Cambodia. Thus begins my last continent of the race: Asia.
A rice field here in Cambodia. This is the best place to see the sunset!
I can’t believe my race is nearly ¾ of the way done! What happened? Where has this year gone?
That’s right, January, February, and March went by in South America, teaching English. April, May, and June passed in Africa, where we evangelized and 40 of my squad mates contracted malaria. July and August? They were spent in Europe, making friends and sewing. Now it’s September, and I’m back to teaching English.
Every morning our ministry host drives my team of 5 to church in his tuk-tuk.
The Family Tuc-tuc
Our first morning was a little overwhelming. Our host dropped us off, introduced us to the kids (about 15 kids, ages 1-12), suggested we teach them numbers and shapes, then left. We were supposed to teach English with no translator and no idea what level the kids were at. Not quite ideal.
Day 1: We started at the beginning, the Alphabet, and soon discovered the kids knew the English letters quite well, so we moved on to numbers. 1-20? They had them down! Shapes? Most of the kids knew those too. Thus, our first day teaching English was mostly just a review for the kids as we tried to figure out what level the kids were at. It didn’t go horribly, but we definitely left hoping the next day would go better.
Day 2: We arrived at the church armed with a lesson about colors. We had flash cards, games, and a song that incorporated both Jesus and colors (Jesus Loves the Little Children).
This led to our best English class of the week! The younger half of the class learned the English names for the colors, the older half reviewed the colors and encouraged their younger siblings. All stayed involved in the lesson and appeared to have fun! Day two ended with us feeling accomplished and looking forward to day three.
Day 3: Only 5 kids came to the church for English class. We were a little disappointed that the rest of the kids didn’t return, but this smaller class proved to be a blessing. We discovered that one of the older girls in the class knows a decent amount of English so next week she’ll be able to help us translate for the younger kids!
Now Monday will be day 4 of English lessons, and we already have our lesson planned: animals! Hopefully it goes well!
