Oh, the Irony…

I want to share a picture with you that has good and bad implications.

So the gate on the right is where I work every day! I thought it would be fun to share a picture of my workplace with some of you. I work on the second floor, and the daycare for children of working clients is on the first floor.

The building on the left is an apartment that was for rent for a long time. Recently, someone bought it and turned it into a massage parlor. Unfortunately, we are pretty sure it is also a brothel. Irony – a brothel next to an organization that works to help girls escape from that captivity.

I just would really like prayer for this situation. It could be really good if some of the workers at the massage parlor find out what we do and decide they want to change their lives. However, it could also be really bad if some of our clients know about it and decide they want some easy money near our center. Pray for Jesus’ blood covering and God’s protection over our building, our clients, and over the workers at the massage parlor. I just really hope we can use this as an easy way to spread the love of Jesus. It seems like maybe it is an opportunity to do the work God calls us to do at Daughters that God plopped right in our laps.

Things I love

This was a really rough week for me. Lots of stress and lots of busyness. But I am trying to remind myself of Jesus’ presence amidst the negative. Because if I don’t, I will tumble down the cliff of self-pity, head over heels, spinning over and over again, until I am bruised by my own thoughts and getting out seems impossible. So I just want to share with you some of the things I love about Cambodia, my work, and my family – because each of these areas of my life is getting a little confining for me right now and identifying blessings puts a little cushion space between the problems and my heart.

Things I love about Cambodia:

1. The smells of rotisserie chickens as they rotate around and around on the spits set up along the side of the street as I ride past on my bike on my way home from work at 5:00
2. Khmer food – most of it anyway…
3. The low cost of food (I can buy a full lunch of rice and food for between 50 and 75 cents at work each day), clothes (H&M shirts for $3). And no tax!
4. The familiar diddy of the icecream carts that go past every day
5. The unique sounds of the Khmer language and the beauty of the script
6. The beauty of Khmer people, especially their smiles that light up their whole faces

Things I love about work:

1. Phally (one of the social workers) and her excitement at sharing Jesus with other people
2. Listening to Neth (our male social worker) sing throughout the day with his beautiful voice
3. The fact that our social work office is the one place in some of these girls’ lives that they can go to without expecting to be blamed or cursed
4. The eager eyes of our clients as they listened to Phally sharing about the story of the woman at the well in John 4 at our Friday afternoon church service this week
5. The talent of our clients, doing things I can’t even begin to do, like sewing clothes, bags, and purses, and making beautiful jewelry by hand
6. Hearing the Truth of Jesus spoken and shared like it is the best news in the world – because it is!

Things I love about home:

1. The way Kevin and Sasa yell “Jennaaaaaaa!” when I ride my bike up into the house each day after work
2. Sasa being the perfect size to wrap my arms around in a full-on hug – and the fact that she loves to initiate those hugs!
3. Watching little Nathan dance with his arms as a huge smile crosses his face and a loud giggle escapes from his throat
4. Eating meals on the floor on a rice mat
5. The yummy food Vanna makes for us to eat each day, especially green papaya soup 🙂

And here are some random pictures of our Daughters of Cambodia staff retreat last weekend. We had lots of fun!