The Crazy World Race Life

November 17th, 2023

Are you ready for a crazy update about my life on the World Race right now? Because here it comes!

Ok, so my team was living at a glorious 3 story church with our wonderful hosts, Ralph and Jane. Everything went great for 3 weeks. We got to teach about communication in a digital age in the United States, drink cappuccino (and warm tea for those of us that like that sort of thing), and how to do cotton eyed joe in the American Corner at the University of Southeast Asia, we taught English 3 times a week to amazing children who tortured us during recess when they forced us to play tag and in turn tag us EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. We also prayed over the city of Siem Reap and for souls to be awakened to the goodness of the Gospel, drank waaaayyy too much coffee, made house visits in the village, painted gates and pulled weeds, helped with two church services and got treated to ice cream by our host. THEN. IT HAPPENED. Our host came to us and said I think you should go to Battambang and help with the church plant there. We said great! It’s about a 3 hour drive, when will we go? Tomorrow at 3pm you will leave. How were we supposed to pack, what were we supposed to pack, and worse, how were we supposed to leave our hosts and their leg-licking dog Cambo??

We all got up at 6:30am on Thursday, (had our 1 hour long tuk-tuk ride to the village where most of my team painted the church and I had the amazing privilege to pull weeds. Then we had the hour long ride back, it’s about noon at this point, one of the first in my team and I walk about 5 minutes to get coffee, come back (none of us are packed and I desperately need a shower to keep my sanity), and we are told we are actually leaving at 2. Alrighty then. We know we will be sleeping in a church and our host is a lady pastor, who we have met before. Any other details? None, zilch, nada. Real bed? Shower? Remote village or city? We were left to wonder, and at this point only had an hour and a half left to wrap up our lives at Victory Church.

Where was I? Oh yes, 6 girls and their leader are now struggling to scarf their meals, which the majority of us chose to have a pb and j but wait! Disaster strikes. In wanting to not leave anything in the fridge our fearless leader, Sadie, has demolished our jelly supply. So, pb and pb it was. With my red milk tea and a blueberry fig bar, I was set to pack. But then disaster struck again. The bathroom held me captive for much longer than should be humanly possible. Was it too much fried rice? I will just be left to doubt what made me feel like I was dying? But back to the story. Would I still be able to shower and pack and be on time to leave? Worry wanted to creep into my mind. But never fear! For I conquered the bathroom, showered faster than the speed of light, and crammed everything into my small backpack. We stripped our beds, took out our trash, and tidied our rooms. As I walked down the stairs, I knew I was leaving the building, but not the lifetime (aka 3 weeks) of memories I had made and the knowledge I had gained from our wonderful time here. Holding back tears, I filled up my double-decker Nalgene, affectionately called Gilbert, with ice-cold water to defend against any dehydration, because I would need all the strength to ride in a van for 3 hours. We prayed, said our goodbyes (which, keep in mind, we will see them again in a week, but that didn’t stop us anyways), crammed 7 people’s bags into a minivan, then crammed ourselves. We took off, and I was immediately asleep. I was dead to this world. I wake up, totally out of it, because I have just had one of the best naps in the history of good naps, and we are at a gas station. I need to use the bathroom (again), so I crawl over people and one of my teammates and I go find lovely squatty potties. We wash our hands, because we don’t believe in germs out here, then crawl over people to cram ourselves back into the van. The next 2ish hours were wild. Our driver, bless his little heart, took us for the ride of our lives. I definitely did not sleep at all during the rest of our journey, I will skip the petty details and just say that we made it to Battambang in one piece-barely. We made it to the church, stumbled out of the van with our belongings, and were immediately greeted by Cooper-the dog that lives on the porch of our church-who looked like he wanted supper as he was holding his metal dog dish in mouth and fiercely growling (fierce might be a strong term-but it sounds good). We made our way inside, and we were warmly welcomed by snacks of bread, coke and apple juice. In the entry way we also saw our mattresses. That would be fine with us because we soon learned we got to use the A/C. We decided we could sacrifice a real bed for A/C any day of the week. We snacked, met our hosts, learned where the bathroom was (very important), and had a briefing of our schedule. Then we went to fellowship at the house of one of our hosts, had phillipino food (as our hosts are phillipino) which was amazing by the way, drank more coke, sang a song and had discussions about what love is and do we believe God loves us. It was a wonderful time, but at the end of this it was 9pm, and I was sorely lacking in my social skills, and one of the sweet ladies we live with noticed that and politely told me I looked like I just wanted to fall out of my chair and fall asleep right then and there (which was spot-on) and then she laughed at me. Then it was REALLY a struggle to stay awake, but we finally made it back to our church, and I really just wanted to go to bed. But then I had to brush my teeth, but I couldn’t find my toothbrush. What a devastation. I thought if I could just use the bathroom and go to bed. I decided to use the bathroom in our hosts bedroom as she had given us permission to us. I walk in there, and I have my pillow in my hand. Here I go being funny and not even trying again. But, that’s what being tired does to a person. She starts laughing at me and says, what are you gonna do, go to sleep in our bathroom?!? I made it through that (thankfully), said good night, texted some friends, and then said good night world.

Today is our rest day, and I’m currently sitting at a cafe writing this blog. I’m reflecting back on my time in Cambodia which is swiftly coming to a close. It has been a wonderful time, and I will dearly miss the wonderful friends I have made in my brief month and a half here.

Please be in prayer for my team as we have a week of ministry in Battambang (which I’m so excited for!), and then for our travel day to Thailand at the beginning of December.

 Another note: Although I’m 13 hours of all of you in Missouri, I would absolutely love to keep in contact if we have not already! I welcome all the phone calls and messages you have to offer! I dearly love and miss all of you.

 Blessings in Christ, Gracie Yoder