How can I tell you about Cambodia?
I want you to know everything. I want you to experience every hug, every laugh, every tear, every song, every game and every lesson. Cambodia was full of all of these things and so much more! ultimately in Battambang, Cambodia at New Hope School there was love.
I began the month very much outside of my comfort zone. Our contact was expecting teachers. I have never taught before. I worked at a preschool and I am really good at interacting with kids. However, I had no clue where to begin to teach a new language. I didn’t even now where they were at with English. Our first day teaching should have been us trying to figure out where they were at, but I didn’t even think to begin there. I can’t even remember what we did aside from introducing ourselves and asking the students to write about themselves. It turned into 20 students writing “Before I went on the world race, I had 2 pigs,” because that is was my teammate, Ariana had written on the board. They didn’t understand that they were writing things that were not about themselves, but about someone else. Suffice it to say, we were in over our heads.
The next day we Googled how to teach English and developed a plan that we didn’t really end up using because our focused shifted to encouraging the teachers that were already in place. We didn’t want to completely change their curriculum and then leave. We wanted to come along side them and support them in what they are doing. A lot of damage can be done when a short term mission team comes in and tells a local ministry everything that they are doing wrong or things they could do better. So we decided to stick with their curriculum. We added phonics and pronunciation, as well as a bit of the Cupid Shuffle.
There were many ups and downs to teaching last month. It was hard to see the potential in the students and know that the curriculum could hinder that potential at times. It was also hard having everything we said to the children translated, so they were not being forced to learn to understand us. But, with many of the students we could see that they were learning. We incorporated interactive lessons. I took the kids on “marches” around the school and they were able to learn action words and vocab words from what was going on around them. Some of my favorite lessons were times when we danced the Cupid Shuffle or the ChaCha Slide and they were really learning it!! These songs are super helpful in teaching, because it enables the children to learn through action. By the end of the month my whole morning class knew many of the directions in both of these songs.
I wish everyone could have been there and known my students. I wish you could all know Lisieng(age 10)! She was in my morning class and she was so smart! She always helped her peers to understand the lesson or spelling. Half of the time she was translating for the whole class! I wish you could know Ariya(age 10)! She is such a little weirdo and I love every ounce of her weirdness!! She would always come up to me and pat my belly, then shake it and the bury her head in it! Ariya is the only student in my morning class whose mother is still around. Many of my students’ parents went to Thailand for work because there is no work in Cambodia. Another teacher in the school told us that many of the kids want to grow up and work in a restaurant in Thailand, just so they can be near their parents again.
I wish you all could meet Sienghai and Phim. Sienghai, age 11, was in my morning class and he had a tendency to be rambunctious with the other boys until I started showing him attention and love. After that he couldn’t wait to see me and he couldn’t wait to get a hug, a high five or be told “Good job!” He flourished with the extra love and attention. And his little sister Phim, age 5, was so quiet and so shy when I first met her. One day I saw that she was crying and I knew she couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t understand her, but I wanted to try to love her anyways. So, I called her over to me and gave her a big hug and then gave her a flower that another student had given me. Her eyes lit up and for the rest of the class she held her flower so delicately. She was no longer super shy around me, but would always come for a hug or to be held whenever she had the chance.
Sienghai and Phim are in the care of their beautiful, kind, 76-year-old grandmother. Their parents moved to Thailand in order to provide for them. When I met her she kept apologizing for how small her home was and she wondered why someone like me, that was so rich, would come and work with poor children. Her home was beautiful. I wish I had taken pictures, but I didn’t want to intrude. It was no bigger than the average American single car garage, but it was full of love. I wish I could tell her how I don’t see her as poor. I see her with only love and her home didn’t make me sad or pity them. I saw warmth in her eyes and joy in her grandchildren’s eyes. I am so blessed to have met her, even if it was only for a few minutes.
All throughout the month, I kept feeling discouraged because I didn’t feel like we were teaching these kids English to the best of our ability or that we weren’t investing enough in the teachers and helping them to better speak English. But the Lord always reminded me that it is not about the English, its about the LOVE. Many of the students had lice, or appeared to at least. Early on in the month the Lord set a deep conviction in my heart that if lice is the price to pay for love than it is more that worth it. And from that point further, I never shied away from a hug because of the fear of lice or any other malady the children might have. I embraced everyone of them as if they were my own children.
Who knows how much English they learned last month. But I know, and they know, that I love them and more importantly, that Jesus loves them.
