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Doors Open in Cambodia: The Missionary Home Makeover that Became So Much More · Far & Familiar

• Britt Fisher: Hi friends, welcome back to the Far and Familiar podcast and part two of my recap of our epic trip to Southeast Asia with our family of six. Today I am diving into all of the details from the last portion of our trip that was spent with some dear friends of ours who are missionaries in Cambodia. I'm gonna talk about all of the fun things that we got to see and do alongside our friends, but also the ways that we got to bless them. With a really special mission project that was carrying on the legacy of my grandparents, which was really special. And then also dive into the takeaways that I had from our time with our sweet friends And what the Holy Spirit taught me personally during our time there. I can't wait to share this with you. let's do this. Welcome to Far and Familiar, the podcast about faith, biblical hospitality, and courageous adventure for Christian moms who are ready to step outside of their comfort zones and start fully living. If you find yourself feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, or uninspired in your everyday life, you found the right place. Friend, you were not made to play it safe and operate in survival mode. You were made to live with eyes up and doors thrown open, chasing the adventure and abundant life God has for you. I'm your host, Britt Fisher, Jesus follower, mama of four, and someone who believes a full dinner table and a passport full of stamps are forms of worship. I've spent years traveling the world with my family, opening our home, and navigating what it actually looks like to live a life outside of my comfort zone. And this podcast is everything I and other mamas who have gone before me have learned along the way. I am so glad you're here. Let's dive in. Which then brings me to Cambodia, the mission portion of our trip. So we spent the first few days in Vietnam just as our own little nuclear family exploring and having a little bit of a vacation. And then we transferred to Cambodia where our precious friends who have been some of our best friends since my husband's medical residency. Now live as medical missionaries. They've been there two years. It had been two years since we had seen them. And they picked us up from the airport in Cambodia, and it was the most joyous reunion, the tightest hug, and we immediately went to their home and had dinner and opened up suitcases full of goodies and home decor that I had brought them because the wife, my dear friend Crystal, and I Had been planning a home makeover for them during this trip. And the backstory to this is my grandparents, who I've shared were full-time missionaries for all of my mom's growing-up years. after they retired from the mission field, would go back overseas for a couple of weeks each year. They would take a team and they would spend a week touring and showing the team around various areas of the world, and then would spend a week. Redecorating a missionary's apartment or home in the area that they were living. They had developed many relationships with different missionaries across the world. And my grandmother is an interior designer, my grandfather was a carpenter. And so they were able to use their skills and their gifts to bless these missionaries In a way that is often overlooked. And so I got to carry on that legacy and help my friend who has been pouring so much into language learning and her husband's job at the hospital and schooling their girls and doing everything that comes into moving to the other side of the world with your family. and they had not had a chance really to make their house at home yet. And so I was able to plan this from afar. We spent six months leading up to this trip. making mock-ups in AI and sourcing items and pricing different items and picking paint colors and doing all of the things involved in renovation And so that first night, they got to open the suitcases full of decor items that I had sourced in the states that we had determined were best to bring from here. And then we got to sit down and plan exactly how we're gonna use the rest of our time to accomplish our projects and to also shop and source a lot of things locally for the renovation as well. And of course, this renovation was the highlight from Cambodia as far as the key theme of our trip. But we did so many other fun things there as well. So before I dive into our renault, I want to share some of those things with you that we were able to do There are so many other incredible things to do in Cambodia. And we fully plan to go back to visit our friends. So there were some things like visiting Angkor Wat and some of the other ancient temples that we passed on this trip. Because we knew that we had a limited amount of time and we really wanted to accomplish what we needed to in their home. So we mostly stayed locally around Pompen, which is where they live, and did things in that area. And some of the fun things we did is we went to the mall, which does not sound like a big deal. I actually really don't like shopping or going to the mall here, but the mall in Cambodia exceeded every expectation that I could have ever had. the mall was called the Aeon or Eon, and it has everything in one place. It has your grocery store, it has the pharmacy, it has a Korean skincare store that is incredibly affordable. It has clothing stores, it has toy stores, it had glorious air conditioning, which was really quite nice in the tropical climate. It had bubble tea shops, it had all kinds of restaurants. And then it also even had what I would call the Cambodian version of Lowe's and Dollar Tree. If those two had a baby, it was called Mr. DIY, which is where we got a lot of items and made many trips because you can never do a home runner without multiple trips to Lowe's or Hobby Lobby. And this was kind of the equivalent. So I think we went there five different times during the week that we were there. But we were able to go to the mall and kind of knock all of those things out, which was super helpful to have everything in one place. The mall was also full of so many options for our kids to play. There was an incredible indoor play area with a slide. There was a huge area upstairs with a walking track and a large green space and kind of like a pretend glam bit area for kids to play in. There were amazing outdoor play spaces with all kinds of things for them to run and jump and splash pads and Everything you can imagine, this mall had it. We even spent one morning at a really fun, souped up indoor playground, on steroids with bungee jumping and all kinds of crazy things that even my three-year-old daughter partook in because she is fearless. but it was just truly so much fun and such a fun way to experience what it would be like to be a local there. we also got our groceries there, which we did a good mix of both eating in and eating out throughout our trip, trying local Cambodian dishes and also just enjoying relaxed casual meals in our friends' house with our f with our families together. And so I was able to get ingredients to make Boncho that we had learned how to make in Vietnam and make that for them one night and Also, I just love the cultural experience of going to other countries' grocery stores. I think you always kind of see what similarities there are, what differences. You can buy some fun snacks that maybe you're not used to. It's just always a lot of fun to me. So the mall was just a great experience all around. And then some other fun things we did while we were there. We visited the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, which was Also super eye opening to learn about the history, about what the monarch traditionally has done, what his role has been, what his rules are. I feel like we almost got a little bit of a PG 13 tour. just because they went really into the history of all of the king's concubines and children and all of that. But honestly, it's nothing you don't read about in the Bible. But It was just really fascinating to learn about all of the different rules and see the chairs that, you have to be a certain percentage of royal blood to even get to sit in. And the current king isn't even allowed to sit in them. So it was just really interesting. We also went to the Russian market, which was a highlight for me. It was this incredible market full of local artisans. We sourced lots of things for the house there. Some beautiful fabric for a room divider, a really fun lamp. I got a favorite new. Coffee mug that's shaped like an elephant. I'll have to post a picture of it in Instagram stories. and I'm sure you'll also see it on my feed with some fun coffee recipes. But this was just a super fun market experience. It was so massive beyond comprehension and was a labyrinth to find your way around. but had some really, really incredible finds and was a lot of fun to explore with the kids. Our kids each picked out a souvenir while we were there. Including some really cool wooden animal puzzles that are also display pieces. And then we also did a dinner cruise on the Mekong River. This was a very low budget dinner cruise that cost about $5 a person to get on. It included like a fun welcome drink, including for the kids, like some fun tropical beverage that they made us. And then we were able to order dinner on board, which was also really affordable. And Go out, see the lights of the city. We got on the boat right at sunset, got to watch the sunset over the Mekong, and then see the lights from Phnom Penh and Dokmao. And then ended the evening on the dinner cruise, which was honestly one of the biggest highlights for me with a big dance party. they were playing all different kinds of fun music. We taught the kids the Macarena. we're just generally dancing and having a great time, but then they ended up offering to let us play DJ and pick the songs. And so we ended the dinner cruise rocking out to some Forest Frank songs, and it was just so fun. We first we did church clap, which is not a Forest Frank song, but we did the church clap and all kind of learned and practiced the dance, and then we ended with the song Amen by Forest Frank, which is one of my kids' favorites. And we were literally just shouting and dancing at the top of our lungs with all of our energy, praising Jesus on this boat in the middle of the Mekong River in Cambodia. And other boats were driving by us and were cheering us on and listening to us praise the Lord. And it just made me think of like what it must have been like to be David dancing in the Bible, just full of joy for your king. And so It was fun because we had just visited the royal palace earlier that day and talked about the king in Cambodia, but we knew who our true king is. And it was just a memory that I will never forget. And then rapid fire. I want to tell you guys some key restaurants that we ate at while we're there before I talk about some key takeaways from our time in Cambodia with our friends. But some restaurants that, if you ever go to the Nom Pen area that you need to try are there's a great restaurant called Wild. It specializes in every version of spring roll that you can imagine. There were like some fried rolls, some fresh rolls, some that were Italian-inspired, some were Southeast Asian inspired. There was like a cheeseburger roll. They had Cookie dough rolls and chocolate banana. literally everything you can imagine. It was so yummy. We also went to a place called Farm to Table, which had Loklak, local Cambodian specialty, along with a bunch of other yummy items, a really, really good pumpkin soup that we had there. And they had a really amazing play area for the kids with sand that they could dig in and a mug kitchen. It was super family friendly and just absolutely delicious. We also went to a really great brunch place called Backyard Cafe that had all kinds of yummy matcha drinks. and smoothies and just fun brunch food and just brought the vibes. It was a really fun location as well. Then we loved probably my favorite meal we had there was from David's Noodles, which does hand stretched like handmade Asian noodle dishes. And we got takeout one night from there, brought it back to their home and ate it. And it was out of this world. I will be thinking of those noodles for a long time to come. And then the first day in the mall, we ate at a place, it's just a chain, but it's called Kung Fu Kitchen. They do hot pot, but also really good dumplings. And my favorite thing was they had kind of a build your own sauce area. So it was all the different components that make a really good Asian sauce. And then you got to mix them and make your own specialty sauce. They had like some recipes that they recommend, but you got to kind of, I always say, like go with the spirit as or go as the spirit leads you. And that was just a fun experience for me. And I appreciated, The ability to just roll with it. But as far as some key takeaways for me from Cambodia, so first of all, is the incredible gift that comes with not just practicing hospitality in your own home, but practicing it in the homes of others. I think a lot of times we view hospitality as just something we do in our own space, but it's actually something that we can take with us overseas because it's a posture and a spirit and We were able to do this with our friends. My friend and I had dreamed this vision up together of her apartment reno. I had seen my grandparents do this growing up and was able to carry their legacy with me in that form of hospitality to Cambodia. And it was just such a beautiful experience to get to not only experience the hospitality of our friends, opening their home for us to stay there. But then bless them with hospitality in return of really treating their home like our own in a way, of pouring into it and wanting to make it a cozy, beautiful, lovely space to spend time in for them, like in their vision and their style and their taste and the things that they love. and also just stewarding their space well. We did this entire renovation. with only buying one single new piece of furniture, we bought a kind of woven basket type table for a side table between two chairs their living room to add that cost us less than ten dollars at the basket market. Every other piece of furniture that they had in their house we used. we used what they already had and then just chose paint colors and accessories and items and lighting and things around them. To strengthen the space and make it feel cohesive and cozy while being a really good steward of the items that they already had. And so this was super fun for us. We restyled what they already had. I brought art prints over and we thrifted frames. They had the most incredible Japanese thrift store. Again, I don't traditionally like shopping, but I could spend hours in this place and it was really hard for me not to bring a million things home. But we found some beautiful decorative bowls there. And picture frames. We even used fabric from random shirts that my friend liked there to use as mats in picture frames. We got to get really creative, which was just really, really fun. We worked with a local tailor using the fabric that we got at the Russian market to make a really beautiful room divider because they watch movies on a projector in their living room. and so need to be able to kind of block out the light from the kitchen. So we were able to work with a local tailor for that. She also made curtains for the kitchen cabinets. I'm gonna be posting the befores and afters of this entire renovation on Instagram. So make sure you are following me there at Ms. Britt Fisher, M-S-B-R-I-T-T-F-I-S-H-E-R. I will drop the link in show notes, but I'm saving it all to a highlight. Make sure to go check that out so you can see the before and afters in person. But I think the overall key is recognizing that you don't need a big budget to make a home beautiful and you can use what you have. And that was really special to get to do that. another big takeaway from this is just the gift and the beauty of a guest room. And not that the guest room has to actually be physically beautiful, even though I love a beautifully decorated and styled guest room. But it's just this idea of cultivating a space in your home that is built and created for guests. And our friends had a guest room that we could stay in. They also had kind of a Playroom upstairs that our boys were able to stay in, but they had space built in to be able to host people. And this is something that's always been a huge value for us as a family, but it's something I think is becoming a lost art. I feel like guest rooms used to be a whole lot more common in homes. And I feel like I'm seeing them be less and less common. And I feel like it's a lost art because there is something so powerful with cultivating a space in your home that is geared opening doors to other people that people know they have a safe and comfortable space to come stay at whenever they need. And I know there's always the option of staying in Airbnb or staying in a hotel, but there is just something so special about staying in someone's home and the quality time that comes from that. When we lived in Tulsa during my husband's medical training, one of our favorite things was coming back to our hometown, which was a few hours away, and staying with our parents. And it was this thing that we actually got kind of sad when we moved back close to our parents, even though we get to see them more often, We lost that quality time that came with needing to physically stay with them when we visited them. And so getting to experience that in Cambodia with our friends, of having an entire week, staying in their home, doing life, doing all of our meals together, the amount of quality time that we had and the richness of the conversations that we had as a result was really beautiful. And I think it just cemented the conviction I have of having my kids share a room in our space if we need to, so that we can always have a space that is ready and open for guests to be able to host people in that way. And then my final takeaway is just what a gift it is to be fully seen and known in deep friendships. And obviously, these sweet friends of ours, we had the ability to build a deep friendship with them in the fires of medical residency. Her husband is a physician as well as mine. And they went through medical residency together. And we as wives supported each other through it. And it was a challenging season, but a beautiful one because of those deep friendships. but the reality is we moved away from them seven years ago. And we have maintained friendship through the years. But this is the most quality time we have had together since we lived in the same city seven years ago. And getting to have that opportunity for quality time to be really vulnerable, to share our struggles, to share how God is working in our life, to share the beautiful things He's doing. To confess sin and things that we're struggling with even personally in our walks with Christ, and the ways that the Holy Spirit is working on and in and through us was so incredibly powerful. as we were driving to the airport to come home, I looked over and I saw my dear friend with tears just running down her face and I asked her what she was feeling and she said, I just I'm really sad about you guys leaving. because I I think I'm just remembering how sweet it is to feel fully known by somebody and to know that you're a safe person that I can share all of the pieces of my heart with. And we kind of ruminated and talked about that, but I feel the exact same way. It was this breath of fresh air to just be completely vulnerable with somebody and to have the opportunity to do that. And to not only have the opportunity to do that, but to have acted on it and chosen to be vulnerable so that we could walk away from this trip knowing exactly how to pray for each other And being connected in a way that can span across entire oceans and all the way to the other side of the world. there's this study that I read about recently. I believe it's called Cardis, Kumar, and Epley. It's from 2021. And basically they put strangers in conversation groups. And so I think it was like two people in each group. And in one group, they gave them really surface level questions to talk about. And the other group they gave them very deep questions to talk about. And initially the people in the deep conversation or deep question group were a little nervous. They felt like it was going to be awkward to talk about all these deep things with a complete stranger. But in the end, when they finished the conversation, they actually felt more encouraged, more connected, and less awkward with the person because they immediately went deep. And I think so often we are staying way too surface level with people and not going deep enough. And our time in Cambodia of working alongside our friends, or us bringing them into the work with us, which I talked about in last week's hospitality episode. And then choosing to be vulnerable in conversations and leaning into quality time through the gift of staying in their guest room. We were able to experience the blessing of vulnerability. So that is my challenge for you this week. Get vulnerable with someone this week. A trusted friend, someone you know you can trust with your heart. Or maybe it's a new friend that you're still filling out those waters, but ask deep questions. Be intentional, whatever level you're currently at, whatever waters you are waiting in, dive a little deeper. And be willing to take that first step to share pieces of your heart that maybe you haven't shown yet and see what the Lord does with it. right, I'd love to close this with prayer, praying for the people of Vietnam and Cambodia And our precious friends who are missionaries there. Father, thank you so much for the people of Vietnam and Cambodia. Thank you for their warmth, for their hospitality, for the way they delight in children, just like you do, and the way they honor their families. God, you made every one of them and you love them deeply. We pray against the spiritual darkness that covers these lands as well as our own. We stand against every demonic force and every stronghold of idol worship in the name of Jesus, where families burn offerings to keep their ancestors happy, God, where people bring gifts to spirit houses for protection or place their own spirit houses outside of their business, believing it protects them, where so many are working to earn merit and hoping for a better next life. Would you break those chains? And let them know the freedom that comes in a life rooted in your unconditional love. Open their eyes to see you as you really are. Not a spirit to appease or a God to bargain with, but a loving father who already loves them just as they are. Let them know they don't have to earn your blessing because they are your children. May they taste the freedom of grace. The peace of being fully known and fully loved, and the hope of eternal life in you. Raise up local believers and churches and let your light shine like a city on a hill through every act of kindness and hospitality. And for our sweet friends, Father, who have felt called to serve in Cambodia. Lord, we lift them up to you. We lift their girls up to you. Thank you for their obedience in following you across the world. Cover their home with your peace. Let it be a place of rest and refuge. Protect their girls. Give them deep friendships, joy in their new home, and hearts that keep growing towards you. God, we pray over their hospital. Will you give wisdom and skill to every nurse and doctor there? Will you bring healing to every patient that comes through the doors? Whether it's physical healing, Father, or eternal spiritual healing, God. The most important healing that could ever be offered with you as the great physician. Let every person who walks through those doors encounter your love. Give our sweet friend strength for the long days, provision for every need, and fruit from the seeds that they are planting. And Lord, let our family and the people listening to this never forget the things that we've heard, what we saw, and and will you keep our hearts and our eyes open to your people near and far? In your precious and holy name, amen. Friends, thank you so much for listening into this recap. I hope you feel a little inspired for your next adventure. I hope you feel encouraged to hear about the work that God is doing on the other side of the world and that you have some specific things that you can be praying for. If you want to join me in praying for and supporting our sweet friends, please let me know. You can send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to connect you with how you can Be part of our friends' prayer team or their financial support team. And if you want to donate to the renovation, we still have some costs that we are looking to have covered. We raised over $600 leading up to the trip, but I would love to help cover the remaining costs associated with redoing their apartment and making their house a home. So if you are interested in supporting that, I will drop my Venmo and my Cash App info in the show notes, which is how I've been receiving donations. Every penny will go directly towards our friends to bless them in their ministry and in their home. If you enjoyed this episode, and if you have been enjoying this podcast, please take 30 seconds of your time to leave a rating and review. read every review. It means the world, and it helps more women get to listen to the encouragement and message of this podcast. I am so thankful that you are here. and I can't wait. for you to hear next week's episode, which is going to be a powerful interview with one of my favorite authors. So make sure to tune in. Until then, eyes up, doors open.