CRM - Empowering Leaders

A Day in the Life of an Apprentice: Cambodia

Chickens, children, chimes – the awaking sounds of Cambodia. An alarm is not necessary as the neighborhood will come to life at an hour early enough. There are no “normal days” in Cambodia, only a loosely held agenda, but this is part of the formation.

A typical day could start with bread and coffee, a “loud” time in devotions as the rest of the street forges for the day’s food, at some point would come a language lesson, study time, practicing the words daily learned – at the market, with neighbors, on the back of a moto.

Spending time just being wherever you are in Cambodia is a lesson in patience, understanding, and usually slowing down. It’s also a lesson in not being able to answer or relieve all the suffering you will encounter and learning how to handle that tension.

An apprenticeship in Cambodia is a time of refining – as in a fire (no pun intended for the heat here!) Without the typical securities like language, culture, and familiarity of location, what can surface is our own flawed self that we’ve never encountered before. The support of the team, weekly prayer times, mealtimes are all part of the training – but a lot of the refining is done on the inside where “team” can’t reach, except for encouragement that you are not alone in the process.