Flights are booked. Luggage is semi in order. Gifts purchased. Months completed.
I'm so excited to be home. To sit on a chesterfield and eat crap food. I'm so excited to hug and suffocate my nephews with kisses! I'm so excited to see my family and walk the gravel roads with my sister.
Although it's amazingly exciting...it's crazy surreal.
11 months: July 21, 2008 - July 1st, 2009.
I have to stop myself though from wasting these last few days of Cambodia on Canadian longings. My mind racing to the airport. To the prairie smells. To the tears. To the human touches. Eye contact.
I've learned lessons beyond my wildest expectations. I'm filled to the rims with memories, sights, flashbacks...I'm forever indebted to Cambodia. For the love it threw at me and the relationships we built together. Yet I also feel a very heavy responsibility to share truthfully what i've seen and learned. It to me seems like a serious job. As Brooke Fraser sings; "Now that I have seen, I am responsible". I guess I'm trying to figure out what that means for me.
Many people are asking: "So, when will you be coming back to Cambodia?" ummm...well I guess I don't know. I kind of think I need to just take a rest from trying to overload my brain to make such a commitment yet. I just want my Mom people!!!
I must end with saying thank you for reading and sticking along through the rough patches. I'm very lucky to have friends who were able to read along and not get bored out of their minds! I've gone through some changes in my faith this year. And I hesitated sharing any "religious" words. Yet I knew if I wanted to remain genuine and true to myself i had to say what i was thinking...and i knew i couldn't please both sides. Some may say I used some Christian jargon this year...i think that may be because it's difficult to explain sometimes what kind of journey we're on...how do you put faith into words?
Just remember people that just because some gorgeous lady like myself gets up and moves half way across the world doesn't make them a hero or an angel. I'm still who I am. A freckled faced girl who actually likes cigarettes now and then!
Thanks. peace out.
kimbo-rimbo-simbo-ronk.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Meta House: A Success!!
Thanks everyone for keeping Daughters in your thoughts/prayers!
On June 9th Jaymie premiered her photography project at the Meta House art gallery. She has been teaching 4 young Khmer women who work at Daughters, the art of photography since early this year. They proved to be major talents and this exhibition was a way to celebrate and prove to these women to reach high!
During the exhibition on the 9th, Jaymie and I spoke upstairs on the rooftop where documentaries or art presentations are held. We spoke about Daughters and the issues surrounding the sex industry in Cambodia.
It was a packed show and we are so thankful for everyone that came out to support us. Apparantly I am a natural public speaker;)
We have another event this Saturday at Gasolina garden restaurant where photos, art, jewelery, and home decor items will be sold. These are all products that the women at Daughters have made.
I'll post pics when I have a minute!!
On June 9th Jaymie premiered her photography project at the Meta House art gallery. She has been teaching 4 young Khmer women who work at Daughters, the art of photography since early this year. They proved to be major talents and this exhibition was a way to celebrate and prove to these women to reach high!
During the exhibition on the 9th, Jaymie and I spoke upstairs on the rooftop where documentaries or art presentations are held. We spoke about Daughters and the issues surrounding the sex industry in Cambodia.
It was a packed show and we are so thankful for everyone that came out to support us. Apparantly I am a natural public speaker;)
We have another event this Saturday at Gasolina garden restaurant where photos, art, jewelery, and home decor items will be sold. These are all products that the women at Daughters have made.
I'll post pics when I have a minute!!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
30 days...
Every Friday, Daughters staff and girls/children join together in the main lobby to worship. For many girls it is the first and only times they may ever be involved in a worship centered around Jesus. It's purely magical.
We sing songs; many of which I do not know. The service is in Khmer and translated into English or visa versa. Usually after we sing the microphone is offered to any girl who wants to share something related to God that is happening in their life. Some girls who are brave share of relationships mending or of forgiveness. It's amazing to hear their testimonies.
Ruth, our director speaks or others who are visiting or working staff are also invited to share some words. Ruth asked me to speak this Friday with short notice but strangely on the motto ride to work I had decided on a topic I would speak on...without knowing I was going to! Ruth recommended the topic of Prayer and that was what I had decided earlier on the motto too!
During the singing I was emotional; looking at all of these women. Singing from their hearts, sitting together with their babies in their laps and most of them breastfeeding as they sang. I was overwhelmed with the obvious spirit of God in the room.
I nervously got up to speak but found that I didn't need to look down to read my written prepared notes. I shared about what prayer is. Who can pray. Why we pray. How we can pray. Then I shared stories of prayers i had prayed in my past. I was honest. I shared about praying that miraculously my parents would love each other again and that when i opened my eyes and walked out to the living room that they would not be divorced. I also shared about praying that my teenage sister's baby would miscarry. i cried and shared with them that God answers sometimes in ways that we don't see. That really my nephew was born to bless me!
After I finished Ruth invited anyone who wanted prayer to come forward...16 girls came forward! Jaymie and i took half the group while Ruth took the rest. Sitting on the tile floors in a circle we prayed for these sobbing women. We prayed for their children's health, healing and support for their HIV positive illness, strength to be a single parent and relational issues regarding their husband's imprisonment.
One women sat down right beside me and took my hand and jabbered away in Khmer to me. My translator said that she was telling me of a dream she had last night. That in the dream she had killed a man. And in the process her hand was severely cut and bleeding profusely. Then in the dream I came to her. I came and told her everything was going to be ok, that she wasn't alone and then I prayed for her!! And her hand was healed!
I was shocked and moved and blessed and happy and...shocked!!!!!!!!!! I had heard from a friend that God speaks to them in their dreams and this was evidence! The fact that I was in her dream to calm her and point her to God made my skin quiver.
Such a beautiful rich blessing for me to cherish during my last 30 days...that God used me to speak the words their wounded hearts needed to hear.
Here am I Lord, use me!
We sing songs; many of which I do not know. The service is in Khmer and translated into English or visa versa. Usually after we sing the microphone is offered to any girl who wants to share something related to God that is happening in their life. Some girls who are brave share of relationships mending or of forgiveness. It's amazing to hear their testimonies.
Ruth, our director speaks or others who are visiting or working staff are also invited to share some words. Ruth asked me to speak this Friday with short notice but strangely on the motto ride to work I had decided on a topic I would speak on...without knowing I was going to! Ruth recommended the topic of Prayer and that was what I had decided earlier on the motto too!
During the singing I was emotional; looking at all of these women. Singing from their hearts, sitting together with their babies in their laps and most of them breastfeeding as they sang. I was overwhelmed with the obvious spirit of God in the room.
I nervously got up to speak but found that I didn't need to look down to read my written prepared notes. I shared about what prayer is. Who can pray. Why we pray. How we can pray. Then I shared stories of prayers i had prayed in my past. I was honest. I shared about praying that miraculously my parents would love each other again and that when i opened my eyes and walked out to the living room that they would not be divorced. I also shared about praying that my teenage sister's baby would miscarry. i cried and shared with them that God answers sometimes in ways that we don't see. That really my nephew was born to bless me!
After I finished Ruth invited anyone who wanted prayer to come forward...16 girls came forward! Jaymie and i took half the group while Ruth took the rest. Sitting on the tile floors in a circle we prayed for these sobbing women. We prayed for their children's health, healing and support for their HIV positive illness, strength to be a single parent and relational issues regarding their husband's imprisonment.
One women sat down right beside me and took my hand and jabbered away in Khmer to me. My translator said that she was telling me of a dream she had last night. That in the dream she had killed a man. And in the process her hand was severely cut and bleeding profusely. Then in the dream I came to her. I came and told her everything was going to be ok, that she wasn't alone and then I prayed for her!! And her hand was healed!
I was shocked and moved and blessed and happy and...shocked!!!!!!!!!! I had heard from a friend that God speaks to them in their dreams and this was evidence! The fact that I was in her dream to calm her and point her to God made my skin quiver.
Such a beautiful rich blessing for me to cherish during my last 30 days...that God used me to speak the words their wounded hearts needed to hear.
Here am I Lord, use me!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Stretching
Jaymie, my "lovely Canadian sister who works at Daughters" (long title) has been teaching photography to some of the girls that are working at Daughters. They've turned out to be very talented and so a couple projects are in the making to share their work/talent...
June 9th - Tuesday @ 6pm. We're having a slide show presentation of Daughters at a art/film/cafe here in PP called Meta House. There will be an exhibit display sampling some of the photographs the girls have taken of their own communities. AND for some unknown reason....Jaymie and yours truly will be speaking!! I'm praying the stuttering remains minimal and the lisp non-existent...
June 13th - Saturday @ 12-4pm. Daughters is having a celebration! This is an opportunity to show all the wonderful things we have been up to as of late at a garden cafe called Gasolina in PP. Merchandise the girls have sewn or created will be on display for sale as well as the photographs exhibited.
Come by if you are in PP and pray for us if you're half way across the world!!
June 9th - Tuesday @ 6pm. We're having a slide show presentation of Daughters at a art/film/cafe here in PP called Meta House. There will be an exhibit display sampling some of the photographs the girls have taken of their own communities. AND for some unknown reason....Jaymie and yours truly will be speaking!! I'm praying the stuttering remains minimal and the lisp non-existent...
June 13th - Saturday @ 12-4pm. Daughters is having a celebration! This is an opportunity to show all the wonderful things we have been up to as of late at a garden cafe called Gasolina in PP. Merchandise the girls have sewn or created will be on display for sale as well as the photographs exhibited.
Come by if you are in PP and pray for us if you're half way across the world!!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Battambang
Jaymie and I headed north west to a town called Battambang this past weekend.
It's a lazy town and that's just what we wanted.
We rented bicycles and travelled around town to an abandoned Pepsi bottle making plant. And also explored the old train station. The following pics are of the train station kids.
It's a lazy town and that's just what we wanted.
We rented bicycles and travelled around town to an abandoned Pepsi bottle making plant. And also explored the old train station. The following pics are of the train station kids.
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