of the little boy's life yet he trusted him fully with it. You know when a father throws their child high into the air, then catching them as the child giggles and screams with joy? Imagine the amount of trust that that child had for their father in that moment. Children trust their parents to take care o...

Hey there, I’m not writing today because it Valentine’s Day and I have a sappy love post (even though we are all incredibly loved by the God of the universe!) No, to be honest,I’m just here because I’m trying to post every week and I posted on Wednesday last week. So, here we are. I'm also here because I wanted to share what God has been teaching me while I've been absent from my blog. This is going to be a verse filled blog post. So, if you want you can read along with me. I'll be using my NIV Bible. I'll also be using the notes I took during my devotions. So, you’ll get a little glimpse into how I personally study the Bible. The verse we'll be looking at is found in 1 Corinthians again. I start by reading it, writing it down, highlighting it (with a color code I have), circling words to define, box string or important word,  underlining words to cross-reference and just mark it up however I desire. Here’s what that looks like. First of all, I love thi...

Hey there, "Finally another blog post!" I know. I'm mad at me too. But, the past few months have been crazy and crazy amazing. So, here I am to finally tell you all about it and a very important decision I made during that time. Warning; this is a long catch-up post!  Firstly, what on earth have I been up to these past few months? A whole lot! Firstly we have been busy hosting teams, which I absolutely love doing! We had the Gap squad in September and October. Then, three 11n11 teams for the month of November. Now we have another Gap squad for January and February. Why does this make me busy? Well, I have now been employed to cook for them all! It's so much fun and I love it so much. It's such a rewarding job. Each week I get two people to come with me to plan, shop for and cook all our meals. I get to know different people each week. I get to learn new things about food each week. And I get to show new people the back roads and cool quirks of this awesome ...

Hey there, It's the rainy season at the moment which means it rains all the time. Sometimes every day and sometimes for hours on end. This floods the streets and creates mud on the bottom of our shoes. We have to ride our bicycles home from ministry in the pooring rain. However, this has created many adventures. We have gone to get pancakes in the rain. We have raced through puddles. We have gone swimming in lakes almost overflowing. Some of my favorite memories with the team have invloved this plentiful water.  One Rainy Day A bunch of us were once eating out at a restaurant when it started to rain. This was no small drizzle either. I did not particularly want to go out in the rain on our bicyles to get home. I was not a fan of being in a soaking dress that clings to my body. We had a time that we had to be back at the house for and time was running out. But, there was no other way to get home so I gave in and went head first into the rain. I got soaked very quickly We e...

Hi there,  This goes out to all those who have ever thought negatively about their body. I'm writing this to anyone who doesn't like the way they look. This is for those who criticize their bodies. I'm talking to those who are self-conscious about their looks. So, listen up. I've got a story to tell. This is my story.    I want to start this off by saying that I only realized all this after it had all happened. I didn't recognize the thoughts and my actions at the time. But, looking back I can now see what was going on. It's kind of like life is a highway and I can only see the giant pothole in the rear-view mirrors. With that said, today I wanted to tell my story of the wrestling match between me and my own body. I'm not telling this story because it's a pleasant one. I'm not telling this story because I enjoy thinking about it. I'm not trying to make you smile. I'm telling it because it's a part of my story and I hope that others...

Hey there,   The squad of 45 arrived safely on Thursday the 14th of September around 3:00 pm. One team member was not able to travel with them. She was stuck in the Dominican Republic due to the hurricanes. She arrived safely later this week. The squad now consists of 9 guys, one of which is a squad leader, and 37 girls, three of which as squad leaders. 25 of the squad will be working with us. Three of them are guys and the remanding twenty-two are girls. They are all between the ages of 18 and 21 years old. When the bus first pulled up to the house and they started filing out, I suddenly realized I had no clue how to act around teenagers any more . I was suddenly stuck with fear. I haven’t been around that many people of my age for years and I was of a sudden was doubting my capability to socialize. I think it was mostly fear of judgment and making a fool of myself. Jordy did a great job at introducing herself despite the fear. But they were so sweet and eventually ...

Hey there, The next few months are going to be crazy! We will be working with a mission organisation called Adventures in Missions (AIM) . They provide short term help to missionaries all over the world. Two of their programs are World Race and Gap Year. World Race are a squad of around 50 people between the ages of 21 and 35 who go to 11 countries in 11 months. In country they break up into teams of around 6 people. They help different missionaries and mission organisations with whatever they need. Gap year do a very similar thing. But, they are 18 to 21 year-olds and they go to 3 to 5 countries in 9 months. Just a beautiful sunset from our balcony  A few doors down is another double apartment. These teams and squads will be housed there whenever they come to Battambang. The girls will stay there but the boys, who are usually significantly less, will be housed in our house. My parents role is to watch over them all and help them if they need help. We will also he...

Dear Reader, My birthday was while ago now but in June I turned 17 years old! Yep, I've been blessed with over 17 years old living now. I am by far not the wisest person out there and I have a lot still to learn but everyone always has something to teach you and so today I thought I'd share with you 17 things I've learned in my 17 years of living. These are in no particular order; just the order in which they're coming to me as I write them now and there are some photos sprinkled in there just to break everything up and so you can see the beautiful faces of our students again :D  1. If you have ants in your sugar put it in the sun for a while and the ants will leave on their own because they don't like the heat . Lee May taught me this one day when we were baking together and I found a whole bunch of ants in my white sugar. It's a very handy trick if you live in Cambodia.  2. It takes more courage and self confidants to cover my body instead of sh...

Hey, As many of you already know I get the priviledge of being a missionary here in Cambodia and I LOVE it! We have a learning centre called Ezra where English id taught Monday to Friday and Bible School/ Study on Sundays. 80-120 kids come to Ezra each day from the ages of 5-25. They come from all kinds of backgrounds and we love all of them! They are beautiful on the inside and outside. They are fun and full of smiles and good times. How could one not love them!? Teaching English gives them skills that are valuable in the workforce here. Having good English can get you better jobs and help you be more successful in those jobs. It helps our students be able to interact with foreigners, which there is not shortage of in this country. It helps them get into better schools and ahve more opportunities in general. But we do what we do for than just education. English is a door for us to be able to teach the kids about God. English draws them in and then we get the opportunity to lov...

Hi, So, I'm finally writing again!It's been five months since my last post and this is well overdue. But why? Why did it take me all this time to write another post? Why haven't I written and what have I been doing all this time? Well, you're in luck because that's exactly what I'm going to write about today. First of all, Thailand happened. In April my family and I left Cambodia for two and a half weeks to vacation in Thailand. We had been here for two years and a break was in need. It was amazing, relaxing and well worth it. We spent a whole lot of time in the water and the sun plus plenty of down time in the air conditioning reading and relaxing. We went kayaking, snorkelling, hiking and just general adventuring. But when the time was up we were happy to get to go back home to our kids and our centre. Our time away helped us to see why we do what we do and just how much we love it all. And then... Teams happened. We've had quite a few t...