Some Blood. Mostly Sweat and Tears.

Amber is a missionary in Pnom Penh, Cambodia.  

 

Sometimes all you need is someone to truthfully look you right in the eyes, straight down to your soul, and say that they believe in you.

We are currently learning the books of the Bible in class. Each week I have assigned the students ten new books to memorize along with their weekly memory verse. In order to mildly shake up our somewhat monotonous routine, this week I wrote the new ten books onto the whiteboard in cursive. Every so often I have brought out handwriting worksheets to let the kids practice and they usually want to kill me for doing so; they think writing anything in English is already hard enough. However, I typically choose to counteract their complaints by explaining to them that learning new things may be challenging, but inevitably good for them.

One of my 4^th grade boys was almost in tears today as he looked up at my cursive handwriting on the whiteboard. “Cha, it is easy for you and very difficult for me!” he yelled out in desperation, hoping that I would change my mind over this assignment. The poor boy looked so hopelessly hopeless. I could not help but chuckle inside over his seemingly unnecessary tears, not to be condescending, but only because I know that he has some of the most beautiful handwriting in the class.

I knew he would continue to complain if I just ignored his appeals. So, I then got down to his level, kneeling down in front of his desk. I looked right into his teary, brown eyes and said, “You can do this, I know you can.” He quickly pleaded, “No Cha, I cannot at all!” I made a face of disbelief at him, and I think he understood that I was not going to change the assignment for him. I asked again, still kneeling down in front of him, to please try. I stayed there for a few minutes at his desk until he finally put his pencil to the paper and slowly wrote out….E….s….t…h….e….r. In between each letter he would look up at me; I am still really not sure as to why he did this other than to feel my support. He finished the last loop on the “r” and I gave him the biggest smile I could and said one word: perfect. He all of a sudden lit up with confidence; his previous tears now made his eyes sparkle.  “See, I knew you could do it,” I said.

I walked away from Serey Reach’s desk and watched him from mine as he quickly finished his assignment close to perfection. This was such a simple moment, and yet it burned so deep into my heart. I could not help but see myself in my student. So many times throughout the past five months I have found myself in tears, screaming and pleading for an easier assignment. I picture God up there, chuckling inside over MY seemingly unnecessary tears, not to be condescending, but because He knows I can do it. Just like my student, I am constantly in search and search and search for affirmation from every direction…and maybe that is selfish of me…but maybe it is also just human.

It is hard being here, I struggle…but today someone truthfully looked right into MY teary, brown eyes, straight into my soul, and said that they believed in me…and I felt like that was enough to let me know that God is not leaving me out to dry here in stifling Cambodia. He’s working away; He’s working through Alex’s and my own literal blood, sweat, and tears and in the end I’m thankful for my assignment because after all, learning and experiencing new things may be challenging but it is inevitably good for me.

For those of you who actually read this, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for your prayers and support because those things are what keep us going.

Much love from Cambodia.

-Amber