I often think of gratitude as a feeling. It’s what I feel when someone does something for me, when a need or want I have is met. And it’s contingent upon an expectation. I would expect a friend to hold the door for me, but I don’t expect a perfect stranger to. So when the latter occurs, I feel a deeper sense of thanks. I don’t just say it. I mean it. And, in fact, I’m more likely to hold a door for someone later on.

That’s the part that fascinates me. The reciprocal response when we actually feel a deep sense of gratitude. We all walk around with unspoken expectations for how people should act, but how many times do people come close to, let alone surpass those expectations? If we only express thankfulness when we feel it, we aren’t acting it out enough.

Gratitude seems easy when you meet those living amidst poverty. When I went with InterVarsity Global Projects to Ethiopia, the liberated child sex slaves I met were so thankful for what little they had. While working with them, I was struck by the horrors of sex trafficking. Yet I heard more gratefulness than bitterness when the girls spoke. I was completely dismantled by the gratitude they expressed for Jesus. These girls were thankful because even though it was humans that decided their lives were worth nothing more than profitable rape, it was also humans who rescued them.

And they were so thankful for Jesus.

Instead of crying over their past pain, they would weep over their families—the families who had sold them into sex slavery and then disowned them because they contracted HIV or developed fistulas. These girls wept for the same families who wanted nothing to do with them, because there were moms, dads, brothers, and sisters who still didn’t know Jesus.

Most of us will never be trafficked. We won’t be kept in a brothel for years, our existence won’t be comparable to an item on a menu. But that doesn’t mean that the gratitude we feel can’t be as deeply rooted. Jesus is calling us to live thankful lives. He doesn’t call us to be thankful when we feel it. He’s not calling us to act thankful when it’s easy to do. His last night alive, the Bible says he gave thanks. Jesus was aware of the betrayal and his impending murder and was still thankful.

It’s hard for us to feel that deep sense of gratitude, especially in the face of adversity or struggle. But Jesus doesn’t say to merely feel thankful. No, it’s the action he wants us to live out.

You don’t feel thankful for your parents because it’s difficult going home over break? Act like you are; write them a note.

You don’t feel thankful for your coworker because she is hard to work with? Invite her out to lunch and offer to pay.

You don’t feel thankful that you’ve never been held in a brothel against your will? Become a backyard abolitionist.

When you begin to act out the thankfulness you aren’t feeling, you’ll find out just how thankful you are.

Autumn Rupkey graduated from Drake University with a BA in Magazine Journalism. The community of InterVarsity and the words of Pete Grieg have inspired her to live a life much bigger than her own. She dreams of redemption and pursues revolution. She is a freelance graphic designer and partner of Beza Threads.

Getting Ready for Opening Session

Although my job has changed quite a bit over these past few months, I’m still trying to carve a little bit of time each week to be with International students.  Seeing International students learn, interact, and gain some understanding of our God for the first time is something too good to not take part in!

October 28-30 I got to spend some extended time with International Students at the ISM Fall Retreat in southern Missouri.  I took 3 students from Drake with me to this conference that contained over 55 students from all over the world.  During our time we worshipped in various languages, discussed the book of Ruth, and had a lot of space to develop our friendships further.

Most times on campus I only get an hour or two with these students, so to have a whole weekend together was such a blessing.  Two of the students I brought are still asking questions about the Lord.  This retreat provided a great avenue to have deeper spiritual conversations with them.  Both of these students asked great questions about God while we were there and we were even able to directly pray for them for the first time in their lives!

My prayer is that they continue to ask questions about God and that He would speak very clearly to them. Join me in praying for E and C. (Need to protect their names for security reasons)

Part of the Worship Team

Worship in All Languages

Last week the program team for Catalyst (pictured below) assembled to start dreaming about our time together in May.  As I led these meetings, I found myself so grateful.  I get to participate in seeing students catch a vision to bring the Kingdom of God to their campuses!  Sometimes, in the midst of details and tasks, I can lose sight of this.  But as we met and planned what this year’s conference would look like, I couldn’t help but remember what a privilege to do the work that I do.

I ask that you pray for our program team as we lead our region in this important event for our students.  Here are the people you can pray for from left to right: Tim Lin – Area Director Kansas; Kale Uzzle – Campus Staff Saint Louis University; Sarah Plowman – Campus Staff University of Iowa

One of our main contacts in Cambodia were the Naritas.  David and his wife Lara are OMF missionaries and have lived in Cambodia since 2003.  Our time with them in Siem Reap (a city in the north of Cambodia) was beyond a blessing to our group, and to me personally.  David is an InterVarsity Alum and Lara did her undergrad at Creighton University and then med school at the University of Iowa (both schools in the Central Region!).

To see the ways that they have continually said yes to God in their lives was truly encouraging. So I wanted to share a bit about the ways they say “yes” to God in Cambodia…

Ministry

David and Lara have been living in Siem Reap province in northwestern Cambodia since 2005 (after 2 1/2 years in Phnom Penh.) Their primary focus through 2009 was in church work – building up the lay Christian leadership in five rural villages through spiritual mentoring as well as organizing village level development projects such as rice distribution, road improvement, water filters and animal husbandry.

Medical

Lara was involved with the community outreach division of Angkor Hospital for Children. Since having Kai, she’s been involved more with projects which she can do from home/part-time.  David works part-time at Angkor Hospital for Children helping train Cambodian doctors. Together with Khmer translators, he adapted the classic village health guide, Where There Is No Doctor and a new resource, A Community Guide to Environmental Health. Getting both books into the right hands has been an ongoing challenge!

Student Ministry

Beyond all the work that David and Lara do in Siem Reap, it was their truly humble spirits that still has me deep in thought.  As David was showing us Siem Reap one day he uttered these words, “I thought when I first came here that I could really be able to do some real good.  But now that I’ve been here longer, the reality that I’ve come to dwell in is that God’s the one that has the power.” We were truly blessed to get to know these brothers and sisters of the faith.

If you want to stay up to date with what’s happening in their ministry check out their blog. http://naritafamily.blogspot.com/

After some pretty intense experiences with the financial poverty of Cambodia, I needed to hear from God.  I strongly believe that God cares for this entire world, but when faced with an injustice I think its only natural to ask, “God where are you?”  In our first day in Siem Reap, I asked God to remind me where He was in this country…

Our team headed out to the Angkor Wat temples for another day of trying to understand the history and culture of Cambodia.  To give you a context here is a brief history of the temples…

Brief History - The great temples of Angkor Wat are situated in the province of Siem Reap. This area is considered the biggest temple complex of the world and revealed itself after being hidden in the Jungle for many years.  The whole area is about 400 km² that also includes the surrounding forest.  There are more than 100 temples in this giant complex and it would easily take you a week to see them all. If you want to learn more here’s a helpful link.

As we headed into this day I didn’t think that I would find God’s heart for Cambodia amidst a Hindu and Buddhist temple.   In a place where other gods were worshipped for many years, how could I find the true living God? But there in a temple called Ta Phrom, I felt God speaking to me through the power of His creation, nature.

Covering this former place of worship was God’s original creation nature.  Observing the combination of this marvelous temple now intertwined with these magnificent trees was the answer I was looking for that day.  God has never left Cambodia.  He has always loved this place and will go to any means possible to make His name known to the people of Cambodia.  He will even redeem a place dedicated to other gods to show His never-ending love and power.

As our team continued to explore these amazing place the scripture that came to all of our minds was the one from above.  That even when the people dont cry out to worship our God, the stones will.  God softened my heart that day to see the way He loves Cambodia.  Praise God that we worship a God that answers us even when we doubt Him.

I’ve been very fortunate to see different parts of this world. Its a privilege that I don’t take lightly, but I like to think it has afforded me the ability to handle, or at the very least, process what my eyes are seeing.  Today, God showed me differently.

While we have been meeting with various people involved in ministry here in Phnom Penh, we had not met anyone working among the poor of Cambodia.  So my co-worker Jean and I were looking forward to our meeting with our new friend Steve. Steve is part of an organization called Servants (http://www.servantsasia.org/)  Steve, along with his family have dedicated the last 5 years of their life to serve the urban slums of Phnom Penh.  While Steve has served a number of different projects during his time, he is currently working  on Justees (http://www.justees.org/) as a post rehab program for boys aged 12-16.

While hearing Steve’s stories was eye opening, he wanted us to see where they operated as well.  So Jean, Steve and I hoped in a Tuk-Tuk and headed towards a part of the city I had not seen, the urban slums.

As we crossed the southern bridge over the Mekong River, it was as if Cambodia transformed.  Paved roads turned to dirt; an already crowded street tripled in population; and the standard of living dramatically decreased.  Our Tuk-Tuk driver took us as far as he could and we exited to walk in the rest of the way.  We passed small shacks that were housing entire families and came across young children, still with beautiful smiles, but half clothed. I waded through about a foot and a half of flood water containing who knows what to reach the steps of Justees.  There Steve gently poured fresh water on our feet before we entered the double story shack. There we met some of the boys, saw some of the screen printing, and then headed back into the city via Tuk-Tuk to drop off Steve. . .

Today we left Phnom Penh and traveled by bus to Siem Reap.  As I sit here in my much more than adequate room complete with a nice bed, bathroom, and even a tv my mind’s eye is still there in that one isolated ally way of Phnom Penh.  God I know you have given me eyes to see this for a reason.  What are you trying to show this white girl from Iowa about your Kingdom?

After arriving late Sunday night after about 30 hours of traveling, our team met Monday morning to spend some time together with God.  As we entered the scriptures and prayed, we got a sense that we should not go out as a group of 4.  Instead we should mimic that of the disciples in Luke 10 and head out to this new land two by two.  God had good things in store for us…

Howie and Steph

During our morning devotion I also heard the words, “come and see” so Howie and myself decided to head off together.

We began by taking a ride in tuk-tuk, a common form of transportation to a major site in Phnom Penh called the Royal Palace.  There we were able to get a sense of the strong country ties to animism and buddhism.  All of the buildings and structures at this fairly large complex all had some kind of devotion / respect paid to these Gods.  As Howie and I walked though we sensed that this was not the place where we would find “people of peace.”

As we exited the palace, we quickly met a Tuk-Tuk driver named Em.  Em spoke a little English and we struck up a good conversation.  The rain began to fall so we sat in his Tuk-Tuk and learned more about his life and the main sites of Cambodia.  We learned about where we lived in the city, his family, and his hopes for his life.  Em felt like a “person of peace” for us and we ended up sticking with him the rest of the day for our travels around the city.

Next we head to the National Museum, where we decided to get a tour guide to walk us through and explain more of the history of Cambodia to us.  Here we met another “person of peace”.  He was a recent University graduate who studied archeology and had an obvious love for his country’s history.  He walked us through and explained the role religion had always played in Cambodia.  The roots of animism that transitioned into Hinduism that then later transitioned into Theravada Buddhism (the main belief of the people today). Beyond learning about the history Howie and I were able to learn from him how he came to Phnom Penh from a smaller city in the north of Cambodia. He was one of two people from his area awarded a full scholarship to study at a University, which happend to be just behind the National Museum!

We saw this as an opportunity to set foot on our first campus and prayer walk the grounds. Howie has done something like this on many campuses in our region back home.  It was very exciting for me to be able to see Howie in his element (really throughout our day), but particularly on a campus in a new country doing the same type of thing he does back home.  I found myself very grateful for the gifts that Howie was bringing to our team.

We ended up having lunch with our Tuk-Tuk driver and then connecting with our other team members Jean and Cris who had been getting a different tour of Phnom Penh through the eyes of one of our hosts. The four of us were able to spend the rest of the afternoon comparing notes, as we took in a few more sites of the city on the recommendations of Em.  We even stumbled upon another University in the city.

Our night concluded with a dinner meeting with a former professor from the Royal University named Angela.  Growing up in the mid-west Angela shared some great insights about what it was like transitioning into the culture, the call she felt God had for her life in Cambodia, and her impressions of what it meant to reach out to University students.  It was an extremely helpful conversation for us to have.

So overall for our very first day, I strongly sensed that God was leading us to the places and people that He wanted us to meet.  His invitation in the morning of “come and see” rang true as I felt through the people of peace we encountered we saw a wide-range of what life and ministry could look like in Cambodia. I am confident that God has more in store for us today as we begin our second day here in Phnom Penh.

We thank you for your prayers!

Its sure to be quite the trip and holds a lot of weight for the Central Region so we are asking people to partner with us in prayer during this trip.  While we are in Cambodia we will be doing a daily devotion in the books of Acts.  I would like to ask you to partner with us by doing this devotion with us.  Below I have included the plan we are going to follow.  Join us for a day, a couple of days, or the whole trip if you want.  Whatever you choose to do we just welcome the prayers that you offer to God.

I’m continually thankful for donors like you that give in so many ways to seeing the gospel reach University students.  Many blessings to you all.

Cambodia Devotionals