Here in Cambodia...

Hey everyone! I’m sorry I haven’t updated sooner. I’m basically in the middle of nowhere and the internet is almost impossible! We are currently right outside of Phnom Penh, Cambodia working in an HIV AIDS orphanage. There are about 205 kids that live here and they are all HIV positive. Our team has been here almost two weeks, and we will be here another week! I can’t believe Friday is Christmas.. it doesn’t feel like it at all. But I am so excited to see the kids get to have Christmas, and experience it in a new way!

God has been working in me quite a lot. It has been an adventure.. thats for sure! And it still has only begun! Being surrounded by sickness and a spirit of hopelessness has been a big challenge. It has left me feeling frustrated and confused, again, with some of the same questions I’ve had since My sweet Jace’s death. Over the last week or so I’ve really struggled with finding Him in all this sadness. I’ve found myself asking Him where He is and why He’s not doing anything? But He really has taken ahold of me and shook me pretty hard. I read Corrie Ten Boom’s “The Hiding Place” and really started looking at things a lot differently. A big thing that He has showed me this week is that sometimes the knowledge that I want to have is too heavy for me to carry. I have to learn to let my Father carry it for me until I am able. Grasping this has really freed me.. in a way that I can’t even explain. I don’t want to be God’s judge anymore. I don’t want to look at Him and see only the things about Him that I can’t understand. I’m ready to let Him just be my Hiding Place. I think I’ve been wrestling for so long.. and I can feel God telling me that it’s time for me to give it up. And I’m ready to. I miss Jace. Everyday. I always will. And I won’t ever understand why some things happen the way they do. But I can rest in knowing that God can see the good in broken things. Even when I can’t. It doesn’t make the pain go away. The memories still come.. and it still hurts. But now I know that God IS good. I don’t have to just say it anymore. I KNOW it.

“But this is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preperation for the future that only He can see.” -Corrie Ten Boom

Being here has been life-changing. Obviously! ;) But the kids just LOVE to be with us. They follow us around, climbing on our backs, wanting to play games. Some just want to sit in your lap or hold your hand. All they want is to know that they are wanted.. accepted. And in more ways than one I’ve seen myself in them. If I look deep inside my heart, thats what eats at me the most. “Am I wanted?” And a lot of times I follow the wrong things around, looking for the answer, when God is ultimately the only one who can give me a satisfactory one. He’s the only one who can answer “YES!” every time! In the same way, I see Him in every one of them. In every hug and kiss. Or just when I suddenly feel a little hand in mine. God wants to be wanted.. just like I do. Probably more than I do! He wants to know that I want to spend time with Him.

It’s a lot to learn. And it’s only been the first two weeks! I am so very thankful for God’s patience with me. I am so very blessed to have been chosen to be on this journey. He is blessing me with more than I could have imagined! Thank you guys for supporting me and continuing to pray for the things He is doing! He IS good!

Leaving in four days...

Wow! I have been so bad about updating. I am so so sorry! Things have been so crazy, but God has been doing more than I can explain. This last weekend I got to go home for Thanksgiving, and seeing my family was just awesome! It was refreshing to be there and get to spend so much time with them... even though it went by super fast. I was sad to leave them, but not sad to come back. I have been doing a lot to get ready for outreach emotionally, spiritually, AND physically! We leave Sunday morning!! It came so fast! For those of you who don't already know, I just got the rest of my tuition money in last week. Praise God!! But I am still in need of some extra money for small needs I will most likely have overseas. Thank you to all of you who have been such a blessing to me, in helping me be able to take this journey! I could not do it without you!

It's hard to explain what all is going through my brain at the moment.. and my heart. But, of course, these next few days will be a little stressful trying to get everything together and prepare myself for what God has! There are many things that we will be doing over our trip that I just know God has His hand in my team and all the places that we will be going. If any of you would want to be part of my email chain please send me your email address ASAP! I won't be able to talk on the phone and I don't know for sure how often I will be able to get to an internet cafe... but I will make it a priority for sure!

I am definitely struggling to have daily quiet times. But I realize more and more every day how important they are. Maybe not "quiet times" but more just being in the word and spending time with God. I can see how it affects me when I don't stay on top of it. Over outreach I am going to discipline myself to reading the new testament over our three month period. I'm kind of excited about it! God wants to teach me so much. I can feel it!

All I can say is that I never dreamed there would be so much drama at a place like this!!! But, hey, we're all human right? Some things have been hard and I have found myself more than ever before, believing the lies that the enemy loves throwing at me. I have had to make a daily choice to look at myself through God's eyes, and no one else's! But it is definitely a challenge. I don't think I've ever been so insecure about myself as I have been these last few days. And part of me is afraid about that end of outreach. I don't doubt that God will use me exactly the way He wants to, or even that I won't be able to adapt to the culture and the different way of life for awhile. But I can't even imagine going, and trying to be a light to the lost... feeling like this. I know that God is bigger than all of this!! And He is reminding me every minute of how precious I am to Him and what HE says about me. But, it's hard to get that from my head to my heart. Please be praying for me on outreach.. that God would give me His eyes for myself and ALL those around me. I don't want anything to blind me from seeing His wonders and glory on this amazing journey! He is going to do so much, and teach me more than I can imagine! And the enemy wants to bring me down and keep me from being excited and wanting to go. So be praying for me! I know that I'll be fine. Love you guys and thank you so much for being here!

My email address is bparkman@ymail.com --Send me an email letting me know that you would like to receive my updates! :)