Sunset Lake!

There are a few places that I consider my home, and this summer I get to spend two months at one of my favorite places, Sunset Lake.

A year ago I left this place to go to Cambodia. It was hard to leave and the only place I ever truly missed while I was in Cambodia was Sunset Lake. And now it's here. I'm here!

This place is good for the soul.

There is that exhausted feeling that I know will come, that stressed out, over-worked, ahhhhh!!, feeling. But it's worth it. This job is worth it.

I can't wait for campers to get here. I can't wait for adventure and bonding, growth and joy.

It's like coming home, it's like a little piece of heaven.

It's a place where you belong.

The Cambodian version.

I could see the lights of the city as we made our final approach, and I tried to make out anything familiar, it was difficult in the dark, but I could feel the feeling of HOME start to sink in. As the wheels touched down in Portland, and the women next to me leaned over and said, "welcome home" I smiled and held back the tears that wanted to fall.

It had been a long 46 hours. I had done two "overnight" flights, but felt far from rested.

When I walked off the plane in Korea there was a Khmer family walking in front of me that didn't speak any English and they were confused as to where they were going. I asked in my limited Khmer if I could help, and we all got a good laugh about the white girl speaking Khmer in Korea. After we all got through customs and security they told me they were moving to live with their family in Seattle, and that they wanted to cook for me if I was ever in Seattle so I could practice my Khmer. I said my final "chee-im rip lea", and fell asleep at a gate where the next flight was headed to Phnom Penh an hour after my flight to LA, and wished I was on this flight instead.

On the flight to LA I made friends with the girl next to me. She was a few months older than me and had spent the last two years in China. We bonded over our mixed feelings about returning home after such an extended time. She voiced what I was feeling, fear of forgetting the people we had become.

Landing in Portland marked 46 hours of traveling, and as the stewardess pointed out as we took off from LA, "you look terrible". The plane was small, 50 people total and when I told where I had come from, the business men and women around me became interested in the unshowered, exhausted looking girl in seat 2A. They asked questions and told me how lucky I was to have been able to do that, how they wished they had done something like that when they were young, and I was reminded how blessed I am.

As we taxied in, I wondered what it would be like to be home. In Cambodia I had become someone that I liked, someone that I respected. Someone who worked hard, and tried to care for those around her. Someone who wasn't desperate for the approval of others. Someone who was just fine by herself. Someone who had a sense of purpose.

While walking through the airport I thought about a blog Katelyn Campbell had written a while back that talked about her student missionary self being different from her home self, this is true of me as well. It didn't happen overnight, but Cambodian Annie was different. And I liked her. With my return I don't want to lose her.

On the flight from LA I finished a book I had been reading called "Reading Lolita in Tehran". It's about a woman in Tehran, she was a teacher, and she refused to compromise who she was and what she believed to appease the government. In the end she and her husband moved to the US where they currently live. On one of the last pages she said something that resonated with me as home grew closer and Cambodia farther away:

"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, I told him, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again."

My favorite red scarf smells like India, I've got a box full of notes from kids, scars on my legs from various accident, lonely planets stuffed with business cards and information from places I visited. I've been inspired, I've been renewed, I've been changed. I have stories of cows, motos, the sunrise, and the most wonderful children. And I hope in unpacking it all I will find I brought Cambodian Annie home with me as well.

Re-adjustment.

I don't know how to write about being home again. It's been nearly two weeks since I returned and I can't seem to find the words. I lay in bed at night unable to fall asleep because I am consumed with thoughts of what I left behind, my kids, the mission, a life of simplicity and happiness.

I came home to the same life I left behind, same car, same phone, same house, same friends. I was handed the same role I left and I don't feel like I fit the way I should. I spent my first weekend home in Walla Walla seeing people I love dearly, but I couldn't help but feeling a little out of place.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be in the US, to see my friends, to eat foods I haven't had, to sleep in my own bed. And I am so grateful for the wonderful support I was given in Cambodia, I have wonderful people in my life and I am BLESSED.

But coming back,

I was overwhelmed by everyone speaking English.

I was shocked by how nice carpet felt under my bare feet.

I was excited to drive a car.

I was overjoyed by a worship service in English.

I'm still not handling the cold well, but I'll get used to it.

I was sad when I had to say goodbye to my kids. And I remember my heart hurting when we were leaving Siem Reap and my favorite senior behind. I wasn't constantly in tears though. But my last night as I sat in the home of our wonderful neighbors drinking chai for the last time. We talked about Neha and I felt the saddness well up in me as Alia told me that while Neha loved the others, it was always me she wanted to see, it was always me she came upstairs for. Saying goodbye to the Khan family was the hardest part of leaving.

I still feel the loss of Neha, and I feel a sense of loss for Cambodia as well. It feels so far away. Like this dream I had. There are no right answers, no easy answers. There is just a feeling of longing and a looking forward to heaven like I've never experienced before.

I was blessed to live my Cambodian life. I am lucky enough now to be missing it. I had wonderful kids. The long-term missionaries are inspiring people. God's leading wasn't wrong, I was supposed to go to Cambodia. I was supposed to go as a broken individual, to be open to the healing, and the change that was offered. And now I look forward to camp in a few weeks, I can't wait to see what God has in store next.

"In Christ, there are no goodbyes

And in Christ, there is no end

So I'll hold onto Jesus with all that I have"

Identity.

On the first flight into Cambodia ten months ago, as I was filling out the immigration card I came to the part where they wanted to know my occupation. And I froze. Am I a student? Am I a teacher? I wasn't sure what to write. I wasn't sure who I was.

As the days and the months have gone by and I have grown into my roles here, I have become more sure about who I am, and what I want from this life.

Being an SM has pushed me to look closely at what and who are my priorities. At what I find important. Before I came here I was talking to a past SM who told me, go with a friend, you'll be glad you have someone. And while I can see value in that, coming not knowing anyone pushed me to rely on myself and my God more than I ever would have.

I don't need to find my value in other people.

In my roles here I have grown. My vision for my life and of myself has changed. I'm sure I'm in the right major, I'm sure I serve the right God.

On one of the last days of school during a break time, there was some sort of a game started between one of the 8th grade boys and I where we tried to get more ids cards from other students than the other one. At the end of it I had about 20 around my neck and when I walked up to the high school level some boys looked at me funny, I laughed and said, I don't know who I am!

But here at the end of ten months, I've never been more sure.

I am a teacher, a student, a baji, a friend, a daughter, and most importantly, I am a child of God.

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us- set us right with him, make us fit for him- we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. And we find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand- out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

Romans 5:1-2

Moving forward.

Yesterday I walked home from school. It was hot and my bag was heavy but I needed to walk.

I needed time to think, time to pray. It had been one of those days where if I had a car I would have gotten in it and just driven until I became guilty about the amount gas I was using. But alas, I have no car, only a bike with a flat tire, and my legs.

I'm not sure when it went wrong, I was agitated during first period when the computer teacher was more interested in working on his own computer rather than give my kids something constructive to do.

I was frustrated during second period when a chunk of my kids didn't have their review papers.

I was annoyed during third period when I had to move classrooms because a teacher needed to use the TV in my classroom.

I was irked during fourth period when my kids whined about how much they had to know for their morality final.

Its easy to let these things go. A joke with Teacher Rithy about how much he is going to miss me. Chiya trapping me in a corner and calling me lok-crew, which is boy teacher in Khmer. Doing vice-principal Sopheak's job of copying for children because he is too lazy to get up. Sopheak asking me Chhnang ot?! 800 times. And pretty soon, I'm laughing, moving past frustrations.

After school I had a conversation with a student whom I adore that made my heart hurt. During which he said, I laugh, but I don't feel like laughing. I joke because that is what I should be doing.

When I came to Cambodia I was going through some stuff. In the beginning I wondered if I had come for the right reasons. In the beginning I laughed even when I didn't feel it, I joked, I got involved. I found happiness.

But after that conversation with the student, I was left wondering is this happiness I have real and deep or is it just covering my brokenness? That conversation brought up feelings I haven't felt, and thoughts I haven't thought in a while. I know I'm invested, in love, but has it filled me or nearly covered the cracks?

With these questions I did the only thing that seemed reasonable, I walked home. Because sometimes that is the only there is to do, just keep moving forward.

"I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday you will, without even noticing live your way into the answer."

Rainer Maria Rilk

Reminders of Life.

There is so much I would like to write about. So many important moments full of all the things life should be about. But trying to express these stories, seems to cause them to lose their meaning, their fullness.

So instead of stories, I'm just going to put some pictures from the last few days here.

Because pictures are worth a thousand words, right?

It won't be long now.

After school today I rode my bike to The Shop. I sit in my usual place and order my usual thing.

They know me here. This place is comfort, habit.

The behavior of the people around me suggest it is late afternoon. No one is in a hurry, everyone has accomplished their tasks for the day.

Two ladies sit and drink tea while they read their books.

A couple in the next room cuddle on the couch.

A mother and her two daughters who I recognize vaguely, sit across the room.

And then there is the man. Now, if you've ever been to Asia, Cambodia in particular you may know the type that I am talking about. They are in search of something, they wear their Asian pants and sit with their notebooks open, drinking whatever it is people who are searching drink, taking it all in, thinking thoughts, trying to experience.

They wander the streets in awe of the trash, the heat, the difference in lifestyle. And then they sit in places like The Shop and write about it.

I don't know what they hope to find. Enlightenment, hope, change, love.

All wonderful and valid things to search for. But sometimes it seems so forced, so strained.

I feel a little remorse for judging this man, pushing him into this stereotype and I turn the light on myself. I've been here ten months almost. I came in search of something, I used to walk around in awe of my surroundings, I used to sit in this place and write and write, I wanted to take it all in.

And as I sit here at the end of the day, and nearly the end of the year, have I accomplished everything I wanted? Have I learned everything I needed? Have I really experienced everything I could? Have I been pushed far enough? Have I loved deep enough? Worked hard enough?

Have I grown?

Three more weeks.

Three more weeks.

"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?" Donald Miller