South East Asia Retreat!..so much more than a blessing

Beautiful view from our retreat centre in Kampot

Sooo luckily for me and Aurora we got to go on a retreat just over 2 weeks into being in Cambodia! We didn't really know what to expect of this trip but even before going I could sense it was going to something special and was highly looking forward to it.

We started on a journey to the province of Kampot and a few hours in it actually started to rain!! Seriously everyone was so shocked it was the funniest thing ever, I actually had to take a picture. Coming from a place where it rains 90% of the time you would never think I would be this happy but it was just a little reminder of home so I was very grateful.

We stayed a retreat centre in Kampot owned by a lovely couple called Jean Paul and Donna and their two children Josh and Sarah. Josh (18) actually made most of the food and I have to say it was amazing!! Sarah (17) also helped to cater for us and was working so much to make sure we had the perfect time. I couldn't really thank the family enough; they honestly helped the team so much during the time we were there.

Within the team as I could sense there were things that needed to be talked through and sorted and it kind of seemed like God had placed this retreat at exactly the right point so people could do this and let go of things and move on (myself included in this). It just felt like a place that was filled with the presence of God and I don’t think anyone could deny that.
Even now I’m so amazed at the grace of our God. That time after time you can come before him and lay things down and that he always seems to pick us back up and helps to become stronger, more refreshed and able to carry on when we thought we couldn't  completely forgiven! Amazing right? That’s what you call love. As the artist Chris Tomlin said “You see the depths of my heart and you love me the same. You are amazing God!”

For me the Kampot South-East Asia retreat was the time for new starts, re-commitment, a time to let things go and a time to be built up. What kept coming back to me was to start not just wanting change but to need it. I felt God was saying that want will get you far but need will get you further. That you can often change what you want if it’s too hard to get it or you change your mind and think you can live without it but if you need something there is no doubt whether you can live without it, even if you try to tell yourself you can its always in the back of your mind and that’s what makes the difference and will help you reach your goals. (Hope that makes some sense!)

After all this giving things over to God and having a pretty intense few days the girls had a well need massage session

Overall the retreat was amazing, and I loved being able to spend the time with the members of the team and getting to know them and be there for what I’m sure will be considered a key point for the team in the future.

(On the way back from Kampot)
The everyday craziness of Cambodia! Yes, literally everything is considered possible

P.s. Can you believe I've been here over a month now! Can't get over how quickly everything is going!

Sorry there aren't all my photos on here, they're all on Facebook as that is the easiest place for me to put them however my plan is to make an album with photos in when I get back so for those of you who don't have access Facebook I'd be very happy for you to look through it when it's made :) 

Hope all is well back home!

Helen
xoxo

Cambodia - Week 1...The Journey Begins

First arriving in this unknown place there was a definite sense of anticipation, uncertainty and to be honest quite a bit of shock at myself. I was actually here in Cambodia, a trip that had been only talked about and imagined previously and now I was actually here...and I would be staying here for 6 months! I must be crazy right?!

Me and Aurore (another gapper) arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia at 12:00pm on January 17th (Local time, GMT +7hrs) and been travelling for 30 hrs by this point. Thankfully our journey had been pretty smooth coming over and no trouble along the way. Driving back in the traditional transport of a Tuk Tuk I got my first glimpse of Cambodian night life which I have to say for the capital was quiet and nothing even in comparison to Saturday night in Middlesbrough town centre. However going out to any sort of club or bar is not culturally accepted at all and many of these people going out are very much classed as outcasts, and scandals within society.

The second thing that hit me was just the amount of poverty even in the capital city it was so obvious and on show that people needed help but didn’t seem to know how to help themselves. It hit me all at once that where I had come was thousands of miles away from the comfort of England and my home town in every way possible.

Boy selling food by the riverside to make
to make money for family.

Over the next week we had various trips to different parts of the city and saw day to day life and let me tell you it is busyyyy! Everything is chaotic and messy and unorganised and hot!! everything that I realised isn't me in any way. I love to have structure and some sort of order or plan or sense to things and from the traffic to the way of life and religion of the majority there is none of that. We met children as young as 3 selling items on the street to get some money, why in today’s world this is acceptable or becoming the norm in places like this is something I don’t think I’ll ever understand. Even right up to teenagers they are, like Britain, very unhappy with the way they look and many girls have commented on how beautiful I am because I’m white and how they’re not beautiful. If only they knew that the fact is they were created in the image of God, the most beautiful thing in life.

So as you can see there is a lot of healing that has to be done here and thank God that a lot of people want to help this country and God is sending people to this field whether it be short term like me or a life calling I strongly believe God uses every person to sew something into at least one life just simply by showing a light and showing the love that some of these people have never experienced before. World Horizons and their team here in Cambodia is one of many organisations here working to help the people of Cambodia. 

Some of the ways the World Horizons team are doing outreach is through a children’s orphanage called Care for Cambodia (CfC) where they have been taking in children that have been abandoned by their parents/guardians some being through very traumatic lives even though they’re only so young. The orphanage brings them to a place of safety where they will know they’re loved, as well as medical care, clothing, food and education provided. Secondly there is Beracah which is set up to house teens/young adults who have come to the city from different provinces for education and had no-where to stay, they have their own church, which I now will also will be going to and for a group of people of which not all are believers they are so lively and happy during they worship. Finally there is morning star which teaches children in the area English and music and also aims to bring the Christian message to the kids. 

*This is not a child from within the CfC orphanage

I’ll be involved in all of these projects in some way as well as helping with a project to do with human trafficking at some point. So as you can guess busy busy busy! 

Soooo as guessed there are prayer points...
1. I live with the Beracah girls so it would be great for my relationship with them to grow as the weeks go on
2. That God will give both me and Aurore inspiration of the right thing to teach and best way to teach it for the students
3. That I will get passed the stage of missing home and people so much and will enjoy the time I’m here as much as possible.
4. That I will speak up if there is a problem and learn to be open with the team.
5. For the team themselves – day to day life here seems highly stressful for foreigners especially if you aren’t very capable in the language and there seems to be a lot of stress within the team at the moment due to different decisions that need to be made. So pray that the stress will be released, that the retreat next week will run smoothly and that people in the team will communicate feelings and thoughts in the best way possible and they will always remember what their main focus of this mission and what the centre of their lives should be.

I love and miss all friends back in the England/Wales/USA....and any other country I can’t think of.

Helen
xoxo

Sorry its been so long :( (continued)

So continuing from DT week, after getting back, getting dry, sleeping in an actual bed and having the best breakfast cooked by our UK director, Mike, we were starting to recover slightly.

After this week we continued into our second part of Cultural Studies learning more about just how different people from different cultures really are and how much it can be a problem if you don't try to understand the culture of people you're working with, a culture you're going to or the culture you're in. I realised this is  highly important, not just in mission work where clearly there would be a culture change but just in church in general as the cultural diversity is growing all the time, if this isn't understood or attempted to be understood at least then this can have massive knock on effect on relationships due to misinterpretation usually.

The week after this we hit the week of spiritual warfare. This topic I hadn't learnt much about previously, so I was very eager to learn. I learnt so many things during this week and mentally it was one of the weeks that will a lot more full on but as a Christian was definitely one of the teaching topics I value most.

We looked worked through looking at who the enemy is and then, more importantly, how we can protect and attack the enemy and how important it is to literally apply the armour of God. I'd gone through what it was before but never thought of the use of it or how it was important to me at all but over these past few weeks I've learned such things as truthfulness. righteousness, peacefulness, faith and the word of God (Bible) are among the most important things that I need in my day to day life and will keep me strong and firm in my faith. Making sure I use the armour will enable me to do more, be more and fully step into what God plans are for me.
Finally we talked about prayer and how important that is in day to day life. Before coming on this gap year prayer had strangely enough never really been a massive part of my life and I hadn't truly valued its power to change situations. I never understood why we had to pray and why didn't God just change our situations anyways. I've never realised so much how prayer can change seemingly unchangeable situations until these last few months and how essential it is as part of daily life.

I loved this week of teaching and I could go into a mass amount of detail about every area we got taught on... if you really would like me to go more in detail on this topic you can ask me personally and I'll be very happy to pass on everything I've been taught...however for now I will just say I've learnt that the specific armour of God was taught to us so we would know what we would need and how to use it, not so we could completely disregard it as just words that have no life or meaning.

Every part of God's word was written for a reason and we should remember this at all times.

Sorry its been so long :(

As I remember saying in my last blog post "speak soon"...soon has turned into weeks and I still haven't wrote another one. I'm sorry to all of you who I'd promised to keep you up-to-date but all I can say is that you would have to actually do this gap year to know how busy and packed our time table is.

To make this much better to read and so I can include picture and it won't be a mile long I'll split it up and only include the most key moments of my last few months here in Llanelli.

Since I last wrote I've been on development training or DT week as its known at work horizons. It was a highly challenging, injury causing, teaming building, and productive week  that I will never forget. I faced my fears on this week and was stretched but in that it produced results I wouldn't have imagined. Firstly if you haven't been on any form of development training before this week involved various tasks such as planning a meal, hiking, abseiling, sleeping in a cave yet more hiking and sleeping in a concrete hut..supposedly...if there wasn't torrential rain an it floods. Along the way also doing various other tasks, going 3 days with a maximum of 5hrs sleep and my anaemia coming back.
Although that all sounds like great fun in itself, trust me (looking back) it really was worth it and showed me a lot about how much I am capable of if I push that little further and keep focused. That even the things and places that seems unreachable aren't if your remain positive and don't give up.
God taught me he can answer your prayers and we can be so wrapped up in the problem and the situation that we're in that we look over the solution that God has provided for us. I learned this when I was on the literal edge of a slippery cliff at night. Being scared of heights this wasn't at all my favourite place to be and I was terrified, asking God to help me, or give me something to help me through this. After about 5 minutes my friend Aurora came and held my hand and kept telling me everything was going to be okay and she wasn't going to leave me. During this I was still stupidly asking God for something, anything to help me in this situation. He kindly opened my eyes to the fact he'd already placed someone in my path to help me and as she said I was going to be okay.

Left Photo - The team in the bothy after a veryyyy long and wet day.
From left to right: Aurora, Me, Nate, Godgive, David, Hollie, Isaac, Joy, Sarah, Joce
Right Photo - Me and my roomies in the flooded bothy

You're probably thinking we're all looking far too happy to be anywhere near as exhausted as we were. Trust me we were all bordering on hysteria due to tiredness by this point. 

So this doesn't become ridiculously boring and too long to read I'll spilt it up into a few more posts, so please read on if you can be bothered :)

Byeee for now
Helen xoxo

 

Week 1

So I've been here in Llanelli for just over a week now and I think I've just about learnt how to pronounce "Llanelli" properly, which being English in Wales goes a long way, trust me!
This first week has been soooo packed, I can't even begin to try and explain how much has happened in so little time, I've bearly had time to think to be honest. However I will try to summerise what has been happened. On Monday - Wednesday morning's we have "North Dock prayer" this is where we pray for various things to do with World Horizons such as council meetings and vital team member roles they need filling...so if any of you feel called to mission you know where to come yeah?
We've been learning so much about different cutures via different games and also simply by living together in community with people from all over the world. So here's where I'll introduce you to the team. The long termers consist of Jos from just around the corner in Wales, Joy who comes from Bedford, Sarah from Thatcham and Nate whos from California, USA. Then there are the Gappers who consist of, me, Hollie whos from Bridgend, Wales, David from London, Aurora from France, Isaac from Indiana, USA and Godgive from Nigeria. As you can see even between the 10 of us there are mass cultural differences and different personalities. Its been such a learning curve for everyone and its such a massive answer to prayer how quickly we've all got close and are like a massive family now. I love it!
I've been put as team leader for my cleaning/washing up/catering team which is me, Nate and Joy, HA what an absolute joke, thanks Becky and Debbie (Gap year and long term leaders). Its been so crazy and I'm literally not sure how we've coped with getting eidable meals out realitivly on time cause I have literally no idea what I'm doing! I swear its a bloody miracle. 
I loved getting involved with my new church (Elim Swansea), sorry MCC but gotta move on and you know that will always be my home church. The life of of Elim is so obvious its amazing to walk into a building like that for the first time and just feel so content and at home amongst being so unsure. The work the people put into this church is incredible and the passion they have to create new projects to help people is immense, there just seems to be so much going on within the church.
The main thing I'm involved in helping with is on a Friday night working with two people called Dave and Laura and helping the work they do in reaching the homeless and addicts who so desperately need God but are just oblivious to this fact. The do this with a main and vital philosophy of simply ( or not so simply) loving people and forming relationships that can spark those important conversations. Dave and Laura both have amazing, inspirational stories of being delivered from the place they were in and its so obvious to me they're now doing the work they were designed to do. They're helping so many people, 11 people in rehab in at the and they're so committed to being there after they get out of rehab or teen changellge. I could go on about them for ages, so amazing. Even though I'm super buzzing over this, it has been a challenge for me and I've found just over this last 10 days God is continuing to push be futher and challenging me causing me to have to trust him like I'm so scared to do, so far its going well and I can tell my faith is growing already and I just have a continuing desire to learn more about his word and look more deeply into his teaching, something that I've never had before.
The church service I attend with Nate and Hollie on an evening touched my life massively and brought up so many painful things that I thought I'd delt with that after the talk I realised I had held on to, I know God wants me to get rid of the hurt I hold on from these times but the reality of it and having to face in head on infront of 10 other people is scary as and super emotional but I know God is doing some amazing work in me and its only week 1!!!
Today we learned about the possibilites for out 6 month work abroad, as you know from my last post I intended to go to Cambodia...note the past tense. I, along with the other gappers are so confused and blessed by the amount of amazing opportunities we have put in our path. So now I'm can't decide between Cambodia and Turkey, so please pray I hear where I being called to go!
I feel like I've been going on for a year and honestly I could write more, its been such an emotional rollercoster of a week, don't think I've experienced anything like it before but I can honestly say I wouldn't want to go through this with any other group of people, they're all so amazing and crazy and slightly annoying at times but as I said they're all gonna be my family for 3 months and I couldn't have asked for a better group of people.
Sorry again for the essay!
Bring on the rest of the week!
Speak soon
Helen xoxo

Before The Start.

So I'm off on a adventure into something I would definitely class as the 'the unknown', hence the name of the this blog. I decided this would be the best way for everyone to see the crazy stuff I'm getting up to in the next year, I will try and post on here as much as possible however I'm sorry in advance if there is a gap between posts, my daily schedule is gonna be pretty packed! 

To start off, for those of you who have zero idea what I'm doing with my life at the moment, here's a basic summary of what World Horizons is and the reason I decided to take this year out instead of doing the standard thing of going to uni.

As many people will know I was all set on going to uni to do Adult Nursing, however very few of you know the reasons behind postponing this. I very much started to feel, once all the craziness of personal statement writing and work experience had died down, that I actually had no idea if this was even the course for me. This lead to me deciding to look around various ways to spend my year the majority of which weren't suitable for me or I was too young to do. However one of my friends had done the World Horizons gap year a few years ago and so my mam told me to have a look at that and everything just seemed to fit together, it was exactly what I looking for and what I think I need in my life right now. After I decided this is what I was going to do, Teesside University rang me up themselves and told me that I'd be unsuccessful for September 2012 as there wasn't enough space on the course but they thought I was a good candidate so wanted to defer my place till September 2013, this is when I was certain what I was doing was in Gods plan and not just my own.

So what even is World Horizons you ask? World Horizons is a multi-national Christian charity who aims to reach out to those countries and people than are a lot less fortunate than ourselves, develop relationships with the people of these countries and share the message of the gospel to those who have never heard it before. As a part of this charity there is the option to do a gap year with them where you spend 3 months in their UK base in Llanelli, Wales focusing on discipleship and spiritual growth, as well as key preparation for working in a cross-cultural environment. Next I'm off on my 6 month placement (Jan-July). I'm not fully sure where the destination of this placement will be, however Cambodia is looking highly likely, but I'd be grateful for prayer for confirmation of this! 

This next year is going to be one of the scariest, inspiring, eye-opening, and amazing years of my life and I can't wait for it to start. I am 100% sure the people I will meet along the way will change my life as much as I hope to change theirs. 

I may post a few extra thoughts before I go, but if not my next post will be from my short term home in Llanelli, Wales!! Arghhh

Speak soon
Helen xoxo