A Heart Returning Home

Matthew 6:21

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 

Ever since I was a little girl, I had such a hard time understanding why my family was so different. The pressure of being young and accepted in school was hard. Suburban America welcomed me, but not exactly with open arms. We never had as much money, I didn’t have what everyone else have. I worked with what I had, and made the best of it all. After years of learning what it meant to be a first generation child, I began to see the blessing that it was. I guess that is what you do when you are young and your searching for yourself. The thing is I never found it, and that is okay...I found something better, and understanding of Who I was in the family that I was given, a family that I absolutely love more than anything.

I am so thankful to God that the Lords hand was on my family in the terrible time of the Pol Pot regime. The genocide that over took the country of Cambodia was one the world had never seen before, and what makes it so different is that it was their own people, against their own people. It grieves my heart to think of the pain, and agony that we as Westerners will never fully understand and grasp. I am so thankful that my family had made it to America, and alive and well. In this understanding, I have wanted to spend a portion of my life...No matter how big or how small going back to where I came from.

My mom escaped from Cambodia and came to America in 1980. She traveled with her family, and came to a country that was free. She learned English on her own, and began to work in places that had other Cambodian refugees. My mom is absolutely the most amazing and strongest woman I know. Her travel to America and new found life is an absolute testimony to me everyday. It teaches me that in Life, when you are given an opportunity to take it, if it changes your life, let it. That when you are given a chance to make something out of nothing, it is really a miracle. My mom took her life, and made something of it even though she had nothing. I can never complain about the lack of what I have in my life, knowing that halfway around the world I am richer in $100 than anyone else would ever be.

Tomorrow, I embark on a Journey back to where I have always wanted to go, a place where the hurt and heart of the people is very much apart of who I am. I am so beyond blessed that God has gifted me with the language of the Cambodian people, that I will for the first time be able to communicate with the people I am serving. We will be working with children in orphanages, visiting prisons, and safe homes for young girls that have been rescued out of human trafficking. My heart is here, and will always be. There is absolutely nothing that makes me different from any of those little girls. I am one in the same, and the Lord has blessed me with an amazing life, and I am so honored that he would allow the opportunity for me to go back and give back to my own community, my own people.

Please pray for me as I embark on this new journey. It is truly a dream come true and I cannot wait to see what will happen while I am there. I know that there is something so special that awaits me! I will be going with an open heart, open arms, and an open mind to totally love and understand the people of Cambodia.

The best part of this all, I not only get to go on my own in this journey, BUT I get to play the part in leading a team of 16 amazing students from all over the world to Cambodia on some of there first Mission Trips overseas. They have the most beautiful hearts I have seen in young people, and I am so excited to share this experience with them. What an absolute honor to follow my dreams, and to lead others to pursue theirs as well.