One of the random, ridiculous blessings the LORD's given me this month is the ability to dig in and do ministry with the other all-girl team, Team Wellspring. If you haven't ever checked out their blogs, you could start with this one and then hop over to this one and then, well, you get the idea. These girls are incredible and I've been so blessed to live life with them for the last two weeks! Their ministry this month is to teach English in two seperate locations: the Bakong village (about a 45 minute TukTuk ride from the YWAM base) and Spein Neak (about a 15 minute bike ride from the base).
I've been to both ministries, but have spent most of my time helping Nikki teach the "Way Ahead" class. The class consists of about twenty or twenty-five kids between the agest of ten and eighteen. Most of them speak a little English, which is good, since neither Nikki nor myself speak any Khmer. We've been teaching them colors and animals, and the concept of "can" and "cannot". Without a translator, there's a LOT of show and tell on our part.
Yesterday, however, class was a little different. We were able to teach a "Christian values" class, which has optional attendance. Surprisingly, most of the kids showed up and we were able to teach them about Noah's Boat. Try explaining the idea of an "ark" in a foreign language… that's super fun. When words failed us, I decided it was time for a different approach.
Thank goodness for dry erase markers, right?
Between a lot of impromptu animal mimicry, my rapid fire drawing and the late arrival of a (kind of) translator, we were able to communicate the story to our students. We were even able to teach them a song. Sung to the tune of "Old McDonald", the song goes:
Faithful Noah had a boat.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, whoa.
And on that boat he had two [insert animal kind here]
Oh yeah, oh yeah, whoa.
With a [animal noise] here and an [animal noise] there
Here a [animal noise]
There a [animal noise]
Everywhere a [animal noise]
Faithful Noah had a boat.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, whoa.
We paired the kids off, asked them to choose an animal and then sang the song about nine times until every animal pair had sung the song, acted as their animal and run into our makeshift ark.
Teacher Nikki and our rabbits, lions, elephants, birds, snakes, etc.
Of course, no decent teacher lets her students pretend to be animals without her, so Nikki and I jumped in as monkeys. Much to everyone's amusement, we "ee-ee"-ed and "ooh-ooh"-ed while jumping around like crazy people, then handed out animal crackers to the kids.
It hit me that these kids didn't expect a whole lot from me. They weren't disappointed in me. They didn't care if what I was wearing looked a little funny or if I was having a "fat day." All it took for me to win their affection, their love, was for me to give them what I had: a ridiculous monkey impression, a handful of animal crackers and hugs.
And I thought, LORD, teach me to love that bravely. Help me to pour myself out that unhesitatingly. Let me befriend people that quickly. Open my heart to your people. Teach me to love like you do, because I'm pretty sure it looks a lot like how these kids love me.
Abba, I want to look a lot like you.
