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Energy was low from more than a days worth of hours spent in airports and crammed in airplane cabins, but my emotions and every sense of awareness were heightened as I exited the shelter of the Phnom Penh International Airport and scanned the crowd outside the gate for Steve, the team leader taking me to my host home. Placing the days that followed on a continuum would produce the image of a rollercoaster of emotions from joy and pleasure to a sense of loss and helplessness.

The joyful days were likely the ones that sustained me through my time, the ones that kept me from just throwing in the towel and coasting through the remaining days. The days that I felt the most needy and helpless were often the days I encountered the Lord in the richest ways in unexpected places. Those were the times when I recognized my own poverty, and compassion grew more deeply and profoundly within me.

At the conclusion of that month of exposure in Cambodia, I headed directly to the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Canada, for a short season (ten days) of debriefing with the Servants field team. I was unsure what to expect, but at the suggestion of Craig Greenfield and the desire to gain as much from this experience as I could, I went without hesitation.

Now at the conclusion of those, very quick 10 days, I can see the great value that has come of making space to debrief with a Servants team in a Western context. Past overseas experiences have brought me to similar emotional and spiritual spaces while abroad, but were quickly dashed away as “spiritual highs” upon returning home and readjusting to life as I knew it before the trip.

Being in community with the Servants Vancouver team has allowed me the space to thoroughly reflect on my time in Cambodia and translate the things I learned there and the ways I felt the Lord moving and convicting me into realistic, tangible changes and steps to make when I return home. Instead of immediately going home and constantly retelling the story of my experience, I found the space to fully process the things I learned.

The time in Vancouver has been more than just sleeping off jet-lag and sipping cups of coffee while I enjoy reading, writing, and enriching conversation (though that has sure been a wonderful part of the experience).  I have also been welcomed in by the community and able to see what it means to live out Servants principles and values in a Western context. Full participation in the daily rhythms of prayer, fellowship, and outreach has helped me to consider my own context at home and develop relevant plans of action for my return home.

This life-giving debrief experience has been one of the most valuable elements of my Cambodia internship. I have been stripped of my comforts and pre-tenses and seen the Servants principles lived out both in an Asian sphere as well as in the West. Now I may return home refreshed and ready to integrate these principles and values into my personal life today, not just someday, somewhere else.

[Lindsey Eilbacher spent a month as an intern in Cambodia followed by 10 days in Vancouver.]