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Posted in 04/05|Cambodia by Courtney MacLellan on 3/7/2010
Courtney Styres birthday was on March 6th! So obviously Logos had to celebrate!
We started the celebrations off with a surprise party the night before we left Siem Reap.
Cake time!
Played a few party games...
Poor Dalin....
Court's actual birthday was a travel day, so we had birthday suprises to keep the travel fun!
Once we arrived in Bangkok, we continued the celebrations with dinner at a Japanese restaurant!
Courtneys and Amy at dinner!
Parachute pants!
Finished the day at Alice in Wonderland in 3D!
We're pretty glad Courtney was born. :)
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Posted in 04/05|Cambodia by Courtney MacLellan on 3/7/2010
We said good-bye to the kids in the village on Wednesday afternoon. It was, by far, the most difficult good-bye yet. We spent two months falling absolutely in love with these kids and it was not easy to leave. Later that night, I went out on to the balcony and just sat there. My heart hurt. It's kind of funny because the last few months I've been praying that it would be hard to say good-bye because I want to know at the end of the month that I loved the people we ministered to well. And then this month it was so hard to leave the kids. And I told God that I couldn't feel like this six more times. But I am also learning that God really is my comfort and after I spent some time with Him that night I felt so much better. Now I am back to hoping that I can love everyone we meet as much as I love our village kids. :)
Here's a little look at why I love them so much:
Srey Lim wearing my sunglasses.
Courtney and I with Dalin who also helps out at the village.
(And translates for us!)
Right before we left on our last day.
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Posted in Fun Facts by Courtney MacLellan on 3/6/2010
 -You've developed a random cough, you're toiletry bag includes lice
shampoo and worm medication and you feel more concerned when you DON'T
have rumbly tummy then when you do.
-You casually mention to your team that you are going to Africa in less than two weeks and the conversation goes something like this:
"Hey, I just realized that in less that two weeks we will be in AFRICA!"
"Huh, that's nice. What's for dinner?"
-The phrases "choose in" and "say amen" get you through your day.
-Things like toilet paper, towels, pillows and washing machines have become luxury items. Air conditioning is like being transported straight to heaven.
-You judge dirty clothes based on your ability to wash them rather than on whether or not they smell or are covered in dirt.
-Bangkok has become your Asian hometown (we've been back and forth six
times in the last three months) and the Bangkok YWAM base feels like
home.
 -You buy your teammate a birthday gift that you know she won't like
because you just really want to see her wear parachute pants.
-$2 for anything is expensive.
-Your hygiene habits have become a paradox: sometimes you don't shower for three to four days but you wear more skirts and jewelry than you ever did at home.
-You go to the theatre to watch a movie and it feels so much like Canada that when the movie is over and you turn around and see that everyone else in the theatre has black hair, it freaks you out for a minute because you forgot you were in Asia.
-You're new favorite thing to do during border crossing is to sing children's songs and do the actions.
-You spend an afternoon sitting on a wooden platform with women in the village, smiling at them (they don't speak English, you don't speak Khmer) and playing with kids and you find yourself wishing you could stay forever.
 -There's not really any such thing as "waiting" to cross the street, you just go because otherwise you'd be waiting until the next day. You don't really look both was either, it's safer to just walk straight across staring straight ahead.
-In Asia, you've taught English to bar girls, to adults above a bank, to kids in numerous schools, to kids in a church, to university students in a student centre and above a coffee shop and to monks in a Buddhist temple.
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Posted in A day in the life... by Courtney MacLellan on 3/6/2010
A little snapshot of my life in Cambodia:
Every morning we eat breakfast as a team. Usually we get breakfast from the local market because it's much cheaper than the grocery store. However, the market is really crowded, really smelly and has random dead chickens, fish and pig heads hanging out everywhere. One night this week, I remembered right before I went to bed that it was my turn to get breakfast in the morning. I usually try to get it the day before to avoid the early morning rush (and to avoid having to get up early) but I forgot to go. I decided to go by myself because I didn't make a plan with Mike and I didn't want to wake him up. Here's how my morning went:
I head out to the shed to grab a bicycle. I grab one and start to wheel it to the street only to realize the tire is flat. I take it back and get the other bike and its tire is flat as well. I'm already a little grumpy at the prospect of facing the market madness and the flat tires just make it a little bit worse. Grumpily, I start walking toward the market, dreading the boring walk and the heat. However, five minutes into my walk I meet Amy on her way back from her morning exercise and she has my Ipod. The walk suddenly becomes much more enjoyable as I blast some Snow Patrol and make my way to the market.
I get to the market and it is even more jam-packed than usual. I try to make a game plan in order to get out there as fast as possible. I head to the bakery first to grab bread. The one-year-old twins of the owner are there and I immediately get handed a baby to cuddle. The day is looking even better. I buy my bread (which turns out to be moldy when I get home...oops) and say good-bye to the babies.
I head back to the center of the market to get eggs but I take a long detour through the tourist-y section in order to avoid the "dead animal" part of the food market. I find myself judging all of the tourists who are walking around wide-eyed and snapping photos. And then I remember that I don't actually live in Siem Reap and am therefore also a tourist. I finally make my way to the eggs, leaving the tubs of live, flapping fish a wide berth and buy my eggs. For a minute I am outraged at being charged the "white person price". That is, until I realize I am white. I begin to realize how much Siem Reap has become "home" to me in the last two months.
As I mentioned earlier the market is absolutely packed this morning. As usual, the old ladies simply shove me out of the way when they need to get by. I'm more or less used to this by now and figure when I'm old I'll just come back to the market and shove their grand-kids out of the way to make up for it...or something. I'm waiting in a particularly bad traffic jam when the old lady behind me starts jabbing me in the back to move. I'm literally nose-to-nose with the person in front of me, and so I obviously can't go anywhere. When the back jabbing doesn't work, she literally grabs my butt with both of her hands and tries to maneuver me out of her way. Using my bum as the steering wheel. I feel that this is a new low, even for the market.
I stand there feeling incredibly awkward until the traffic jam resolves itself and the old lady is able to successfully shove me out of the way. I then continue on my merry way to the fruit stand. However, half way between the eggs and the fruit I hear a shout so I look around to see what's happening. And as I look up, one of the vegetable ladies jumps off of her vegetable table (they sit on the table with the vegetables) and starts brawling with another vegetable lady. Seriously. Brawling. Vegetables are flying everywhere. The entire (extremely large) crowd makes a beeline to watch the fight. Eventually, market security separates them (I didn't even know they existed, they have walkie talkies and everything, which is rather impressive for Cambodia).
After the women are separated, everyone is still crowding around. You really don't see open fighting in Cambodia, especially between women. I think it's a novelty to everyone and I know it will be awhile before I can move. I'm standing next to one of the random "restaurants" in the market and I see people drinking what looks like iced-coffee so I use my best hand motions to order one, just to kill time while I wait and because I'm slightly curious if it's any good. It eventually comes (in a plastic bag of course) and I take a sip. And on my very last day in Siem Reap, after two months, I discover that the food market has the exact same ice coffee that I was addicted to in Thailand. For fifty cents. And I feel a little sad. But then I remember how much condensed milk it has and I think it might be good for my health that I didn't know any sooner.
I buy my fruit and then hurry home to lovingly cook breakfast for my team. On the way home, I follow two precious old ladies carrying their baskets from the market and hope I'll have a best friend to go market shopping with when I'm old.
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Posted in 04/05|Cambodia by Courtney MacLellan on 3/4/2010
This weekend, a few of my teammates and I travelled to Phnom Penh to visit the genocide memorial there. From 1975-1979, Cambodia experienced one of the worst genocides in history. 3 million people died, more than the holocaust. Today, 80 percent of Cambodia's population is under the age of 30. Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge wanted to re-build Cambodia from the ground up, which meant killing anyone who was educated. They also killed their wives and children to prevent them from taking revenge. The rest of the population was uprooted into villages and into forced labor for "re-education". Many of the people that weren't killed outright for breaking some impossible rule in these villages, died of starvation.
 In Phnom Penh, one of the thousands of "killing fields" throughout the country has been preserved to serve as a reminder of the past. The victims of the Khmer Rouge were brought to killing fields to be killed and were then thrown into mass graves. Before the killing fields, victims were brought to Tuol Sleng prison where they were brutally tortured, sometimes for months. Records were kept of every prisoner that entered Tuol Sleng. After the Liberation in 1979, files containing short biographies and a photograph taken of each person upon arrival to Toul Sleng were found in the prison. One floor of the high school/prison is now dedicated to a display of these photographs. There are hundreds of headshots of men, women and children.
 Seeing the bones at the Killing Fields was overwhelming. It was intense to walk among the graves. Seeing the torture rooms and the gruesome photos in Tuol Sleng was absolutely sickening. Looking at face after face in the photographs wrecked me. I looked at every single photo. Hundreds of them. The looks on their faces tell a story. A baby boy with confused eyes. An oldwoman whose expression is tired and beat. A young man, his eyes burning with passionate anger. A boy whose face is one of utter defeat. Women whose mouths are twisted with bitterness. Whose eyes are filled with fear and grief. A grown man, strong and healthy looking, staring at the camera with helpless, lifeless eyes. Some were terrified. Some were confused. Some were angry. Some were defiant. I looked at one picture and something in me just knew that the 20 year old I was looking at had been his mother's pride and joy. That he had meant more to her than anything else on earth. And his life was ended in horrific brutality. For nothing. He was tortured and killed
for nothing.
 At one point I walked by Courtney who was staring at a particular photo and she called me over to look. The 3 or 4 year old boy in the photo literally could have been one of the boys from the village. I looked at this little boy's face, thinking about the personality of little Pro-On, how he's adorable and sweet-natured and well mannered and brilliant and how he has this cute little giggle. That little boy could have been Pro-On. He was slaughtered like an animal. In fact, he was most likely bashed against a tree to save ammunition. My heart just broke. It was absolutely overwhelming. The genocide became so real in that moment. How does something like this happen? How do you learn about something like that and walk away unchanged?
 I looked at face after face. I looked into the eyes of old women, young men, husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, daughters, wives, and sisters. Into the eyes of children and babies. I looked into the eyes of teachers and lawyers. Doctors and scientists. Schoolchildren. Housewives. They were all somebody. They were people and they were slaughtered. The world didn't even know.
We've been in Cambodia for almost two months now. Every day, we are confronted by physical reminders of the genocide. It's only rarely that you see someone older than forty or fifty. It's not uncommon to see people with missing limbs from land mines. There are signs of war still left on buildings. The infrastructure of Cambodia is far behind that of neighboring Thailand. However, the genocide didn't become real for me until I saw those photographs.
There's no neat ending to this blog. I don't have any answers. I don't know how something like this happens, how it's allowed to happen. But the word I can't stop thinking about is Redemption. This nation is being redeemed. God is moving in big ways in Cambodia.
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Posted in A day in the life... by Courtney MacLellan on 2/23/2010
7:00 am – Wake up and get ready for the day.
7:30 am – Head to Common Grounds for a skype date with my friend Anne. Listen to Misty Edwards (Tyson likes to say that I need to join a Misty Edwards support group, I don't see the need) and enjoy saying "hello" to all of the kids heading to school on my way there.
7:45 am – Arrive at Common Grounds and realize my skype date is actually for tomorrow. The idea of coffee and alone time to start my day sounds incredible so I decide to stay for awhile.
8:45 am – Head back to the house, more Misty Edwards. :)
9:00 am – Arrive at home for breakfast.
9:30 am - Finish team breakfast and head upstairs to hand wash my clothes.
10:45 am – Realize I need to stop washing clothes and get a lesson ready for English class.
11:00 am– Teach my intermediate English class for university students. Try to explain the meanings of simple and complex carbohydrates, calories, protein and nutritionist. Think to myself that I really should have skipped that exercise.
12:00 pm – Finish washing my laundry and head to the restaurant down the street for lunch. ($1.50 for noodles with chicken and vegetables!)
 1:30 pm - Head to the village for the afternoon. We teach English and Bible stories and hang out with the kids. We take an absolutely adorable picture of Srey Lim wearing sunglasses. I also teach Wat Map and Souet to say "little punk". I feel guilty, but only briefly. They teach me to say grandfather and grandmother (thaw and yay).
4:30 pm – Arrive home and a few minutes later head to Common Grounds to teach a keyboarding class. Courtney teaches the class while I head to the bus ticket/bicycle rental shop to buy bus tickets to Phnom Penh for the weekend. This doesn't take as long as anticipated so I head back to the coffee shop and chat with the staff and fool around on facebook while waiting for Courtney. In fact, I talk to Courtney on facebook chat for most of the time.
6:00 pm – Courtney finishes supervising the class and we head to Angkor Market to get Dr. Pepper and chocolate croissants for Courtney and iced tea and brownies for me. It is a beautiful moment in both of our lives.
6:30 pm – Arrive home to a delicious dinner on the table. Talk about our possible ministry locations for Ghana while we eat.
7:30 pm – Amy and I head to Common Grounds (yes, that's the third time today!) to close up for the night. We talk about how effective time "around the kitchen table is" and then discuss (sadly, in seriousness) what proportion coffee and tea contribute to its effectiveness.
9:00 pm – Back at home, I decide to finally get some exercise. I do P90X for about ten minutes before I feel like I'm going to die and then decide to run back and forth on the driveway (it's night so I can't go anywhere).
9:17 pm – Briefly consider whether or not it's safe to sweat this much and wonder if exercise is really doing more harm than good.
9:30 pm – Get really, really bored with the 30 meter driveway and decide to be done exercising.
9:32 pm – Lay on the floor, hoping the tile will somehow cool me down.
9:35 pm – I decide to write this blog!
9:50 pm – I finish writing the blog and head into my room to brush my teeth. I end up brushing my teeth for ten minutes because Amy starts telling me a God story and I get distracted. The topic of conversation quickly deteriorates from the Holy Spirit to our best stories about farting. (only on the World Race...)
10:25 pm - I'm about to go hang out with Jesus (and eat my brownie!) and then I'm off to bed so I can be up in time for my actual skype date! :)
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Posted in 04/05|Cambodia by Courtney MacLellan on 2/18/2010
I am now four months into my world race journey. God is teaching me a LOT. He is refining me. He is speaking to me. He is putting desires in my heart. I have been wrestling with a lot of different things so far this year and I'm to the point where I feel like things are beginning to come together. Some things I've really been thinking about are:
-Character.
-Dreaming BIGGER.
-Loving better. Like Jesus.
-Wisdom. More understanding of God and how He chooses to work.
-Holy Spirit. What it's like to really live by the Spirit.
You'd think that because most of my quiet times turn into me wrestling with one of these issues and asking a million questions and telling God over and over that I want to know more, you'd think I'd be excited when God begins to reveal some things. Honestly though, I've been surprised at my reaction. Asking God for more character, more dreams, more love, and more of the Holy Spirit is good and all, but then He answers and you realize how much responsibility goes along with those things. I feel like God is saying that it's time to grow up. I am not a teenager anymore, I am an adult, whether I'm 21 or 61.
 For example, I pray for character so God shows me what it's like to be a person of character and how you act if you are. Apparently, it doesn't mean that it becomes easy to be that person in every situation. It means that you CHOOSE to be that person, no matter how difficult it is, even when you really don't want to. And for some reason, that surprises me. But I asked God what it is to be a person of character and He showed me. And now I am responsible for that knowledge.
I pray for bigger dreams and the second I get a glimpse at some of the bigger dreams God is asking me to dream, I kind of want to take my prayer back. If God gives me bigger dreams, I have a responsibility to take bigger risks. I have a responsibility to believe that those dreams are going to become reality, without necessarily knowing how it's going to happen. I have a responsibility to be willing to work for them and to make sacrifices for them.
I pray for more love and God shows me that that doesn't mean supernaturally walking around with warm fuzzies for everyone. It means dying to yourself so you can put other people first. It means forgiving over and over and over again. It means choosing to be unoffendable. It means claiming your "wrongs" in every situation, laying down your pride and asking for forgiveness, and leaving everyone else's "wrongs" between them and God. And seriously, I think that sucks at the moment. But if I want to love like Jesus, don't I need to be willing to do what Jesus did? He literally DIED for me. I've been whining to God about why it's so hard to love people the way I want to and the only thing He said to me is "It hurts to die". Hmmm....
I feel like the kid that kept asking her parents for a puppy and they kept saying to the kid, "Are you sure"? And I'm the little kid with the big eyes nodding my head and saying, "Yes!" And so the kid gets the puppy only to realize how much work it is to have a pet. How much responsibility it takes to keep it fed, cleaned up after and healthy. Having the puppy is definitely worth it, it's just not what the kid was picturing when she asked for one.
Honestly, this world race thing is not turning out how I expected it to. It's a lot harder than I imagined. But it's also a lot better than I imagined. I am learning more than I expected to. I am growing more than I expected to. I am getting to know God in ways that I didn't even think were possible four months ago. I am learning who I am in ways that I couldn't even have glimpsed at before.
It's quite a journey...
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Posted in 04/05|Cambodia by Courtney MacLellan on 2/17/2010
This month is our first ATL (Ask The Lord) Month. Team Logos is back in Siem Reap, Cambodia for a second month of ministry! I really love it here. We have met some incredible people that we have been able to form real relationships with so it is really nice to be able to come back for another month.
Originally, our team had felt through our ATL that God was leading us to a different country and Courtney and I in particular felt really strongly about it. The contact in that country ended up not working out and not every team that had wanted to go was able to, so we were asked to choose a second option. In spite of the fact that I really loved our time in Siem Reap, it took me a long time to be okay with the fact that we were coming back. I'm still wrestling with why God spoke (in my opinion) so strongly about one place and yet He brought us back to Siem Reap.
So, to be honest, coming into this month I made a few requests. I told God that I wanted to be busy every day. I wanted to be able to sleep this month. I wanted divine appointments and I didn't want to feel directionless again. And the crazy thing is that even though I feel like my attitude was honestly a bit childish, God still gave me those things.
During debrief I prayed about what ministry I was supposed to do this month and the two things I felt God say were that:
a) I needed to go back to village simply because it's too easy for me to buy into ministry knowing I'm only there 3-4 weeks. I think God knows I need to be challenged in that. And yeah, I am completely in love with those kids, but I did find myself feeling relieved that we were leaving near the end of the month because it was getting to the point of my comfort zone getting stepped on a little bit.
b) That He just wanted me to fill needs this month and be a blessing.
Before we even got back, our contact, Lara, e-mailed to ask if I would teach an English class four times a week at the student centre we stay at (I substituted for this class a few times last month and it's now grown big enough for two classes, so they are splitting it).
Then when we got back to Siem Reap, Amy, Courtney and I talked to the lady that runs the coffee shop that we love. She is seriously an incredible woman and has ten million things going on at all times. So, we basically told her we just wanted to help her in whatever way we could. So, now for the next two weeks we are closing the coffee shop in the evening (the regular closer is away in Thailand – I am really excited about this for some reason). Courtney and Amy are also teaching a keyboarding class in the student centre above the coffee shop and we are planning to go and spend time hanging out with students and building relationships as well. It's nothing too dramatic, but they are needs that are now filled. So, for the next three weeks I will be going to the village three times a week, teaching English at the student centre, closing at the coffee shop and hopefully also building relationships with university students.
So, even if I'm still wrestling a bit with why we ended up back in Siem Reap, God is faithful and answering my (more than slightly whiney) demands. And I am realizing I need to learn a bit about being child-like rather than child-ish.
Also: The kids in the village are doing MUCH better, most are back to their usual selves! Srey-On was still really sick on Monday. On Tuesday, she seemed like a different kid. Hopefully she's on the way to getting better now!
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Posted in General Posts by Courtney MacLellan on 2/15/2010
Or, the reason I permanently marked my body with ink. Try not to die of shock but I did indeed recently acquire a tattoo! I've never been against tattoos but I was always quite certain I would never get one for myself. If I did, I knew it would have to be something that was a lot more important to me than just something that would look cool. So, obviously there is a story behind it. Here it is:
 I love the song "You Won't Relent". As in "have listened to it hundreds of times" love it. There is a line in that song that says "I'll set you as a seal upon my heart, as a seal upon my arm". And for some reason, I thought that made the idea of a tattoo so cool, if it was a seal. So, I prayed a little bit about it and I just felt like God was saying He wanted to set His seal on me, and not the other way around. So, one day awhile after that I was thinking about tattoos and I decided to pray about it. I just asked God what He would set as a seal on me and immediately He said BELOVED.
That is something that God has been speaking to me about a LOT since the beginning of the year. Honestly, I know that God loves me. But, it always seemed like such an impersonal and distant love to me. I've begun to get a glimpse during this race of what God's love is really like and it is the most indescribable, DEEP LOVE ever! I know I'm just glimpsing at it and still it startles me. Graham Cook says that the only way to describe God is with superlatives and I think that pretty much sums up what His love is like.
I've been so, so frustrated lately. I think if you recorded my prayers and counted the word that I speak the most (like on word processors, haha) it would be "more". I just want so much more from God. I want more for my team and for my squad. I want more for myself. I want more character. More gifting. More anointing. I want to know Jesus so much more than I do now. I want more of my identity in Christ. In fact, I want ALL of my identity in Christ.
I definitely don't have this all figured out, but I feel strongly that I can't have that "more" until I more understand God's love. I AM His beloved daughter and that is so much bigger and greater than any love there is on earth. I just know that it's something I have a difficult time accepting and I've been trying to intentionally declare it over myself this year. I know I need to begin to "claim" it and walk in it.
Did I need to tattoo it on my wrist in order to do that? Nope.
Is it a daily reminder about who God says I am? Yep!
Is it sort of uncomfortable that I tattooed something on myself that I still struggle to believe sometimes? Yes.
I AM going to walk in my full identity one day and that begins with knowing beyond anything else that I am God's beloved. There is so much more to life with God and I want it.
Fun little side note: So, I really believe that everything I've been wanting from God is first rooted in knowing how He loves me. So, I tattooed "beloved" on myself and then the next day God let me spend a night just hanging out with the Holy Sprit. Seriously, I can't even describe it in a blog except that it was incredible. Haha, I love it.
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Posted in Fun Facts by Courtney MacLellan on 2/10/2010
 -If crossing the street in Guatemala was a warm-up for Thailand, the
barking dogs in Guatemala were just a taste of the dogs in Cambodia. I
have to apologize to our adorable "guard-dog", P-dog, every morning
because at night he turns into a barking monster and I wish for bad
things to happen to him.
-The center line of the road is merely a suggestion. You may drive on whichever side of the road you wish. In fact, almost all traffic laws are suggestions. I never thought I would be able to say that my pet peeve is people who drive on the wrong side of the road. It is a little disconcerting when a moto is driving head-on towards you on your bicycle and the only place to go is either the ditch or into the traffic that's driving in the correct direction.
-It's also not as easy as it looks to ride sideways on the back of a bicycle either. It's really fun to try though. And then you can proudly announce to the rest of your team that you can now do something that any Cambodian over the age of three does effortlessly.
-It's really fun to hear a class of Cambodian teenagers say 3, 641, 728, 596 in English.
-Weddings here last three days, four days if you are wealthy. They are so loud that you need a permit to hold them, and the music plays for the entire time. I now know that our neighbours here are wealthy, and that I have a really bad attitude towards marriage after four days without sleep.
-Pajama suits are considered normal everyday attire here but it seems to be necessary for the top and bottom to match.
-Congo lines through the village with all of the children are a big hit.
-Line dancing is VERY popular here. Every night, the school on our street has line dancing class. I would say that there are 400 people there every night. Our contacts asked us to host a class at the student centre and their suggestion was line dancing. We thought they were crazy. They are not.
-If you haven't had any calcium in three weeks, you will find no shame in drinking the leftover milk from the small pitcher served with your coffee.
-The phrase "But I don't know how to eat this with a fork" comes out of your mouth one day during dinner.
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