“Sus-day”! I don’t know if I spelled that right, but phonetically that’s how hello is pronounced in khmer (“ka-mai”) , the Cambodian language. So I’m here folks! Today is Monday October 11. My team and I arrived late Friday night in Phnom Penh, the capitol city of Cambodia. Our ministry host is located only 15 minutes from the airport and our team was super grateful for that! Some of our other teams in our squad still had to travel on a bus up to 5 hours to get to their ministry host site. So once we got to our ministry host (which is where he and his family both reside and do ministry) we were able to get to bed relatively quickly.
It was around midnight by the time we finally got to the house so it was pretty dark outside, but from what I was able to see, everything about the community where we are staying reminded me of the Philippines. I was born and raised in the US, but have been to the Philippines a few times to visit my extended family over there. Half of our team took a tuk tuk ( a motorcycle attached to a mini wagon of some sort, they call them tricycles in the Philippines). The other half rode in our ministry host’s jeep. The ride to our ministry host’s home was pretty smooth going down a stony paved road. However, driving through the community, everything and everyone was pretty much sound asleep. All you could see were some bright lights advertising businesses I suppose and a few street lights paving the way through the neighborhood.
Our ministry host’s names is Bouern(“bow-en”) San. His wife’s name is Mu and their 2 year old son’s name is Manah. This young couple started the Cambodia Slum Ministry about 2 years ago. This will be our home for the next 2 and a half weeks. They both live out of and have their ministry in a house where they reside! The guys are staying upstairs where it is daily transformed into our classroom/dining area. Us 3 girls are sharing a guest room that they have. The remainder of the month will be spent in a squad debrief, meeting with our whole squad (40 of us in total)in Siem Riep (city of one of the 7 Wonders of the World-Angkor Wat- an ancient Buddhist temple). So we are spending the least amount of time in Cambodia compared to the rest of the 10 months we have ahead of us.
I had mentioned in my last blog what we we will be doing. Well as of yesterday my team and I jumped in head first! The Lord has been gracious and is delighted in our attempts to be teachers to the slum children of Phnom Penh. Here are some pictures depicting that:
It is now 5:49, Tuesday. We all have to get up soon to help clean up and set up the classroom and start this again. Yesterday we observed Bouern and helped out where needed. Last night we stayed up brainstorming lesson plans on how to teach English for several age groups. Like I said we jumped in feet first and it was uncomfortable and challenging (especially because of the language barrier) but we managed to endure and enjoyed doing this for the students.
Look forward to more pictures and some videos. I am so grateful for your support in sending me here. I am confident that God has called me to be on this race, not just for the next 11 months, but for the rest of my life in bringing his Kingdom here on Earth in everything I do. Church I pray that for all of us.
Prayer Requests:
That my team continues to choose joy, love, patience and kindness in learning new customs, the language, about each other, our students, our host family and about the people of Phnom Penh.
For our students to have open hearts to the gospel and for learning English.
Our team to become effective in preparing and teaching English, the Bible, guitar and any other life skills/lessons/games that we will present.
For the rest of our squad spread out throughout Cambodia also jumping in feet first.
For the Cambodia Slum Ministry
For our team to become vulnerable and keep each other accountable in serving each other, our host family, the students and the people of Phnom Penh.
For continued financial support in being fully funded.
Grace and Peace!
