There are many things I love about Cambodia and I hope to devote blog posts to the fruit, the present-ness of people, the eagerness to celebrate and many more things.\u00a0 But I have to start with the rain.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s rainy season here.\u00a0 6 months of nearly daily rains that sweep across the tin roofs of the city, drumming their beats and pouring out of gutters onto more tin roofs and finally courtyards and streets.\u00a0 The sheer volume of rain here is a whole other scale from my suburban North American life, where hard rain melted quietly into soft grass most of the time.\u00a0 There isn’t much grass here and the rain bounces off of cobblestones and concrete in a cacophony\u00a0of sound.\u00a0 I love that I can hear the rain coming.\u00a0 Baking in my kitchen I’ll hear a distant roar starting and I can look out the front or back to listen for it.\u00a0 I then race around the house to close the windows as we’ve had several\u00a0mini-floods from water pouring inside.\u00a0 Then I wait.\u00a0 I sit and watch the sheets move closer across the roofs until huge drops, more like clear ropes sail down onto our house.\u00a0 The moment it touches our house, the air changes.\u00a0 It feels like there’s more oxygen and I breath deeply as the birds and mosquitos dive for cover.\u00a0 My favorite place to watch the rain is from our front porch.\u00a0 Most times this gives me a vantage point of watching the girls run around in it and the sound is incredible.\u00a0 I love to just sit and breath and listen as God works God’s washing of the world.\u00a0 The dust settles, the world is green and I feel deeply refreshed.\u00a0\u00a0Sometimes I play in the rain with the girls.\u00a0 It’s the coldest we’ve ever been here, standing under the cool rushing water, and afterwards we strip off our wet clothes and bundle up in blankets for stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As much as I love the rain, I have become keenly aware of how my love for the rain is rooted in privilege.\u00a0 There are many people here who do not love the rain.\u00a0 The longer I’m here, the more I learn how difficult the rain is for people with less money than me.\u00a0 While MCC encourages us to live simply, we are also clearly expected to live a “middle class” life that ensures our safety and health.\u00a0 Part of that is related to the rains.\u00a0 In many parts of the city, rain means flooding.\u00a0 Roads are frequently flooded.\u00a0 Homes become flooded.\u00a0 Sometimes people can’t get out to go get groceries until the water subsides (Cambodians do not typically have refrigeration, but tend to shop for each day).\u00a0 In traditional Cambodian architecture, all houses are built “up” on stilts, like ours is, allowing for the air to move around the house and minimize damage from flooding.\u00a0 But the slums here contain houses on the ground, made of tin boxes or just pieces of tin leaning against each other.\u00a0 And when the water rushes through them it brings dirt, garbage and sickness.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so as I sit on my porch in awe of the rain, aware of God’s presence with me, I pray not only psalms of thanksgiving and praise but also petitions of mercy for all the people here who do not love the rain.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are many things I love about Cambodia and I hope to devote blog posts to the fruit, the present-ness of people, the eagerness to celebrate and many more things.\u00a0 But I have to start with the rain.\u00a0 It’s rainy season here.\u00a0 6 months of nearly daily rains that sweep across the tin roofs of… <\/p>\n