23 Days Counting Down, Goodbye US

Are you ready to go back SOPHEA?

Ummmm what should I respond to this question?

Before, I was feeling that time was so slow but now I can't believe that time is flying so fast. Remaining 23days to see my families and friends back home but in the same time I will be so sad to say goodbye to the people I have met here. I am not sure if I would be able to see them again in my life, who know? I could still remember the 12nd August 2013 while I was traveling to adventure my life in this unknown country. To me it is just a really short moment or like a dream. It has been exciting and fun experiencing. Since I've been here, I've been learning and experiencing so many things that help me to grow spiritually and individually. I've learned to know myself and my relationship with God better.

The main challenge for me living in a different country is sometime I am not as always as happy as I am. When it comes to a weaken or stressful time, I really need to share someone my burden but I can't as they are so far away. However, I found a better solution to release those burden. When I have struggle I turn myself to seek for God's help. These bible verses have became my favorite and have helped me in the time that I have struggled and helped me to become stronger. Yes God really works within me through these verses. What a wonderful verses.

Proverb 3 5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight

Philippians 4:13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
 

Here are the things I fallen in love in Harrisonburg, Virginia:

1.  A good community I am very fortunate to be able to live in this lovely community. People are so nice and friendly. They care for the world, have positive attitude and always appreciate each other.
 
2. Respectful They respect each other by listening, sharing, caring, valuing. The thing that I admire them the most at this point is about traffic. They really are respect their traffic law.

3. Nature I live in a simple beautiful and refreshing place. Anytime when I wake up I could hear the sound of the stream back of my house, soft voice like a sweet song from birds , in front of the house I could see the beautiful mountains, wine yard at the right hand side of the house, a small flower garden and a small vegetables garden. I am enjoy picking the raspberry, blueberry, blackberry, strawberry and also enjoy seeing the wild animals such as deer, turtle, bird act.. These beautiful landscape have captured in my mind. 

4. Education System The quality of their education is great. I could tell through the children who are educated. They are very mature, brave, confident, creative, deep thought.

5. How parents raise children I love their ways. They have good way to discipline their children by not hurting them but explaining them to make they realize on what they do wrong. Spending time reading books for them so that they could have good habit in reading after they grow up act...

There is no any partying without ending. It is the reality of life and I have to accept. I am ready for you Cambodia. I am excited to feel hot or warm again and excite to taste the real Cambodian foods.

Seattle from the sky

Around the House

Study Tour with the IVEPERs

My love :D

Host Mom and Nora

Wonderful people in Seattle

IVEP Rock

Richmond Salt Water Beach

Strong like these rocks

On the Cloud

Another Beach in Seattle

First Orientation at MCC Akron

Oh God Your Creation is Beauuuuu-tifullll!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Since the day that I arrived in Virginia till now, I experienced summer, autumn, winter and spring. The seasons has come and gone but, do you know what, winter seem to be the longest season. It's a good welcome for me :-).  Now that winter has left and spring is here to stay, I'm so glad that I made it this far. I really enjoy the beauty of spring and how the flowers blossom, especially since I love flowers ;-). Everywhere the fresh and beautiful combination of colors: green, red, purple, yellow, white and pink.  And I think to myself, "Oh God, your creation is so beautiful and how I can't praise you enough for this. You are so awesome. You created this beautiful world for us." 

"Winter + Snow= No more :)" --------> "Spring+Rain= Flowers"

Cheery Blossom Festival at W.DC

This flower named Red-bud but I named  it Purple-bud

Double rainbows

Only two and half months left to enjoy my time here in this beautiful country. It's amazing how time flies and winter is over. I am so excited and looking forward to going back home. But at the same time, I'm sad to leave this beautiful country. I am so thankful that I could meet and connect to some wonderful people. Such as my host family, my east coast IVEP coordinator, supervisor at Gift and Thrift, coworkers, and my IVEP's friends. It's such a sweet community and sweet experience for me. They gave me joy, hear me in my happy and sad time, make me laugh and brought smiles to my face every day. I'm also thankful for all the circumstances that I faced. It has help me become stronger and put my faith in God. This year so far has been meaningful and a great highlight in my life.

February Midyear Conference

I attended the mid-year conference, which was held on 11-20th in February. It hosted in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. The drive was 4 hours from Virginia to Pennsylvania and the next day was 10 hours by bus from Pennsylvania to Ottawa. It sounds like a long trip but I didn't think that it was long at all because we had so much fun on the way there. I thanks God that we finally reached our destination in the evening.  I got to meet the IVEPers that are working in Canada that I've never met before. We had 52 IVEPers from 25 countries plus 3 of MCC service workers from Germany gathered together at the conference. I had an awesome experience and one of the greatest since being in the State. I have good memories in my small group discussion. The lessons have stuck in my head till now. The first discussion was about how we see God in different churches. My understanding is that, people have different styles of connecting with God by praying, reading the bible or singing. In term of myself, I could connect to God by singing songs of praise. But here in the State, the church I attend they sing Hymnal songs.  The songs are slow and it was hard for me to adapt with the style since I don't know how to sing the songs. However, in our discussion we were encouraged to stay strong and learn to be open minded to connect to God in different situation. People always want to hear something good as it could make them feel happy. But sometime hearing bad thing could also strengthen our life. I was encouraged to hear the IVEPers share their experiences and difficulties. Before I used to think, it's probably only me that experienced difficulty. But it that's not true. I was not the only one that experienced difficulties. There are other people that share the same experiences. Other people also experiences hard time as me and we were able to encourage one another. The mid-year conference has strengthen me to continue my journey and look forward to serving "GOD". My favorite verse encourages me to remember, "I can do all thing because of Christ who give me strength."

Maple farm in Canada

I am ready for Skiing hehehe

Cambodians and Laotians IVEP

(from the left, friends from: Indonesia, Paraguay, Lao)

Canada Park

Don't Just Let the Time Go

Practicing, Emotional, Self Learning!

Luk Lak Beef is my favorite dish 

My Birthday 

This probably a short blog updated about my life. When I started living in the State I found many things I have to challenge on myself. Those things are about: feeling of sadness, excited, loneliness, confusion, happy, weakness... So what to do when I got those feeling? When I got those kinds of feeling I just try to relax but relax by keeping myself busy, connecting with people surround me, talking to my families. I don't lock myself in the room because as long as I lock myself in the room it means I let those feeling come to me. How is my relationship with God grow? At the first week I arrived my host family that was a very difficult time for me because those feeling came to me but in the same time I felt I was very connected to God. I spent time praying, reading bible and praise him with the great opportunity. But do you know what happened next? As long as I started making friends with people and those kind of feeling are not with me I forget about my relationship with God. To be honest some time I lie myself and some of you may have experienced that also. Sometime I talked to myself OK Sophea today you have to read bible and spend your time with God but you probably know what happen, I only talked to myself and I do not do it. Nothing embarrassing than you lie your self. These few days I spent time do reflection about my life and I realized that the time is going very fast and sometime I just let the time go by doing nothing. Doing nothing in this context is about my relationship with God. So I shouldn't just let the time go but I should priority God in my daily day. The other things that I found about myself in here is I enjoy cooking Khmer food for my host family and their friends. All people in here know everything about Thai food and it is good that I am here so that I can present our Khmer foods to them and they love our Cambodian Foods. I miss you HOME SWEET HOME. 

I love to share you my favorite bible verse: Philippians 4:13

13 I can do all things through Christ[a] who strengthens me.

Older Mennonite's Life & Horse Rider

This is their buggy :-)

On the 5-6 October 2013 were the RELIEF SALE in VA. I and my host mother were volunteered in serving people dinner on the first day, it was a great time. On the second days I and east coast Ivepers were having trip in Virginia for the relief sale and explore the Older Mennonite's life. The idea of the relief sale is to raise fund for MCC's mission. They were having different activities in that event. I obviously interested in the auction, it was really fun to see the master of ceremony rap when people bit on something. A quilt could be cost 500-800$ sound really expensive to me but I think because they were willing to help the world and they believed that MCC does a great job, their money are spent for the right thing. Additionally, we went to a farmer community helping them to pulled out the old plant about 1.5 hours then we came back. We were staying at the Older Mennonite's house. The Older Mennonite is a conservative group that is living in a really simple way. They don't use internet, radio, phone, TV, washing machine, car..act their main transportation is horse on buggy. Two things that are really interested for me. Firstly, they are allowed their children to go to school until grade 8 then they are done. They have special school for their children to go that is only for this conservative group. Secondly, women have to dress properly. They are not allowed to show their leg or skin so that they have to wear dress all the time and those dresses are need to be very long and covered every part of their body. I asked them a question, have you ever asked yourself that why you were born in here? They responded me a very perfect answer " We are sacrificed in what we have and where we are, so we have never asked our self this question". Nevertheless, I do respected their decision and I've seen that they are very nice people living in a good community. I wish I could explain you more but it seems very long if I continue.

The Older Mennonite Family

First time on horse

Another thing I did this months was riding horse. I spent my weekend with another Ivepers host family to West Virginia riding horse. The feeling was so scary at the first time I got on the horse because I thought the horse might not understand me when I was in charged. But after I got on his back he knew where to go and where to stop. My horse likes everything clean this is what I observed him during an hour riding since other 4 horses just walked on muddy trail but he didn't. He all the time escaped the muddy trail and walked in a clean trail. That is really funny to see that and was a fun experienced.

Daily Reflection

At international festival, Love in different languages

My daily journey in the new land is about 1 month 2 weeks already, wow the time is running so fast. Getting adjusted to the new culture I feel it is easy but sometime it does give me hard time since I miss tasting my foods, seeing friends and families. The most difficult thing is when you know that your family or friend are in trouble and you couldn't be there to comfort them.  

Why am I here? I am here for a purpose. Surely, I am here to learn and to share. In here, I am interested how do people paying attention from day to day about the temperature. Every time I meet people they have been asking me how many degree temperature in Cambodia? I have no idea what should I respond since I have never been paying attention at all and I just responded them :D hahaha sorry I don't know how many since I never care about it but mostly it is hot. I do enjoy living in a countryside with the beautiful landscape around me and I am surprised to see deer, skunk when I go to work but I do not enjoy with the temperature since everyone say oh I am hot but I feel very chilly and need to have my sweater on most of the time, my skin would be better when I go back :D. At work I know a lot of people and start to make friends with them.

I am attending in a church name Park View Mennonite with my host family which about 350-400 congregations. They sing hymnal song and the style of worship is different from my church country. I miss singing praise song but I enjoy going to this church and know more about Mennonite value. 

I am in the State

My journey has started on 12 Aug 13, was raining day. Finally, I am in the state. It was hard to say goodbye to families and friends for a while but I have to do it as life is not always the same. I came here to experience myself with the new environment everything are new for me, languages, food, people.

Cambodian Ivepers and Foreigner Salters

Grape vine at host family

A week orientation at Pennsylvania helped me to know more about other Ivepers and told me many information that I must know. Wed, 21 Aug I arrived my host family, at least two days that I felt very homesick and lonely. I found that when I felt loneliness and don't know what to do I asked God questions and spent more time with him.

Fri, 23 Aug, was raining day and my first day at work. Deb, my manager she did give me a warm welcome and people around me as well. I work in Gift and Thrift and my responsibilities are working in all depts of Gift and Thrift.

I hope this one year will teach me a lot of things that I haven't learned before. I hope that I can become an important resource for my country when I get back to help my COUNTRY. I MISS YOU CAMBODIA.