When I look back at our first year in Cambodia, a word that I often find myself coming back to in describing our experience is ‘hard’. Our first year on location was hard. Quite a normal experience for a first year missionary, really. But what I struggle with is how to convey this sentiment without it feeling like I’m just having a good old whinge. I’m not despondent. I’m not looking for massive amounts of sympathy. I’m not even wanting to wish the hardness away (completely). It was just hard.

But it wasn’t only hard. There were wonderful things from last year. Many things that I’m thankful for occurred in the midst of this hard year or maybe even because of this hard year. So I’m not using the word ‘hard’ in a completely negative sense. Many of the aspects of last year, while hard, have been good for me; maybe like eating vegetables. You don’t like eating your greens at first, but you know you should have them. So you eat. After a while, you actually grow to love eating vegetables. Or maybe its like learning a new skill. At first it’s just a lot of hard work, but after a while it’s not as hard and you soon learn to love it, sometimes to the point of obsession or automation (not realising that it’s hard).

So last year was hard. But it wasn’t ‘bad’ hard. I’m not trying to have a whinge. How was last year? It was good hard.