read this tonight and made it my own prayer may you make it your own...

my vow:  whatsoever Thou sayest unto me, by Thy grace I will do it

my constraint:  Thy love, O Christ, my Lord

my confidence:  Thou art able to keep that which I have committed unto Thee

my joy:  to do Thy will, O God

my discipline:  that which I would not choose, but which Thy love appoints

my prayer:  conform my will to Thine

my motto:  love to live, live to love

my portion:  the Lord is the portion of mine inheritance

Teach us good Lord to serve Thee as Thou deservest; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do Thy will, O Lord our God

Currently Reading How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth By Gordon D. Fee, Douglas Stuart see related

"Turn my heart toward your statutes
       and not toward selfish gain.

 Turn my eyes away from worthless things;
       preserve my life according to your word"

there's so much going through my mind right now that every day when i stop to try and make sense of it all nothing happens beside i add another thing to think on to the list.  so instead of my thoughts which are not really clear right now i offer you the Word, as it is the life to my everyday. be Gods

up in the middle of the night again.  i request your prayers for my body has yet to get back to normal.  my stomach is not normal and its starting to really hurt.  but i figure since im up i might as well utilize my time and i thought this would be the perfect time to post more about my trip.  this week will soon get very busy and so i don't know when i'll have time to post the many things i wish to share with people about my trip.  so here goes some of my thoughts

chronicles of cambodia entry #2

what we did:  the trip started off rocky when b/c of fog we missed our flight in san franscico to hong kong.  this delayed our trip 3 days.  at first there was a possiblity of this cancelling our trip but as a team we decided to press on not knowing the future and if we would get to cambodia or not.  we could have ended up traveling for two weeks but we were gonna try.  after staying in san fran one night in the airport and flying through japan we ended up staying in hong kong for two nights.  hong kong is an amazing city.  what seemed as a delay was a witnessing opportunity....a chance to love.  we met a guy named jason.  as our guys played football jason starting talking to amber and myself.  he was full of questions. this lead to us getting to spend the rest of our day with him.  we got to share why we were there and give him a Bible.  we finally got to cambodia and ended up staying in the capitol for two days.  we found a baptist church that had an international service that we got to attend.  bethany baptist church was such an encouragment and challenge.  this church had missionaries all around the world (including america) and had planted over 14 churches in cambodia and abroad.  pastor ranear (sp?) was a single man from the phillippines who has adopted three kids.  he planted the church ten years ago and has a vision for it to plant more churches each year.  he preached the word when we were there.  i'll never forget him talking about andrew.  truly a person from the Word that i have never thought on but that moved me so.  at the end of our trip we got to spend a day with the orphans this church takes care of.  they believe in james 1and the church has orphans and widows they take of.  they do not have an orphanage yet b/c the pastor cannot run the orphanage and the church and they believe the orphanage should be a ministry of the church so they are waiting on a person to run it as such.  the kids were beautiful and trained in the word of God.  one time during the day i found myself stepping back and looking on...our guys had been touched.  i had not seen bigger smiles on their faces the entire trip. 

eventually we got to banlung which was the final destination of our trip.  the airport in banlung.....a dirt air strip; baggage claim....the back of a pick up truck!  our days went like this get up around 6:30-7:00 eat breakfast and start the day by 8:00.  we would paint all day everyday.  the work was so much fun.  the hopsital was so big there was no way that we could do all the work so we taught the natives how to paint and make small repairs on the hospital.  the first day we actually unloaded the big truck of medical supplies shipped by boat from the missions office.  we had a big ceremony.."the unlocking of the truck."  the things donated were numerous clothes, bedding, hospital beds, dentist chairs, xray machine, examination tables, foods, tons of medicines and so much more.  many things they had never seen before....like electronic beds for the hospital rooms.  they thought they were funny. 

outside of work there were a few things that deserve being told....

---watching a mans big toe get amputated

---seeing their water well and learing why i could not drink their water

---visiting the genocide musuem.  in 1974 there was a genocide by the khmer rouge.  many people were brutally murdered.  they have turned to prison into a musuem.  you might have heard about this in america through a movie the killing fields.  in the musuem you would walk into a room were they were would be 8 x 10 pictures coving the walls looking at you.  this produced many emotions for a person to process...i was being stared at by thousands of faces of people who had done nothing to be brutally murdered and 98 99% of them went into eternity not having a relationship with God and not proffessing Jesus Christ as their Savior. 

---learning traditional cambodian dance.  what a night this was.  traditional cambodian dance has no beat and is very funny b/c you feel like your flapping your wings.  not to many things as funny as a bunch of white baptist learning to dance on a missions trip.

---riding an elephant.  one day our guys rented motor bike (b/c that is the #1 way of travel)  so us girls decided we would ride elephants down to the waterfall.  being the fun seeking person i am this sounded like a great opportunity i mean come on how many times to you get the opportunity ride an elephant through the "jungles" of cambodia?  i was good picturing a zoo ride on an elephant but when we arrived at a shack village and 3 huge elephants strutted out with a boy on one and a man w/o a leg on the other my heart skipped a few beats.  i'm scared of dogs....so imagine the fear that came over me at this moment.  if it would have been up to me i would have ran but the guys made me get on.  ended up being one of he coolest experiences of my life.  i have pictures that i will eventually post if i can figure it out.  if you've read clayton's xanga you know why this part of the trip was one of the funniest parts.  oh and by the way everyone driving a motor bike that day has a wreck.  but my elephant kept me safe and sound!

---going to the "IN" village.  the IN village was in a famine last year and was helped by the bma.  so we went to the village in hopes of continuing our relationship with them with the intentions of eventually someone being able to teach them about Christ.  to get the the IN village we drove 2 1/2 hours down what seemed like a foot path yet could not be traveled by foot b/c of the huge craters in it.  then we parked and crossed a river in a canoe.  to find a tribal people...no electricity, no running water, no belief in the one true God.  random things seen in the village...that no matter where you go when a kid starts crying the dad picks them up and hands them to their momma,  a native dance, a monkey drinking a coke, a native walk through crocidille invested water (our guys tried to say there were not crocidilles but i still don't believe them) when our canoe motor broke, and i'm sure many more things i just cannot think of any more right now.

---swimming in a volcanic lake.  after 5 of our guys where sick dr. phil was concerned and made us take a 1/2 of a day off.  we had a picnic on the lake and then swam.  it was beautiful, fun, and relaxing.

---the first church service to be held in the hospital.  27 cambodians, 14 americans, and 4 filipinos.  the Gospel of Jesus Christ was preached to all 26 (dr. phil is a christian) buddhist. 

i'm sure there's so much more i could post.  but i'm gonna wind this entry up with telling about talking with bro. jerry kidd.  bro. jerry met us in cambodia.  we discussed the planning of our trip and such.  we all agreed that more college trips need to be planned for christmas break.  college kids are perfect for pioneering trips such as this one.  were the adventerous spirit is there to work w/o a missionary yet there's some knowledge of how things are suppose to work to be able to work w/o a missionary.  hopefully this is a way vsm is going to be able to expand.  something for you guys to start praying about.  i'm gonna pursue this conversation with bro jerry when he arrives back from cambodia.  

my next post will be about the many things God showed me personally on this trip.  until then have a wonderful Sunday worshipping our Savior.   

it's 3:30am and i should be asleep, but i'm up sick at my stomach.  american food did not like me yesterday.  seeing the fact that i've had rice for 17 days i guess it is understandable why my cheeseburger from mcdonalds was not wanted by my body, but it sounded so good in my head!  since i'm up i figured why not write a little about my trip.  so here it goes the chronicles of cambodia....

cambodia as a country is very poor.  the main people group is the khmer people group which is in the top 100 most unreached people groups in the world.  cambodia is made up up 13 provinces.  the capitol city in phmon phen (still can't spell right).  the province we worked in was the province of ratinakari.  ratinakari is the smallest province of the 13.  it is made up of 80% indigenious people (not khmers).  most indigenious people speak tribal languanges not khmer.  the set up of cambodia is perfect for new tribes missions pattern of missions.  the city we worked in is banlung.  it is a city made of nothing but red clay roads that turn in foot paths with craters in them as you drive 10 minutes starting out to the villages.  there is not an international missionary through the bma there.  we worked with a man named dr. phil.  dr. phil is a philippino who is not there b/c of the bma or even as a missionary.  he manages a program called health net international which works through the hopsital in ratankari.  bro. jerry kidd met dr. phil on an airplane and this is how God opened the door for us to get into cambodia.  when dr. phil showed bro. jerry the hospital bro. jerry say the physical needs and thought what a group of college kids could accomplish.  our trip was totally a pioneering trip.  not working with a missionary was actually really awesome.  i was just working with two Christians who were living for God "as they were going" (literal translation of the great commission) in a country that the name of God is not known.  our trip was an expression to the cambodian government that it is better to give than receive.  buddhism is the religion of the people, and the indigenious people are anamist and believe that everything has a spirit.  there are shrines everywhere, in the city they are to buddha in the villages to their other gods.  i thought cambodia was a closed country and that it was against the law to be a christian....this is not the case.  three years ago this changed about the government.  you can openly be a Christian now....a matter of fact we found a baptist church in the capitol which is an entire didn't story, but it was an organized church.  all the buddhist i met were very open and wanted to know about our Jesus.  cambodia is a kingdom....meaning there is royalty and then there are officials of each province.  we got to meet the lutenant (sp?) govenor of rattinikari several times.  when we left we got to have a special ceremony and present him with a copy of the Holy Bible.  He was very excited. 

i'm already feeling better and getting tired once again so back to bed i go, i just thought i would begin telling what is going to be a mile long story.  it's for sure going to have to be posted in segments....so this is part one :)