Cambodia trip - part By

But before we began our physical work. we walked the property and prayed over every inch, both inside and out. We also spent some time worshipping (me on a broken keyboard with no pedal, and Shane (Kristen's brother) on a barely tuned guitar). Thankfully, it was not the lack of proper instruments that the Lord heard, but the voices and hearts lifted in praise to Him.
We were setting the property apart for the work of the Kingdom of God. We were "taking ground" in the Spirit. The Heritage House children and staff are being sent out as evangelists in Kampot and prayer coverage is a must. God's Word is clear in that no man comes to faith unless he is drawn by the Father (yes, that includes women too ;). John 6:44 says this: No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent me draws him...
There is no drawing without the prayers of the saints. God has chosen the preaching of the Gospel as the means for salvation, and the preaching of the Gospel (the good news of Jesus Christ) goes hand in hand with prayer.
Therefore, will you please pray for Heritage House's staff and children that they will be effective witnesses for Jesus Christ in Kampot?

Once prayer and worship concluded, we got to work scrubbing bathrooms. Sarah and I tackled the office bathroom, while Heather tackled bathroom #2, and Srey #3. What a "fun" job! But it was honestly a blessing to see the bathrooms clean and ready to be used by our team and all of Heritage House.
Then off to the paint store to pick out colors. I remembered what some experts have said about choosing no more than 3 colors, so went with that in mind. Yes, Lewis allowed me to pick the colors! That was a truly fun part of my job. When we got to the paint store, and please do not imagine your local Lowe's or Home Depot here. No. The paint store was a household type store - very small and jam-packed with everything imaginable. The store employee produced a color chart, which surprised me. I wasn't sure how we'd go about choosing colors. So I chose three colors - one a brick red (although more on the brown side), one a sage green, and one a wheat yellow. They went to the back to get our paint. I naively thought they were going to mix colors, but no. They had premixed paint in 5 gallon containers. They were out of two of the colors I had chosen and there was no ordering the color in. We would have to choose two more colors. So I looked at the one color we did have and tried to pick two that would still coordinate in tone and depth. We finally settled upon 3 colors that were in stock and proceeded to pick out paint brushes, rollers, etc. Oh, how I wish we had brought our own brushes! They had the "stubbiest" brushes that I knew would be difficult for cutting in. But we determined to do the best with what we had.
How were we to know that when we opened the yellow paint, it would look more like sheetrock mud? David Butler, our hardest working man on the team, was very puzzled by the look of the paint. We tried to read the bucket - no luck. Were we supposed to add water? Was this some strange Cambodian paint? We finally decided that we had no choice but to water it down if we wanted it to stay on our brushes and rollers. So someone rigged up a drill with a mixer paddle so that we could have ready-to-use paint.
We started with the office and moved into the common areas as they would be yellow. The ladies' rooms would all be done in the reddish brown, and the boys' rooms would be the green, which ended up more of a dark sea-foam green than a sage. At one point, I had the idea that it would be nice to do some contrasting walls in some of the common rooms. So two walls in the kitchen, and one in the living area are/will be red. I say "will be" because some roof repairs will need to be done before that will be finished by the Heritage House staff. We also contrasted the upper wall vents in red. The home took on a dramatic change in appearance!

At this point, all of our days were running together, so forgive me that I do not remember which day it was when the rest of the staff and children arrived! But oh were the children precious! They were shy at first, but it didn't take long for them to smile and greet the team. Some helped them move in and get their beds set up, while others continued to clean and paint. The home quickly filled with the laughter and chatter of little voices. Everyone was excited!
Sarah and I led worship with everyone one night, but by far it was more precious when we gathered with Heritage House on other nights and two of the teens led prayer and worship. It was a joy to see them stepping into leadership roles and taking ownership of their roles in the body of Christ. Therefore, none of us minded giving up places of leadership in deference to the children.