When plans are disrupted. When the ability to plan around those disruptions goes away. When that inability extends on and on and…….on.
Familiar? Who isn’t.
So it has been during Covid days (and months and years), but doors are opening again.
On the first of February this year, Debbie and I were able to return to Cambodia for a planned 30 day stay. Long term visas have remained just beyond our reach but we were able to stay for almost 60 days as we both tested positive for Covid near the end of February. We experienced very minor symptoms. We were able to continue working right up to the hours before our departure in late March.
We were able to get a great picture of the continuing great need for the Gospel in the communities suffering from financial, educational and spiritual poverty. We are excited that the work we have continued is addressing these three factors head-on and by addressing the first two, folks are more open to the spiritual truth we get to share. It is beautiful to see transformation.
When these things happen in a community already brittle because the default setting of life is not rooted in the Gospel, a disruption of this magnitude is vast in breadth and depth. Children are frequently lost in the wake or disruption, “trampled” by those who should care for them. I am not being dramatic. This is real. This is the rolling effect of increased poverty following Covid around the world.
That is where we enter in!
We will return again to our field of work in November. How long this time?
At this point 30 days is our visa. Now there are new challenges emerging and new opportunities to help our team of Cambodians change their own community.
We have a full schedule of training and mentoring planned and prepared. The schedule looks daunting but the Lord has given us these days and we find so much joy in seeing the work advance while we encourage, enable and empower these great young leaders. We will continue to build on a firm foundation.
During this period of being more in the states than in Cambodia, we have found new ways to encourage and train. We meet weekly with our team leaders by Zoom etc., and while this has been effective, it is not the same as face to face. We need the face to face, arms wrapped around each other kind of encouragement.
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