Maybe it’s the humidity, maybe it’s the fact that this is day 301 of the Race, I don’t know…but I’m sorry the blogging has slacked off this month. My last blog about Cambodia shared lots of the hardships of being here. The physical circumstances are pretty much the same, but I haven’t told you anything about what we’re actually doing here!
My team has been serving at the Teen Challenge farm in the Takeo district of Cambodia. We’re a little more than an hour outside the capitol city of Phnom Penh and there’s not much to see out here. There are dirt roads, ox carts, bicycles and a smoothie stand on the corner…that’s it. Really. That’s all.
The team with our guys at Teen Challenge
Toward the beginning of the month I struggled with how to spend my free time. We each teach classes during the day, but my Bible class only lasts from 10-11am. I had a bit of a schedule going for me:
6:45am – running
7:45am – walk to breakfast
8:30am – walk back home for a shower
9:30am – walk to class
10-11am – Bible class
11am – lunch
12 – 5pm – free time
5pm – dinner
6pm – walk home
Having five free hours in the afternoon is a ton of time. Some of you are wondering why I’m complaining because you’d love to have more hours in a day! There was usually a little time for a nap since I don’t really sleep through the night anymore. I would read, read some more, watch an episode of NCIS (the ones with Chinese subtitles that I bought at the “market”), talk to my teammates, or sit around and count how many flies simultaneously landed on me. Even when we came home after dinner it would be very dark by 7:15 and around 7:45 it felt as though it were midnight. Some nights we thought about going to bed early because there was nothing else to do! We’d watched movies, listen to podcasts, check email, you name it. There’s just so much down time this month.
Taryn's house of cards is proof of loads of down time! That's impressive, though.
Because we have been out here for 10 months now the down time is a bit dangerous. Yes, I like to rest, but it leaves so much time for thinking of home. I promised myself I wouldn’t Skype home this month because I’d be there soon enough. Turns out I’ve talked to most of the members of my family more than once just because they’re available and so am I. I am so excited to see my family in the airport, but deep down I know that after a few weeks at home I’ll be wishing for the experiences of a foreign country again. I don’t want to get home and look back to wasted days.
So now, I’ve got 35 full days left. Yes, I am the nerd with the countdown. It’s NOT 35 days until I finally get to leave this hot, smelly, dirty trip (sometimes the adventure can wear off after a while!), but it’s 35 days that I have left to push myself, to love my teammates, to be energetic for the kids and to give everything I have so that I have no regrets when I’m sitting on my couch in America. (Praise God for couches! Praise His Name! What a glorious reunion that will be!)
Now, I can’t tell you that I’m excited to go to Bible class and repeat the same phrase to the translator 3 times or wait 15 minutes and then eventually start class late. Still, it’s worth it when I see my boys. I’ve grown to love these kiddos. There are 13 younger boys here between the ages of 11 and 17. The other 8 are in their 20s, 30s and even one man in his 40s. So while it is tough to teach sometimes, I enjoy it because these kids really want to learn. I was able to try different teaching styles from story-telling to incorporating a little art time and even some acting! The boys have such spunk and energy. They’re always running, dancing, playing. It’s not so much what we can teach them through books or lessons, but how we can teach them through our actions and our love.
Steph and I taught the kids Bingo to help them learn English words.
Drawing in Bible class.
This week was our last week here. I knew I wanted to make it count. Last Saturday the team took the initiative to plan some games and a movie day for the guys. Most days that we don’t plan things, they just hang out. None of the boys are allowed to leave the farm and they stay here for one year to get help dealing with their addictions. Most of the younger ones are here because they were street kids in the city that had problems with sniffing glue. Some show the scars of their past life externally, others cover it up inside.
It’s been good to be here for them, to give high fives, thumb wrestle, to chase each other and have dance parties. The boys have been through so much, but they still have joy. Their personalities are hilarious and they’ve brought me out of a crappy mood more than once. You can’t help but laugh when one of the boys runs fearlessly down the hill and dives into the lake to rescue the volleyball only to come out soaking wet from head to toe. You can’t help but laugh when one of the older guys asks your teammate, “Are you delicious?” when he really meant, “Did you enjoy your lunch?” You can’t help but laugh when the kids capture a scorpion in a water bottle and proceed to play with it throughout lunchtime (Note: I almost cried before I laughed, but then I loosened up).
Taryn getting ready for our fun day with lots of balloons to pop!
We have been to the Christian bookstore to buy some Bibles, music CDs and even some cool Bible story DVDs that have been dubbed in the local language! The ladies at the store gave us free comic books that told the story of Jesus! When the boys got them they were beside themselves with excitement. Not having much to call their own, it is a special treat to have these things.
Besides material things, we’ve strived to provide the boys with good memories and fun times. Thursday was our off day, but as we’ll be in the city on Monday anyway, we decided to stay back and have a water fun day. IT. WAS. AWESOME! Before lunch we did an hour’s worth of relay games that I adapted from a list saved on my computer. Thanks to my younger brother, creator of the “Dagenhart Relay” for the youth of my home church, I had lots to work with. (There is a ton of hilarious video footage on the way; you can count on it.) At lunch we gave out soda and cookies, a real treat. The boys had to grab some empty water bottles from the recycling and cut them off to make cups. We also bought ice, a luxury!
After lunch we put in a movie to distract the kiddos while we made water bombs. Apparently in Thailand and Cambodia there’s a huge water festival each year where innocent bystanders or pedestrians get pegged with bags of water. We went down to the corner “store” and found tons of bags and rubber bands. I have no idea how many we filled, but it was enough to have some fun. Steph and I hid them in 5 different buckets around the farm and waited. We tried a water balloon toss (no one followed the rules, so we tossed the rules with the balloons and had a good time anyway) and also launched a few with a towel so they just rained down on a group of screaming, jumping boys.
Water balloons and bags!
Finally the war began. By this time the water bags had been sitting in the sun and they were so hot! Seriously, can’t anything in this country be cold?! Still, they loved it. After 5 minutes the weapons were gone, or at least I thought so. Soon Kelly snuck up on me with a basin and doused me! The kids squealed with delight as they ran to do the same thing. They must’ve thought I was the only one who could get wet because I got about 4 buckets in a row! I was able to grab one and come up behind the smallest and funniest boy. I soaked him and he just stood there with a stunned expression. For a second I thought it was a mistake, maybe I scared him or something. Two minutes later I see him coming at me out of the corner of my eye. He is sloshing water everywhere and struggling with the weight of the basin, but a huge grin is spread across his face. I turned and screamed at the last second and he got me good. Victory!
My cute little opponent in the water war
These kids have done well to bring out a better side of me. Sometimes I’m too uptight and worried that they’ll break an arm while wrestling with each other or slip and bust their head on the concrete floor while they chase each other. Good grief, I feel like a mom sometimes; I guess that’s okay to an extent. But it was fun to “let my hair down” (Figuratively of course. My hair has been up for the past few months because of the heat and the big state of nasty that it’s in) and take a risk for a change. After water day the boys walked across the street to a “pool”. (A huge pit with dirty water where they went swimming.) There were cannonballs, cartwheels, belly-flops and all. Normally I would NEVER EVER jump into a body of water like that, but these boys are so darn cute and adventurous I couldn’t help myself. Before I knew it I had taken off my hat and glasses, handed my camera to Taryn and said, “What the heck am I doing?” It was only later that I found out that cows walked through the water (and probably left a few presents there). Also, the water bombs we threw had small shrimps floating in them because we made them from the water in a big stone jar. Oops. Oh yea, and we were out of water at the house so there was no chance for a shower or laundry. Sometimes I guess you just have to be adventurous.
It may have not been the best decision, but it was fun!
This has certainly been an eventful month in more ways than one. It is a place that I will always remember because of the people that I’ve met here. Even the smoothie lady on the corner wears a smile each time I see her. Cambodia is a sweet place and somewhere that I’m glad to say I’ve been.
Everybody after our water fun day!
Team Deepest Roots drenched from head to toe!
**For more info on the organization of Teen Challenge Cambodia, you can check out my teammate Stephanie's blog, "Life at Teen Challenge".**
