Certainly is better than maybe.

Imagine you're in the bathroom, and you're about to take a really hot shower so you have the hot water running through the shower head.  You sit on the toilet for a time to get business done, and you start thinking about your last relationship, then what you want to cook for dinner tonight, and then about your future, and about 15 min pass by and the mirrors have fogged up from the heat.  You see the moist air filling your bathroom and want to reach for the door to let some of the steam out, but you can't because you're still on the toilet.  You're just stuck in the hotness, perspiration begins to coat your arms the sides of your temples.  When you breathe in you can almost take sips of the hot air.

You are just breathing, and waiting to open that door.  Now imagine there's no door, and instead of a bathroom you're just in your bedroom...welcome to my life in Cambodia.  :)

Comfort is definitely hard to come by here, whether it's the temperature, humidity, food, toilets, beds, safety, all the dust everywhere caking me, bugs, or the cultural differences that inhibit parts of your personality.  (For example, humor is a difficult one for me to get here, and I can't wear shorts or tank tops which are my bread and butter especially in weather conditions as hot as this.) 

So there have been moments, sometimes days, where I think:

 "Why am I putting myself through all this? 

 Why did I pay to come study here just to be so uncomfortable? 

 I don't think I could live here as a missionary."  

But I look at the changes in myself since coming here, and I can't help but smile with so much confidence and joy.  I attribute the majority of this confidence and joy to God who was gracious to place me in a place where I was challenged and forced to give up so much of my comfort, because it also pushed me to look for Him more.  I needed that, and I can honestly say that it's so worth all the humidity, the dirty dust everywhere, the 59 bug bites I've accumulated, and sharing a dingy bathroom with 7 girls to have finally begun to grasp who God is, His nature, His character.  I read what I just wrote and it just doesn't do justice to the depth of truth I want to convey.  Basically, I want to say that this isn't a temporary thing, it's not like one lesson learned.  This is wisdom in living to make choices that bring us closer to God, even if that means we have to live in Cambodia or the desert...til we die.  It's recognizing that knowing Him is worth more than comfort or whatever else.  That to have God is better than anything (yes, even better than a good nights rest, 3 meals a day, better than having a nice body or a spouse, He is better!) but I know this won't make sense or really bear clarity for most people, because you haven't really seen who God is.  To know God comes at a great cost.  He asks us for everything, all you fellow control freaks out there this is where you feel the urge to book it.  It's about trading in all your "maybes" in for a certainly. 

You think ... but if I give up my comfort, my reputation, my stuff!!...

Maybe I won't have good food!

Maybe I'll get sick, fat and pimply!

Maybe I'll never marry! 

But God says:

Certainly I am your Provider.

Certainly I am your Healer.

Certainly I love you, my daughter.

So for me it came down to asking myself: is it worth it to keep the "maybes" for the "certainly"?

And only if the "certainly" is truly certain then it's stupidity to hold on to the "maybes".  And this is where things get hard and real, because if the certainly is not certain, then you don't know who God is.  

All I can say is, I've come to know God, and I would never trade where I am now to go back to where I was.  God is so good, I embrace the challenges because through them I see who God is a little more and the more I see Him the more I am awed by just how good He is.  Seriously there are no words, my life as it begins to be completely all for His glory will hopefully show what I'm trying to say. 

James 1:2-4

 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Read that over and over. There's gold in there.  

My prayer for myself and for you is that God would not teach you anything more til you first apply what you know already. 

-j

Change is your choice.

So mosquito bites are still just as annoying as they have consistently been since my coming to mosquito city, I mean battambang ...hehehe, calm down.  I'm calm.  But really.  God is talking to me here, or He's been talking to me, but I am only now beginning to hear Him.  I trust that God is with me here, whether or not the people here are good or bad, God is good and He is with me.  I feel blessed to be surrounded by people who speak truth and life to me about myself and about God.  But most amazingly, I fear significantly less, and find such confidence in trusting God...not people.  If I'm not making sense then I'll try to clarify or maybe, for once, I'll re read and edit.  But even as I read Gods word I use a different lens to view the passages, and they make more sense to me and how I can actually apply them to my life.  

Proverbs 9:4-10 (the message)

    Wisdom invites everyone within sound of her voice:

“Are you confused about life, don’t know what’s going on?

    Come with me, oh come, have dinner with me!

I’ve prepared a wonderful spread—fresh-baked bread,

    roast lamb, carefully selected wines.

Leave your impoverished confusion and live!

    Walk up the street to a life with meaning.”

7-12 If you reason with an arrogant cynic, you’ll get slapped in the face;

    confront bad behavior and get a kick in the shins.

So don’t waste your time on a scoffer;

    all you’ll get for your pains is abuse.

But if you correct those who care about life,

    that’s different—they’ll love you for it!

Save your breath for the wise—they’ll be wiser for it;

    tell good people what you know—they’ll profit from it.

Skilled living gets its start in the Fear-of-God,

    insight into life from knowing a Holy God.

It’s through me, Lady Wisdom, that your life deepens,

    and the years of your life ripen.

Live wisely and wisdom will permeate your life;

    mock life and life will mock you.

Reading this I used to view it as me being the wise one trying to correct or rebuke others and I read this as markers of when I should stop wasting my breath on people.  However, reading this now I see that it's talking about me and my character.  How do I take rebuke?  What is usually my reaction when someone corrects me?  Do I walk away from a counseling session with more or less understanding?  These are great indicators for myself, am I a mocker/scoffer (arrogant cynic) or am I walking in wisdom?   Do I learn from my mistakes?  Do I fear God?  Do I understand things better because I know who God is and my position before Him or am I more appeased when things just go the way I think is how they should go?  

Proverbs 9:4-10 helps me see myself for who I am in the responses I give when being corrected.  

God is molding my character here, but obedience is so rough and uncomfortable and even annoying.  To be frank and honest.  I'm a very particular person, meaning I like to have things a certain way.  I don't like talking a lot or listening to others talk a lot either, but it's not about me, it's about giving God all the glory, even if I have to sit through and stumble through a long drawn out conversation with someone completely different from myself.  If I can display and give love to someone with that to glorify God then that's what I want to do.  Living to do and get just what I want is not a life of joy, I've come to realize that. If I become content in my selfish ways, I have walked away from the gospel. 

When it comes to change, no one, no one, no one has the excuse that they are a victim of some terrible situation and that's why they can't change.  We have a choice, I have a choice, I can decide how to respond in any situation.  I may not be able to control what is done to me by others or by things, but I always have a choice in how I choose to respond.  I can respond in light of the gospel, or I can fool myself into thinking I am a victim and let pride rule my life.  Let's say someone was raped, bullied, and lost all their family members to a tragic death in life.  That person is then confronted with the gospel, the truth that God loves them, and that His holiness sets Him above and apart from all sin.  That person can choose to recognize that and walk towards a life of joy in knowing that God loves them and that He is good, or that person can choose to live in fear and distrust and hurt.  Regardless of our circumstances, we have a choice, and the choice may be more difficult for some than others, but the fact is that there is indeed a choice.  

We decide if we will change.

I hope I choose to change and draw closer to God, letting go of every fear, fear of what people think of me, fear of the future, fear of inadequacy, fear of not being loved, fear of sharks haha.  Every fear must GO!  I only want to fear God and walk in humility before Him, walk in the grace He pours out on someone so selfish and arrogant as myself, to come alive in Christ and be more bold, more confident, more full of joy and love and patience and peace.  God is so good, because that is just who He is.  I am not good at all, even my good deeds are dirty compared to how good God is, I am seeing things a little more clearly each time, and there is so much more joy in knowing who I really am and who God really is and then to realize that He loves me.  

Know God, and you will gain understanding (if you're confused).  Then you will begin to fear God as you know Him, and wisdom will begin to grow in your decisions (and how you respond to circumstances and people in your life).  But the fact is you have to know who God is first.  

Who is God to you?

Answer this by looking at your life. 

Your responses to bad situations, good situations and confusing situations; this will help you answer this more clearly.  Just be honest with yourself.  If you believe in God then at least you can know that you may fool others but you cannot fool God.  

I hope you will choose to know God, because He is so good.  God has taught me so much since being here, and this past week The biggest lesson I learned was that God sees my heart, and if my heart is pure before Him, then whatever happens whether I make the wrong or right decisions He will make all things work out for my good, but the key factor in that is my heart (my motivations, my intentions, my fears)  So i have less of a fear in my confusion and people and feel so much more confident in Him, and I want that everyone to experience this confidence!  It's so awesome!  My life is not perfect; I still have other fears and there is lots of work I need to do to change, but I can honestly say that I would rather be where I am now than where I was before coming to this step closer toward God.  

Choose God.  Because man, He is so good.  Just who He is, if you really knew Him, will change your life. 

Cultural differences

Battambang, Cambodia is growing on me more and more each day.  Suddenly I feel overwhelmed by the reasons: the people, the food, the bike rides, ....the people!  God has really melted my heart about the people here.  I love the khemi people, they are so ....indescribably kind and open minded, eager to know me, eager to smile and just so darn cute.  They are joyful over the little things that I usually take for granted or feel haughtily entitled to.  

A few cultural differences, though, are that they don't like it when you touch their heads.  Any part of their heads, it is considered extremely degrading since the head is the most top and sacred part of the body. So for someone who loves to stroke people's hair, I have had many a moments where I stopped my hand mid air (before touching someone's head) and placed it strategically on their shoulder haha.  

They also share everything!  So if someone buys one piece of fruit, they offer a piece to everyone.  This one is kind of difficult for me since I like to buy in bulk to save having to go to the market again, i like to buy a few groceries to have in storage, but their culture of sharing makes me feel really stingy sometimes.  So I share sometimes, but sometimes I just hide my food if I'm saving it to have throughout the week of classes.  Once in a while someone will catch me getting food from my hiding spot and I feel them giving me the stink eye, but maybe I'm just imagining it.  

Another cultural difference is clothing.  I'm a scandal here with my dri fit leggings!  They don't find it appropriate to wear tights (even if worn with short over them or with shirts long enough to cover your butt and thighs).  So I have to resort to wearing pants or skirts that cover up to my ankles.  Knees and shoulders are scandalous here.  I don't usually wear tank tops so I'm good there, but apparently my go-to American apparel leggings are too "revealing".  Which sucks bc they are like my most comfortable clothes to wear.  

Relationships with the opposite sex are also a lot more conservative here.  Couples don't hold hands, don't kiss, and don't show any sign of physical affection here.  I find that sort of unhealthy, but there are times I find it progressively positive.  The fact that they show affection in other ways aside from physicality is pretty inspiring.

Week 2 is done.

I am just falling more and more in love with living here, or maybe I'm just adjusting haha because I still miss my comfortable lifestyle from time to time.  (Mostly at night when I am scratching my 29 bug bites like a feral creature, waking up to surprising scars and bruising).  

But praise my cool God for making me stronger with every struggle and acclimation. 

J

What bug bites make me think....

I have 28 plump burning red bumps all over my legs and arms; spiders, red ants and Mosquitos consistently reminding me of their awareness of my animosity towards them.  This is my struggle in Cambodia.  Bug bites and very little control over my time.  I'm itchy and restrained, but praise God for His leading throughout.  Both of those things are not even that big of a deal, in fact to most they may not even appear to be real issues (and that's bc you're just so awesome or you've never been to a third world country and lived with and where the natives did and not a western hotel), and perhaps they're not, but it's still difficult for me to pinpoint my struggle without the obvious culprits.  So then, if the bites and time constraints aren't culprits, what is? 

The truth is, I still harbor doubt and some  fear that I won't be able to handle what God has in store for me if and when I finally "jump cliff", so to speak.  I'm still wondering if that's even how I am to go about it, I mean biblically, what does it mean and look like?  How does God move?  What does trust really call for on our part as weak and broken people? 

1 peter is such a jaw dropper when it comes to applying the life of Christ to our own.  Read it.

Deuteronomy 1:30-33

30 The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, 31 and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place." 32 In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God, 33 who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.

That to me is mind blowing. 

Yet this trust of mine keeps wavering, and I find myself blanketing in the comfort of that familiar sense of resignation or digression of intimacy.  Both with God and people.  

But. 

I have noticed a small transpiring difference within myself glinting off the smiles on these beginning friendships here, almost undetectable with a spark that might be thought of as imagined at first.  It's hard to say why, but for some reason I feel more curious to know them, and kind of concerned over their moods, but most bizarre is that I want to make them full of the same joy God gives me.  I want to share....I genuinely see the seedling of a desire to share, not just share something this big or something that I break off of something else, but like share as in welcome them to the home in my heart.  Where everything I am and all that I have (which all come from God) rests neatly in my type A control freak cottage home (that's what my heart probably looks like if it was a home) haha that it a farm house.  

They might shift things around, dirty my floors or furniture, eat my food without asking, maybe even try to rob me when my back is turned!  But what good is a home all neat and beautiful if there is only me to enjoy it?  The reasoning isn't clear, but it doesn't have to be, we just know that that wouldn't be as grand as a house brimming full of love and laughter, I feel like that's what God is doing to me.  Preparing me to be ok for when my cottage gets wrecked.  And I want it to get wrecked, cuz perfection is a mirage without Perfection Himself.  So God says to consider others more than yourself.  He says to give to others, to help people, serve, wash feet, love others....all things I am praying would take root in me.

Anyway.  

So my prayer today is that I step out onto the ocean's surface, above the deep that threatens to pull me under, above the sharks that encircle me, above all that I imagine to harm me, and ask Jesus to call me out by name to meet Him.  Because I keep getting distracted by the people shouting their fears, showing the worry on their faces, and the ocean that looks too vast for one person to just walk all over.  

Isaiah 40:12 reminds me how big God is...

12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand

    and marked off the heavens with a span,

enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure

    and weighed the mountains in scales

    and the hills in a balance?

If I'm in the ocean I'm still all in His hands. 

God I see just how You love us....only in Cambodia have I seen a lady wearing pink faded sweat pants and a green snoopy sweater lead a powerful prayer during Sunday service.  You see us the way we really are, and I ask for more help.  I need more help.  Or if this something I am going through for the sake of shedding more of my irrational fears, then I ask for more encouragement to help me keep going.  Only though You will I do anything and everything You want me to. 

My birthday

I have never felt so incredibly precious than last night when my day started out with a much needed FaceTime date with one of my dearest friends back in Nashville.  Then I rested.  Mmmhmm.  Then I got whisked away in a tuk tuk with my handsome date and had dinner by the pool at some resort outside the noisy city roads.  It was so incredible, and just when I thought God was done showering His love on me I come home and turn on the lights to find a bunch of my cambodian and foreigner friends saying "surprise!"  I could not have asked for anything more (except I wished that my family and friends from back home were also here), but I am so grateful to Him who always displays His love and affection so blatantly sometimes!  God You are good.  

BIG

As I lather on my sunscreen I start to feel pieces of the dirt getting mixed in and creating something very similar to the small rubber pieces that get left behind from an eraser. It's all over me, dirt and sweat, it almost seems futile to apply sunscreen atop the layers of dirt that cover me from head to toe.  But I still do it anyway, perhaps out of a shameless habit, or maybe I think it will somehow matter...the trying...the trying will turn into pity and God will magically make it effective.  Again, all this is coming from a hot day, typing on my iPhone.  My thumbs barely able to touch each letter.  Week 1 has officially begun and we are learning about the nature and character of God.   But I gotta say, the repeating theme for me seems to be the bigness of God.  God from this angle is almost completely different from God in the states.  God is good wherever I go, but God truly shouts in our times of need, and living in a third world country has shown me what need on a daily basis looks like.  We wake up at 4:30am for our work duties and morning chores, we take turns using the bathroom for a courteous amount of time so that each of us gets a chance to wash up before heading out.  Some have work duties in the blazing sun, but everyone works to maintain the cleanliness and function of the base, most of all the duties require lots of manual labor (dusting, mopping, trash, heavy lifting, and all by hand...no one uses anything that requires electricity since it's super expensive here.  My tools are a broom, mop, bucket, trash bag, and several rag towels.  God is with me every morning, with every stroke of the broom.  He is there with me, guiding my hands over the floors, my feet swiftly moving, I am his hands and feet helping the body in whatever way I can.  It's pretty awesome, and at first I thought I would dread mopping, because I hated mopping when I was a server, but here I see it as something I do that makes my Lord happy, and that brings a smile to my face like a fresh gust of cold air on a hot day. 

Fellowship here is overwhelmingly good.  I live with 7 girls in a room that's small.  Yet I have never slept more soundly or comfortingly or just happily.  Living with these girls is oddly comforting, like always having friends around me in the night as I fall asleep...it's just nice haha. 

So sometimes a huge part of me just wants to be back in the states where the bathrooms don't smell, where my feet are always clean, and the air isn't caking dirt on my skin and clothes.  Sometimes I just want to shrink back into those comfortable things, and ignore the fact that I have a reason for my existence, a reason that calls me to serve others, to tell people about Jesus, and do things that I don't always feel like doing.  I want to do what I want to do all the time, but when I do that I am discontent with life, because a life of self is a life without meaning.  

I have somehow, at some point this past week, fallen in love with God like it was the first time.  Man it is so scary!  There's that verse about working out your salvation in fear and trembling, and that's exactly how I feel.  God is BIG.  God is so much bigger than I believed in my life, He's so much more than just a friend, a lover, a provider, a healer, He's all of those things, but He's also the God who sees people at their worst and then calls someone from across the globe to go help that person.  He's that big!  He's not just in one place catering to people according to their life styles, but He sees someone crying out for help, maybe it's a child whose  parents abandoned them, maybe it's a starving man thinking there's just no hope, maybe it's a suicidal teen, maybe it's someone in deep depression or apathy or no it's bigger, maybe it's an entire village that has no idea how things like love for someone is possible, it could be you right now in your room crying out to Him in your heart.  Whoever it is, God is big and He calls us to help one another, sometimes we are called to help people right in our hometowns, but our Great God also calls us to be His feet that rush to thousands of miles away to that child who's all alone in this world and to get on a plane, go to him or her, hold them and bring them the powerful truth that they are being invited to join the family of the Almighty God.  And when one more gets brought back to the One who created them, we can celebrate like it's nobody's bidness.  I mean, what's more epic than doing something for God....God?!!!  I am just blown away that there is such a thing!  I used to live to please my self, my wants, and my preferences...yea that never really panned out very well in the long run...but that was because I am not God, so whatever I do will be on a very human level...maybe sometimes it will be an ok thing,but never on a God level.  And I would rather have epic chapters in my life than ok ones.  

Lately, I have been speaking more with people, I feel The Lord putting me in situations that compel me to speak and I seriously feel like a trembling match...and my obedience to speak and also to listen is the swiping of the match against whatever that rough stuff is called that light it up. Haha.  I'm never sure what I'm really doing or what I'm getting myself into when I begin to speak about God or words of encouragement to someone hurting, but the more I just do it the more I feel God power just take control and it almost always leaves me excitedly trembling! 

Oh that I would be emptied for Christ to come and dwell more fully!  I don't want my God to live in the corner of a cramped heart, I want him to have everything, because the more I give to Him the more my life becomes an epic adventure.  Money is no problem, relationships are no problem, health is no problem, there's nothing that my God does not know about, and He loves me and I love Him so even if all of those things fail in my life, I don't care, they were temporary anyway, I care about what is going to be forever.  

I really just want to say to you, friends or people just reading this, that God is so big and He wants you to be about forever rather than the "for nows".  Maybe He is calling you to Asia, Europe, Africa, India, some small island in the middle of some ocean, haha, but man, life is about giving God all the glory with our lives.  I mean it's God, He is nothing short of awesome and amazing and epic.  So you live for Him you live awesome and amazing and epic lives.  

It starts with an honest prayer, over and over, not because God doesn't hear the first couple of times, but because you yourself don't hear the first couple of times.  Keep praying til you really hear what you're asking for. 

God keeps reminding me that He sees me, and He is calling me to Himself. 

J

Laundry

Day 4 or 5, I can't really recall haha.

Battambang is heating up.  Man.  It's God from here on out.  I'm almost liking the cold showers now, and I've sort of given up on being afraid of bugs and snakes since they are literally everywhere.  Let's see, sharing a bathroom is not that bad, (though I am the only one who has/wears shower slippers...and I don't plan to stop...having icky feet just feels too...well, icky)  sigh.  I know, I am learning to embrace the culture here, and so far I feel pretty adapted to everything except the bare feet and dirty feet thing.  I can't even think straight as I type this all out on my iPhone. So eloquence, if ever I had any, will now kindly exit the premises for the duration of my time here.  I'm just going to write as if my brain and my fingers were a pair of squabbling siblings.  A little bit irrational, a little bit emotional, tangents left and right, but in the end a fine display of inconsistencies.  

All the students here, including myself, are required to hand wash their clothes in large metal bowls that are also used for washing dirty dishes.  So before filling a bowl with soap and water I have to make sure there is no leftover food or oils clinging to it.  So we clean two bowls out, one for washing (with soap) and one for rinsing with just water. We wash once and rinse twice.  A harrowing process if you have heavy items such as jeans, towels, jackets....all of which I have.  Makes me want to live with disposable clothes...disposable clothes!  Biodegradable disposable clothes...by missionary designs. Bam.  That's how ill support my missionary life, through a multi billion dollar company that serves missionaries.  Anyyyyywho, as I was saying...laundry.  So it took about 2.5 hours for the entire process, leaving my biceps pretty cocky, and the rest of me dead as a nail.  I was so tired and kind of frustrated that I had to take so much time to do something that usually takes about a minutes to load (with a machine).  I was amazed that people had to do this.  Sounds insignificant maybe, but imagine washing your clothes by hand every two days because the weather and constant swirl of dirt being caked onto you forces you to unless you don't care to walk around ..caked in sweat and dirt...like a clay person.  A clean shirt reflects a clean heart.  ;)

So after my inner grumblings against God for having me in that situation, almost right after I found a brook in me that began to bubble.  They were glad bubbles, thankfulness and joy were beginning to flow out of my thoughts.  I realized that the time I spent hand washing my clothes was also spent simultaneously having a really good conversation with my two other roommates.  It was quite nice, like bonding (*shivers). I'm not good at bonding, but I desire to be good at it.  So all in all I think it'll be really good for me to hand wash my clothes, share a bathroom with 6 girls, eat every meal with the base, and  learn to be ok with constant fellowship.  Difficult as it may be, sometimes I just want to throw in the towel and just fly back home (and it's only been a week), but I really want To hear what God is saying to me.  And I know he can talk to me anywhere, but it's myself who can't hear very well when I am covered in self. The less I am the more He becomes, the quieter my soul, the louder He speaks.  I am here to quiet myself and listen to His words for my life. Then I'll go from there. 

Thank you for those who are praying for me!