For the last two
weeks my team has been working with an organization that helps underprivileged
youth in Cambodia.
The goal is to help them learn life skills that they can use to generate income
and support themselves. Much of the information I would love to share is
confidential, thus the reason for my extremely vague blogs and no pictures. Our
time here has been very challenging and I know it has stretched everyone one my
team quite a bit. We have all learned and grown so much and hopefully I will
get the chance to share these experiences at a later time.
One thing I am
excited to be able to share is that my 7 years of restaurant experience is
finally being put to good use! For the last few days I (and Eric) have been
teaching the fine art of waiting tables to about 30 of the youth we’re working
with. It’s been fun and challenging, but also very rewarding to see the
excitement on their faces when they realize that they’re being taught skills
that are in high demand and will be able to help them earn a living. It’s also
been eye-opening to realize that nearly EVERYTHING we’re teaching them is
completely new to them. Few of them have ever actually eaten at a sit-down
restaurant so they’re completely unfamiliar with what it’s like to be served.
They’re learning
very fast, and it’s especially impressive to realize that they’re not only
learning all this for the first time, but they’re also learning it in a
different language! So far we’ve covered basic greetings and restaurant related
vocab in English, hygiene and sanitation, personal appearance, and how to
interact with customers. Next week we’ll be working more with taking orders (an
additional challenge considering that most of them are still learning how to
read and write Khmai), working in the kitchen, making change, and general
customer service.
This past Thursday we also had the privilege of jumping on board with a couple of the other teams here in Phnom Penh to help with a ministry their church offers called the Joy Club. Every Thursday the New Life Church hosts a VBS like program for 150-200 street kids. When the kids come they are usually extremely dirty, so I got to help with washing the kids up before the program started. After that was finished my role turned into bathroom/hall monitor to make sure the kids weren’t congregating around the 
bathroom or just plain running wild. It was pretty crazy. While I was watching the kids I ended up talking to this 13 year old boy who was volunteering with the church. His name was Phanit. His English was awesome, and I really enjoyed getting to know him and hearing his story. I found out that he learned his English from a private school he attended when he was younger, but then his family couldn’t afford private school anymore, so he started attending the English classes offered at New Life. The church teaches English, but they also preach the gospel. Phanit told me that about 3 months ago he had become a Christian through what he’d learned in English class. He was so excited about Jesus, and was so passionate about serving the Lord any way he could even if it just meant standing in front of the water jug and washing glasses after the kids drank out of them. He said his goal now is to do God’s work in Cambodia and tell as many people as he can about Jesus because of how big of a difference it’s made in his life. This kid was amazing…so full of joy. He asked how long I had been a Christian and when I told him “about 18 years” he told me how lucky I was to be able to grow up not only in a Christian family, but also with a Christian church family. He is the only Christian in his family at this point. It was very humbling for me to realize how often I take for granted my family and church family back home. This kid was just so excited to soak up anything he could about Jesus, it was very encouraging for me.
At this point it looks like we have about one week of ministry left here, then I believe our team is going to head to Vietnam to renew our Cambodia visas. Since we have to renew our visas by Oct. 3 we figured it would be fun to at least be able to say we’ve been to Vietnam. It’s only a few dollars more to cross the border than to renew at the embassy here. Our debrief at the end of the month is going to be at Angkor Wat, an amazingly beautiful temple that I believe is included in the 7 man made Wonders of the World, so that should be exciting. After that we head to China for our last month of ministry. We have zero details at this point of what we’ll be doing in China, but I’ll pass them along as they become available.
I will leave you with a few pictures that were taken from the top of our apartment building this afternoon. I was hoping for some good action traffic shots, but unfortunately the streets were pretty quiet. Usually all you can see is a massive sea of motor bikes. The traffic here is BY FAR the craziest that I’ve experienced thus far, it’s absolutely incredible. I’m hoping to have a chance to catch a bit of it on video because I honestly don’t think you’d believe me if I tried to describe it to you!
This is just one example of the numerous places where you’ll see luxury right next door to poverty. As the country slowly rebuilds the contrast seems all the more stark.
95% of intersections here are completely uncontrolled…no stop signs, and very few traffic lights. You just slowly work your way through traffic and wedge yourself through to get where you need to go.
The huge yellow building is the Central Market filled with hundreds of vendors selling everything you could possibly imagine…Kari and I joke that it’s Cambodian style Wal-Mart!
