finding my place...

That has been the story of my time here in Cambodia thus far. Where do I fit? What am I doing here? Am I helping and serving? Do I feel alive and full of joy?
I had many expectations coming back to Cambodia. What it was going to be like...how I was going to feel. Teaching at the orphanage and experiencing all I saw here was heartbreaking and eye-opening and what I thought was a "real" third world country experience. I saw people dying, starving, Aids stricken....living in a garbage dump. I saw the inside of prisons and remote villages....I spent hours a day on a tuktuk....and I felt alive in every sense. I felt awakened to emotions I'd never felt before and to realities I thought only existed on National Geographic and World Vision commercials. I felt joy in teaching those orphan children and giving them love and attention.
So I come back here and walk 5 blocks to work everyday to a beautiful new school filled with children who have PARENTS and pools and fancy backpacks and talk of their weekends at their beach houses....this is NOT what Cambodia was suppose to be like! And I did not feel like I wanted to feel!
So its been a journey. Coming to the realization that I am indeed back in Cambodia. And although my helping and serving looks vastly different...I can allow God to use me in the same way and capture my heart with the same joy and aliveness that I had before.
I may be teaching the wealthy class children and although they have everything given to them...I am beginning to realize that these children are in just as much need of love and attention. Most of them don't even see their parents all week. They've been raised by nannies or relatives who care little to see the pictures they've colored or math problems they've solved at school. It breaks my heart to hear them talk with such excitement that they ACTUALLY get to see their mom this weekend.
This time my adventure looks quite different. In almost everyway. But it's an adventure all the same and I know with certainty that God can and will use me as I teach and love the future of Cambodia.