a group of well-loved (by me) trouble makers in my class!
Thyreach, Chamrong, Naro, Visal, and Kim Hok

September 13

If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and he won't be condsecended to when you for it. Ask boldly, believing, without a second thought. People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves. Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
James 1:5 (The Message) Thanks Darse.

Lord! I need your help! I'm praying and I know you'll provide!

Yesterday I walked home alone in the pouring rain. The next few months is the rainy season in Cambodia, and it usually rains from about 4 to 5pm everyday. Rains. Pours. It's absolutely beautiful. The water in the flooded streets went up to about my mid-calf. And I just made up little melodies and sang to myself. A chance to feel cold, refreshed, tired, pensive, alive, renewed, a chance for growth and realization. A few moments to think for myself, and to hear my own thoughts for once.

I went to the internet shop a couple of days ago, only to see Kham Pai using the phone across the way. He's an older student (like in his early 20s) here studying at CAS from Laos, trying to learn enough English to go to the Adventist College in Bangkok, Thailand next year. "Miss," he called from the back. I smile at him and walk out, only to have him chase me down the street a couple minutes later. "How are you feeling, teacher?" He says, smiling. "I'm okay." "Do you miss home?" "Yes, in ways". I say, "but I am happy, I like it." We look at trash, plastic bags and old food trays, littering the streets. "It's prettier in Laos," he says, "You should see it. I like the mountains there. Here, there are no mountains, and the streets are dirty." I look at the streets here, polluted and dusty. Children play in the mucky puddles in the potholes of the roads. At Psa Mna, I wait for a friend at the internet shop, only to see a little girl play with a makeshift broom and dust pan, sweeping up old bottles and shards of glass (dangerous too) as a form of a game and toy. I see two little boys dig through a pile of old dirt with broken plastic shovels, beaming and laughing like they're on the best beach in Hawaii. This has a profound effect on me. The state of these people. Their attitudes and situations. And you just learn to turn the other cheek, and realize that this is so beyond your control or influence, and you're just a wandering light in a country where you don't belong, trying to make a difference, one school, one class, one child at a time. It could either melt your heart, burden it so, harden it, or make it shrivel and dry up.