Countdown to Cambodia

I am giddy with excitement tonight as I sit down at my laptop to share this with you all.

In three short weeks I will be in Cambodia!

Jeremy and I just returned home from our weekly Sunday night Missions meeting (which I've been missing terribly since we had two weeks in there where all of our group had things going on and we didn't meet).....but we've been praying over the possibility of this trip since early Spring...at least. And we have been meeting together regularly since we formed our official "Cambodia 13" mission team back in May. So I'm pretty attached to our times together worshipping, praying and fellowship. I love this group of people, the ones going and the ones supporting and covering us in prayer. There is so much anticipation over all God has in store for not only this trip but the future partnership with our dear friend and missionary Mandi Silvers. Mandi has been living in Kep, Cambodia for a couple of years now and has been sharing God's love and his word with so many people there.

But let me back up a bit and explain a few things because for some it may be coming as a bit of a shock right now. I apologize for that, truly and sincerely. I guess up until now it all felt a bit surreal and I didn't know how to put it into words on my blog. I've talked about it a little with family but really it has been a very "internal" kind of journey getting to this place. I never, never imagined my life including an experience like this. I'll admit I actually had to go find a globe and spin it around to find Cambodia. By the way it's almost exactly on the opposite side of the world from where we are here in Texas, and an exact 12 hour time difference.

I guess it all started last summer when I did an early morning boot camp at our church. They were raising money for this missionary and I wanted to get into shape, and my friend invited me so I went. Then we did the Run for Cambodia 5K to also raise money for this missionary and I helped with the t-shirts. So through these things I started learning about this young woman who had sold all she had and moved to Cambodia with her little girl to work as a missionary among the people. She had worked in an orphanage there before and felt God's call on her life to make this place her home and she followed His leading. Wow! What a step of faith this woman took! Over the next year I got to know her, even got to meet her and her daughter Gabi (who is Carley's age). They had come home to the Dallas area for an extended vacation visiting family and friends for the winter holidays and we had the chance to spend time with her and her daughter at our mutual friends home. There was an instant friendship.

At some point that Fall I had also become a part of our missions vision team at church. We began praying about how our church could be more involved in local and global missions. Locally our church runs "Anna's House" giving food and household items to the people of our community in need and sharing Christ's love with them. As a church we support global missions on a broad scale but then there was this woman, Mandi. And this connection being formed with her and what God was doing through her. And as we prayed about it we all really felt that God had been working to bring our church in partnership with her to somehow support her and to see this ministry flourish in Cambodia.

That is where it began.

And over the next several months through much prayer and seeking God, a team was put together to go, to reach out in a physical way and give support and love to Mandi, to say "we are here to help, what do you need?"  Seeking God's guidance our little church in Anna, Texas is partnering with a faithful missionary who has given everything to share the hope of salvation to a Buddhist culture in a little country next to Vietnam on the other side of the world where majority of the people have not ever heard the name of Jesus.

There is so much more to tell about Mandi, about the five Cambodian children she took in to raise as her own; about the Roots project that they just broke ground on this year that will give jobs and a way out of poverty for many families through farming. There are so many stories of how God is moving and making connections between people here and across the world to do great things for His glory. There is also our team leader Shaela, who has been a missionary to Thailand and Cambodia and hopes to return to Cambodia in the area where Mandi now lives to set up a home and a refuge for women and children who have been rescued out of Human Trafficking. The stories go on and on and I just have to step back in awe of it all.

In three weeks we will be there, on the ground, among the people. I pray that every moment, every encounter is divinely appointed and used to the glory of God.

We leave the morning of August 23rd and fly twenty-six hours to Penom Penh, Cambodia.
We return on Sunday, September 1st in the afternoon.

I know that while we are there we will get to lead and participate in several Bible studies and gatherings. I know that while we are there we will be building an outdoor shower for the home that has been built for the Roots project, along with other miscellaneous projects. I know that I will get to lead a group of young Cambodian children in a 3 day mini art camp and I'm so stinkin' excited about that!

And I know that in all things big and small, near and far, God can and will do the miraculous!

Please pray.
Pray for us, for our loved ones, for those we will meet along the way, for the Cambodian people.
Pray for salvation of the lost (whether they be next door or thousands of miles away)

Love,
Jackie


Mandi's Blog: http://littlepearlsofcambodia.wordpress.com/blog/

Shaela's Blog: http://shaelajay.wordpress.com/