We made it to Cambodia!
This country is BEAUTIFUL!!! The children are some of the prettiest I have seen and the people are so peaceful and calm. Despite Battambang being a bustling city of 200,000 people, it is relatively quiet. At the center of the city, there is a river that we cross daily on our route to ministry. Temples are on every corner and brightly dressed monks stand out amongst the crowds. I work at an english teaching school called Handa. The children are so precious, oh my goodness. Every morning they rush up to us and start bowing and saying “good morning teacha!” in their sing song accents. They are amazingly well behaved and self sufficient. They clean after themselves without a comment from any adult, they plant the gardens surrounding the school on their own, and they set up and tear down their lunch area with ease. And they are so young!
As we have explored this country, we have been learning about its sad history. Watch the movie First They Killed My Father. It will give you a very accurate picture of Cambodian culture, and more importantly a history lesson on what they have been through. It is also an amazing movie. The genocide was between 1975-1979. During that time 2 million people were killed by means of overworking, starvation, and execution under Communist rule. That means most the people I encounter everyday survived this. They survived watching a fourth of their country men slaughtered. They survived starvation ( although this is still a very real thing here). This also shapes the culture still. There is estimated to be about 4 million land mines still in the ground. The other team of girls from my group work with trauma patients at the hospital, some of which were injured by these mines. This nation still sees the brutal effects of the Genocide long after it has finished.
Overall, I am really looking forward to living here for the next few months. This culture is fascinating and completely different from the West. Learning how to communicate through words is so hard because Khmer is hardy to learn. So we are learning to communicate through body language. Some culture adjustments mean never wearing shoes inside (going to school barefoot feels strange let me tell ya), never touching anyones head (this is the most holy part of the body for a Buddhist), showering at 6am listening to the Monks chanting, handing things with two hands every time (even money!), bowing to people, and standing for the National Anthem at very random times (such as in the movie theater).
So! Please pray for me as we navigate a very different culture from our own and reach out to these people in a Buddhist culture. The Lord is going to do powerful things in this country. Pray for the people of Cambodia that food would be made plentiful to many struggling, that children would receive necessary vitamins (malnutrition is a very common problem for the children here), and most of all that they would know the love of the Father.
My kids learning to farm! At Handa Academy, every Friday the kids work on their gardening skills. While this may look like a fun extra curricular, it is actually very important to their well being. These kids come from very poor homes where their knowledge of gardening can be the difference between them eating or not. They are also pretty dang cute doing it to:)
The kids are SO cute. To protect them we are not allowed to post uncloses of their faces but believe me when I say they have the most gorgeous smiles. Especially when they say “thank you teacha!” a million times coupled with bowing and a high-five on the way out of class everyday. And coming into class. And in the morning. And when you hand them anything. But it just gets cuter every time.
This is the rooftop of my home. It is a blessing big time. It is the coolest (temperature wise) place to sleep in the house so on any given night you will find a lot of us up here. My home is 2 stories. The guys sleep in the bottom story with all the bikes, kitchen, and dining area. The second story is one giant room where all 18 of us girls sleep. It gets real messy and hot, but all in all its kinda fun! We sleep on sleeping mats with as many fans as we can fit in the room:) The top is the roof. The sunrise is beautiful from up here.
