Cambodia 2013: Coming to a Close and the Manly Man Tuk Tuk Driver

In today’s workshop on alcoholism I was sharing with the Daughters about the time when Jesus Christ was with Jairus in the midst of a very large crowd that was pressing in on Him – described in Scripture as almost crushing Him. I decided to go ahead with telling the joke I had planned even though before the workshop I asked Danet, who was translating in Khmer, if she thought the joke would work and she had her doubts. So, in the workshop I said that Jesus was in a huge crowd and they were pressing in on Jesus; almost crushing Him. Then I say that it was worse than Mao Tse Toung Boulevard in the morning. I smile and laugh as I say it, but I am the only one smiling…awkward silence…then Danet begins to translate, she stops talking and I am still the only one smiling. Fortunately for me, I am used to this kind of response to my jokes back home and so I just go on. I love this account not only for the miraculous healing of Jairus’ daughter and the woman who had a hemorrhage for 12 years, but also because Jesus stopped and listened to the woman’s whole story. We do not even know her name, but we know that Jairus was an important man, and I would have been in a hurry to get to his home, but not Jesus. Jesus stops and listens to the whole story. I sometimes wonder if that meant more to the woman than being healed of the hemorrhage that she had carried with her for so long. I also love that, from everything we read, Jairus did not get mad at Jesus for taking the time to listen to the woman, nor does Jairus blame Jesus when he receives the news that his daughter had died. I think that Jairus had a good heart. I also find it interesting that Jairus’ daughter was 12 years old (so young to die) and the woman had suffered from the hemorrhage for 12 years (so long to suffer and not be able to be healed); and that Jesus called her “Daughter”. I wonder how Jairus must have felt hearing that word come out of Jesus’ mouth when all that Jairus could probably think about was saving his own daughter’s life. This is a rich account in so many ways and I pray that there will be some truth from this that will go deep into the hearts of those who were at Daughters today.

I did some more painting today and had to make two trips back to the paint store on my "She Bike" because I kept running out of paint. On one of those trips I came to a stop at an intersection. It was very congested with tightly packed in bikes, motos, and tuk tuks. We were all crowded together like sardines and I am stopped next to a tuk tuk driver. He is a manly man and he looks over at me and gives me a manly man nod to which I respond with a smile and a manly man nod back. Then he looks at my bike with the basket on the front, the two sunflowers that I had placed in the basket after knocking them off a pot at Spice Garden, and he looks at my bike with the sloping girl bar. He then quickly disengages from our manly man interaction and turns away from me and I believe I may have heard him grunt. But this is all ok with me because I have been served very well by this bike. In fact, I am going to miss it when I leave here.

On a serious note about what I will miss though, I feel my heart shifting – preparing to return home. I definitely have fallen in love with Cambodia, the Khmer people and culture, and with Daughters of Cambodia. But far and away what I will miss most when I leave Cambodia is not the work, not the beautiful beaches, not the Khmer culture; what I will miss most by a long ways are the new friends that I have made here. In 1 Corinthians 12 God describes His Church, the Body of Christ, as being the collection of His Believers. In Cambodia I have been grafted in to a different part of this body than I have been in before. This has been a marvelous and beautiful experience. It helped that tonight we brought together some of the Daughters staff for dinner at a wonderful restaurant called Khmer Surin. I even tried Khmer food for the first time. It was delicious and my stomach is still feeling strong. It was a nice, gentle way to say thank you and goodbye.