Muddy Streets

One day my mom needed to go to church, back when we lived in a row house near Wat Toul Tompong (a temple) here in Phnom Penh, and my sister decided to go with her. Mom said the road was muddy and she had to strategically find a path and cut across the mine field of puddles and carefully avoid motorcycle and bicycle traffic. She looked behind her and saw my little sister whom at the time was five, behind her. She saw Kiri following her, jumping puddles and walking the muddy streets without a word of complaint. Mom's heart filled with joy and pleasure when she saw her little daughter quietly following her on the muddy road. At that moment she felt God speaking to her through the image of Kiri so willingly following her. Mom described it as a glimpse of what God feels when we we follow him obediently without complaining even though we might get mud on our shoes and feet. I've heard this story before but was too young to understand the imagery. Hearing the simple story again this morning was refreshing. Attitude can completely change an experience. Besides, mud washes off.

Speak, Listen, Sing & Pray

Many conversations this past month have included questions like: How long have you lived here? How long do you plan on staying? What do you do here? How do you know Khmer? Would you like to hang out sometime (a question which I misinterpreted as 'do you generally like to hang out' and replied 'yes' to, but then realized that the young man was actually hitting on me. I awkwardly backed out of that one by running into a chocolate shop.)

But my favorite reoccurring question has been, "What are your dreams?"

I dream of speaking Khmer fluently with a vast vocabulary and holding a long, deep, educated conversation with a Cambodian. I dream of going beyond the, "hello"s and "how are you"s and bargaining talk. I want to be fearless in speaking this language that's digging itself up again. I want to be able to sing a long during church service without mumbling made up words to myself when I don't know the song. I want to hear people's stories and know them. I want to pick up the short stories book sitting on our shelf and read original Khmer literature. I want to be able to respond coherently and be able to speak words of encouragement. I want to pray in this language without struggling with sentence structure and vocabulary. I want to be eloquent enough to share with people about true, solid hope that can only be found in Christ.

This is one of my dreams.