A Day of "Firsts"

Well, today was stephen’s first day of work at IJM. I found myself wondering just what I would do with these crazy boys all day… to venture out or not to? It turned out to be a great day.

I had a lot of “firsts” today. Some good, and some not so good, but at the end of the day it all turned out ok. Here’s a glimpse of some of my “firsts” today.

FIRST monsoon…
We’ve been here 4 days and not seen any rain. I thought that was unusual because we were told it’s rainy season so it rains every day. In fact, we actually thought that it rained every day even in dry season, just not monsoon rain! Well, no rain until today. But today made up for it for sure! It was WET. Heavy downpours cause the city to change quite dramatically. For one thing, it cools off a little. It’s warm rain, not cool rain like we usually get back home, but being soaked does cool you off. Actually, we never got soaked. See, as soon as the rain started the Khmer (Cambodian) locals started pulling out umbrellas and ponchos as if out of nowhere! Everyone just moved along as if it were no big deal, and as if the umbrella actually did any good, haha. It was a monsoon!!! It only lasted an hour and a half or so and then just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone. The streets were busy again and everything was back to normal chaos. It was quite a memorable experience.

FIRST Vietnamese meal…
I went to Stephen’s office today, on his first day (another first I’ll get to) and they were having a farewell lunch for a couple great ladies in the IJM office. It was a Vietnamese dish but I can’t remember the name of it. Not like I could spell it even if I could remember! But it was white noodles, some sort of spring roll type thing filled with potatoes, a beef mix to add on the noodles, and a fish soup to add to the noodles too. I have to admit I wasn’t really excited to try it but I was a trooper and I did. And I loved it! It was very flavorful and tasty. The dessert was strangely different and good. It looked like little dumplings in soup (Oh, I wish I’d had my camera!) but was sweet. They were made from coconuts and had a bean of some sort inside. We put the dumplings in the bowl and added coconut milk to the dish to eat. It was great. I’m looking forward to a Khmer (Cambodian) dish for dinner tonight.

FIRST visit to the doctor…
This one wasn’t quite as exciting but definitely educational for me. Little Hulk here (he’s in my lap as I type) was fine one minute and went to play and came back with dried blood all over his face, coming from his ear. I wasn’t convinced it was anything serious because he was acting fine, but when we went to Stephen’s office he fell asleep into a deep sleep and woke up saying his ear really hurt and so did his eye. I was a little worried so we went to see an American doctor at an international clinic here. The doctor was great. He was quite friendly and great with kids. He looked in and said, as he suspected before looking, that no, it wasn’t a burst eardrum (thank you!!!) but instead a cut. It was quite deep and pretty far back in there… too far for stubby fingers to go in. He says it’ll heal just fine and we have nothing to worry about. I don’t know about that, doc… I’m worried about what he stuck in there and that he may do it again. Now I’m on a mad search to find the blood covered toy that he decided to stick up there. Oh, his eye is fine, too. It’s just dry. Oh, and I’m super thankful for medical insurance. It was $20 for the doctor visit. However, at this rate (only day 4 here) we’ll never be able to afford doctor visits if my kids don’t stop doing silly things like that!
And my last first is to end on a happy note…

FIRST visit to IJM office…
This was great. Every day IJM’s staff starts with a half hour of time for its staff to say a prayer, read their Bible, whatever they feel led to do on their own. This is their “stillness” time and I think it’s incredibly important. Then at mid day just before lunch, they gather in one place to pray together. The whole staff, which is probably 40 or so here at this office, gathered to pray and we were invited to join them on this, Stephen’s first day. So, we did, and I was impressed. Everyone was so sweet and welcoming and I saw the faces from all over the world who fight together against human trafficking. At prayer time they focused on their clients and cases to pray for and had a short devotional reading time. Can you imagine what the corporate world would be like if everyone stopped to pray TOGETHER once a day? Wow. That could, well, change the world. I am so grateful to God for bringing us here and to IJM for welcoming my family in addition to Stephen. For those who would like to join in, that’s near midnight for you in central USA time zone. What power we can have praying together! Please continue to pray for these cases and issues here in Cambodia. Great work is being done!

And I’m ready for another day of more “firsts” tomorrow. I’ll make sure I don’t forget my camera this time! That’s probably the first time I’ve ever forgotten it, too!


Thanks for reading along and joining me in this adventure !