Siem Reap Adventure

The trip to Siem Reap was short, leaving Phnom Penh by bus at 1:00 pm on Tuesday and arriving back at 6:40 pm on Wednesday (also by bus). The first bus ride was about 5.5 hours, the second was longer due to a flat tire, though we did get on another bus after waiting an hour.

The time in Siem Reap was truly God ordained. I spent time with friends I had made 3 years ago, encouraging them and learning about what God was doing in their lives. I also learned about what God is doing in the churches in Siem Reap and around Cambodia and how field workers are partnering with churches to help them in multiplying and planting more churches.  The field worker I was able to spend time with shared how he and the church leaders get together and evaluate church plants that are thriving and those that have not been successful to determine what things are working. He is also involved in discipleship and leader development.  It is exciting to see how some of the students from English camp in 2007 are now involved in leadership positions in the church as well as planting churches in provinces around Siem Reap.

One of the friends I spent time with has a job driving a moto and is a leader in his church.  He enjoys studying the scripture and learning what he can to be a better leader.  Another friend also has a job but travels many times during the month to church plants in different provinces many hours away.  It challenged me to see the sacrifice these men make and how they are being used by God.  They have jobs and family just like I do and want to see their country come to know Christ. That encourages me to think about how much I want to see my neighbors come to know Christ.

The three short-termers that had participated in the English camp in Phnom Penh volunteered to attempt leading an English camp in Siem Reap along with three Cambodians who speak English well. So part of my time in Siem Reap was helping them brainstorm how they would pull this off. Though I left before it started, the first evening of English camp went extremely well with students playing volleyball during registration followed by worship and playing games.  I am confident that God will do good things during this English camp as he did in Phnom Penh.  Please pray for the three short-termers, they are tired and susceptible to illness. Pray for strength, health and the energy necessary to engage the students in English camp.  It takes a lot of energy and there are only three foreigners.  Pray that God would encourage them and sustain them!

End of One Adventure, Beginning of Another

It seems like a month since I wrote last.  A lot has happened in the space of a few days.  Some teams have left the country while others have simply changed focus while staying in Cambodia. Daybreak leaves tomorrow so we are hanging out at the EZecom where we are updating our blogs.  Though my family leaves tomorrow along with the Daybreak team, I will be heading up to Siem Reap to visit friends from 2007.  I am excited and exhausted at the same time. I'm only staying in Siem Reap until Wednesday when I catch a bus by myself back to Phnom Penh.

My good friend Phearum from Siem Reap has taken time out of his schedule to take a bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh (6 hours).  He had a couple things to do at the mission office, but has come to help us (Catie, Andrew, Matthew and myself) get to Siem Reap.  After Dave and I take the team to the airport, we'll do some errands around town and then head to the bus station for the beginning of a new adventure.  I am excited to re-establish friendships that I have made 3 years ago and to figure out a way to keep up to date with them. I'll take pictures and post some of them here.

Pray for safety and health.  Also pray for the time of re-establishing friendships.  I'm not there long, so pray that God would make the time good for all!

End of English Camp Tomorrow

Kim gets chased by one of the orphans

I can't believe the end of English camp is tomorrow. The week has flown by! Yesterday we went to an orphanage where the short-termers and Khmer students played with the orphans.  We taught them the song "At a Time Like This" - a song that we have sung every time Daybreak has been to Cambodia.  The last time we sang the song in 2007 was at the top of Ankor Wat.

The orphans were so cute.  Orphans in Cambodia may not actually be orphans.  Sometimes the families cannot feed their own children so they take them to an orphanage to be taken care of. The teachers and students from English camp played Duck, Duck, Goose (which in Cambodia is Duck, Duck, Chicken), Hokey Pokey, Simon Says, Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes, and others.  The children had so much fun.  Apparently English camp visited them last year and they enjoyed the teachers and students then as well.

Mel REALLY enjoyed the bumper cars!

Last night we had the treat of riding bumper cars - yes, bumper cars in Cambodia. Some of us got out our aggressions, but all of us had a lot of fun!

Today's field trip was to the zoo which was a little over an hour outside of town.  The zoo property was quite large and took us a couple hours just to walk through it.  It did not feel like a zoo we would find in North America since the animals were simply held in pens made of chain-link fence.  At the beginning of the zoo were a bunch of monkeys that bugged us as we ate lunch.  In fact, a monkey tore the bottom of a bag I was carrying with my lunch and took off with some chicken.  I chased the monkey up a tree.  Luckily the chicken, being held in a smaller bag, fell out of the bag the monkey had stolen because he was holding it by the bottom.  So my lunch continued without another hitch.

John is behind the tiger

The best part of the zoo was simply hanging out with the students!  Many of the students have never been to the zoo, some only once.  They really enjoyed walking around talking with each other and seeing the animals which included many types of deer, wild pigs, monkeys, snakes, elephants, tigers, and others.

English camp has been going very well.  The short-termers are really loving the Cambodian students and enjoy spending time with them.  My daughters spend so much time with them that I hardly get to see them during the day.  I am so proud of them.  They have also been eating at every meal - luckily there is rice which both girls like.

Water Park

Yesterday's field trip was to the water park outside of town.  Dave, Pati and I had taken a trip to it last week to make sure we knew where it was.  We got lost.  When we found it and were leaving, we took note of the Tiger Bakery which was the land mark at the point we are to turn.  So that is what I was looking for when we headed out of town.  When I saw it in the distance, I got up and headed for the front of the bus to help the bus driver know where to turn. At that point one of the Cambodian students got up and headed for the front.  She stood by the driver looking out the window as if she were going to tell him where to turn.  Tiger Bakery came and went but I doubted myself since this Cambodian seemed like she knew what she was doing.  She didn't and our bus driver didn't either.  We drove about 5 miles down the road before they stopped to asked directions, at which time I felt like hitting myself for not speaking up sooner.  So I told the bus driver where to go.  After a phone call with Dave he parked his truck right at the turn off, so that is what I was looking for. When we got to the water park, the girl that was to give directions was crying because she felt like she had failed. Many of the teachers tried to reassure her that it was fine, we were here and would have fun.

Leanne catches air on the water park slide

We did have fun.  I walked around making sure things were going well, being the conservative, responsible adult.  I gave that up shortly and decided to go on the slides. I was told I had a lot of air and scared many of the short-termers watching because they thought I would fly off the slide.  That never happened.  Once again, some of you may want to pray a little bit more. :) I caught Leanne with a little air. :)

First Day of Camp

Kim and John getting water from our many water jugs

English camp started today with a million things going wrong. Due to mis-communication we had no guitar with which to lead worship. During the singing of one of the songs in the English camp book, we noticed that instead of turning the page for the rest of the words, you needed to turn two pages. We had two microphones, but one of them was not working.  We had a couple people willing to help lead worship, but they weren't confident enough to be the only one on the microphone, which left me leading worship. So I was holding the microphone and holding up the book, pointing to the pages to help the students see where to go to see the rest of the song. To top it all off we ran out of drinking water which is vital during such hot days.

Despite all of that today was a success! I must give credit to all of the short-termers who have come from the United States and Canada because they jumped right in and make camp work even with all the problems!  During the main time together, every short-termer was engaged with their students and enthusiastic when it came to the competition.  The testimonies were terrific and the devotional on Moses was right on. God made everything work out for good!  Then during the break out teaching times, each teaching team did something different, but all engaged the students in learning English!  I was talking with one of our field workers who told me that one of the students was telling her that this camp was great and it is just the first day.

So what did the first day of English camp look like? Well, at 7:30 all the short-termers and some of those working here had breakfast together.  Today we had something like pancit (for my Filipino friends), a noodle dish with meat and some veggies. Then at 8:30 camp started with our main time together.  After the breakfast tables were put away, chairs were set up for students to sit in.  All of this is being done in what looks like a one car driveway.  In this driveway we fit 6 plastic chairs in each row with an aisle in the middle with close to 100 students. We sang some songs, had a bread eating competition, which the yellow team lost. That reminds me, we had the students divided into five teams, red, blue, green, yellow, and chocolate. Pam and my daugher, Leanne were the first to share their testimonies.  Both did a terrific job! At the end of our main time together, Caitlin gave a devotional on Moses that was concrete, focusing on trusting God.  She did a great job bringing it to the level of the Cambodian students, including comparing the red sea to the Mekong river.  Then we separated into teaching team for team teaching.  Each team has 6-7 short-term teachers and 21-29 Cambodian students. The teams engage the students in learning English in a variety of fun ways. Then lunch.

Each day during English camp we have a teaching time like I explained above followed by a field trip in the afternoon. Today's field trip was touring the King's palace. The field trips give the teachers and students the opportunity to continue developing relationships while engaging in real-life English conversations. The students get to practice carring on conversations with English speakers as they tour or do whatever the field trip has in store.

Reconnoitering

Reconnoitering is an interesting word. It means to examine or survey (a region, area, etc.) for engineering, geological, or other purposes.  I'm using it under the "other purposes" clause.  David Ens is becoming a good friend and has been a valuable resource! Yesterday we surveyed the area around Sary Thom, the guest house we will be staying at.  We looked for possible breakfast locations that could be walked to, Internet access places, food joints, etc.

Dave grew up in Cambodia and speaks Khmer fluently.  It is fun to watch the reaction on shop keepers faces when they ask if we in broken English if we want to come in or if we need something and Dave replies with flawless Khmer ... what ever he says. :)  As we were scouting out the field trip locations he would do that with the people on the street as well.  Quite comical!  

One such instance we were at the Kings palace checking out the prices and of course, Dave is asking in Khmer.  He struck up a conversation with one of the attendants and asked him about a banana tree whose bananas will grow to the ground (see the picture).  At times I wonder if Khmer is Dave's first language.  He doesn't seem to break his train of thought when he's speaking Khmer as much as he does when he is speaking to me in English.


We are all set for English camp!  Attitudes and behaviors of the teams are all in God's control.  I've done what I can as He has led, now I have to trust Him for the stuff I can't control. :)

Ignorant Good Intentions

There are times when we in the "West" hear about some plight somewhere and jump in with good intentions.  However, many times we jump in to solve a problem without truly understanding the problem or the solutions currently being employed.  Many times we believe throwing money at the problem will solve it and many of those times it makes the problem worse.

Here is one small example of what I'm calling "Ignorant Good Intentions".  In the village I visited a couple days ago the biggest problem is access to water.  The Garden of Joy had a well dug and installed a solar-powered pump to pump water into a storage unit for the orphanage.  The long term plan is to build a very large water storage unit for the entire village with the necessary infrastructure which would allow each home to have running water.  To collect enough money to build the storage unit and the necessary infrastructure, the Garden of Joy allows villagers to purchase water from them. They in turn are saving the money to be used on the long-term project.

A church heard of the problem of the lack of water and decided they would solve the problem.  So they collected money to dig wells.  They dug a couple wells and installed hand pumps so that the villagers could get water.  Now the village has three wells, two of them require manual pumping and the third is the one at the Garden of Joy (which costs money to get water from).

So here is the problem.  Now villagers can go pump their own water and not pay the Garden of Joy for their water.  A good thing, right? No. Because now, it is harder to collect money for the large storage unit and infrastructure.  If the church had talked with the local people about the problem and tried to understand it better, they would have given money for the large water storage unit and infrastructure instead of the wells.  If they had done that, all the villagers would now have running water in their homes instead of having to walk to either pay for water or pump it on their own.

It is always better to check with the people involved before jumping in to solve the problem.  Finding the right people to talk with is also a problem.  I can imagine that the church had talked with someone who would rather pump water for free then used that information on which to based their decision. Unfortunately many times we think we know best and attempt to solve problems without all the information. 

The people managing the Garden of Joy had a conversation with the church that dug the wells trying to help them understand the long term plan and not the immediate fix.  The church is sorry they built the wells, but what's done is done.