This month my team and I are staying in Battambang, Cambodia. It is the capital city for the province, Battambang, and it is beautiful! It is a small, quaint town with a river running through the middle. Relatively speaking, the weather in Cambodia has been beautiful all month. Apart from the heat and humidity, we are very lucky to be here this time of year. We began in Phnom Penh where the squad had a debrief before starting ministry. At this debrief I shifted roles in the squad so that I am now a team leader as opposed to a Logistics Coordinator. Check out my new team, they’re awesome. Also, we have bicycles that we ride all over the city to go teach. It’s fantastic.
First, I’ll give a quick and incomplete, but hopefully helpful, intro to the socio-political and economic atmosphere in Cambodia so there is context for what we’re doing. A genocide occurred in Cambodia in the 1970s at the hands of Pol Pot, a communist dictator who seized power at the end of a ravaging civil war. I was very thankful to have the opportunity to visit one of the memorials dedicated to remembering the roughly 3 million victims of this atrocity. During the time of the genocide, Cambodia’s population was barely 8 million. Many of the people that were targeted and killed were educated professionals such as teachers, doctors, lawyers etc, including all of their family members and close associates. Pol Pot also executed any foreigners (including some Americans), anyone with glasses or anyone who was able to even utter a fragmented sentence in another language. His plan was to eliminate any threats to his dictatorship so he targeted the urban cities and it’s more influential people who could organize a rebellion. As a result of this, there are very few elderly people in Cambodia and the economy is still in recovery, placing a heavy burden on the rising generations (one of many reasons why education is such a crucial ministry). The heartbreak continued because the UN and it’s members, including the U.S., remained supportive of Pol Pot, even as he hid in Thailand after he was forced to flee by rebelling military officers. History is not always flattering as it shows scars, but in the case of Cambodia, many wounds are still fresh.
That all being said, my team and I have the opportunity to work with a school this month! Our ministry host is Bright Start Learning and we are helping them teach English to underprivileged children in the community. Our daily schedule changes slightly but mostly we work in the community for the morning and teach english in the evenings. So far we have helped paint two facilities, cleared a chicken coop, landscaped another school, and have cleaned one of the major streets through the city. I teach elementary english to a group of 7, and at this level, the children are able to recite the alphabet, spell, and read several sentences. In the three short weeks I have with them, we are covering spelling, basic global geography and pronunciation. I am so grateful to have a group of kids to look forward to every night. They are a joy and are attending these classes out of their free time, doing so as a source of hope for bettering themselves. Bright Start offers scholarship programs to children who excel in their studies, so they are driven to continue.
If you were to meet my kids, you would see young children riding motorbikes to school wearing clean clothes. I was confused at first because our ministry caters specifically to the underprivileged and all of the students seemed to have a considerable amount of luxury such as scooters/motos, smart phones, and fashionable shoes and backpacks. However, our host explained that in Cambodian culture, appearances are everything (not so different from America…) so that even if the children barely have enough to eat in a day, the family will spend their money on making their persons look as wealthy as possible. One such child lives in a one-room house with her family of four. The only bedroom is consumed by the bed frame that her and her sister share with a wooden board for a mattress; and the parents sleep out on a makeshift patio/common area. Their kitchen is outside and has three small containers of food in the otherwise bare cupboards. With the kitchen outside and their exterior walls consisting of chicken wire, rain is a major threat to the family. Their possessions and meals are at risk anytime the weather is unpleasant. You would never have any idea these were the conditions this child lived in based on her appearance in school, but little did I know. It wasn’t until a week after teaching that I broached the subject with the host, curious about why no “underprivileged” students were attending. She kindly broke my stereotypic image of disadvantaged children.
My new team is called the Wolverines! Yes, I am obsessed with X-Men and prayed fervently as a child to grow up and become the Wolverine. No, that is not the reasoning behind the team name. We were struggling to come up with a name that encompassed us as a new group and all we really knew was that we are all hard workers. Dylan said that wolverines are animals that sleep most of the year, but wake up and tirelessly seek out food. We feel like we are all missionaries like that. We are only in each country for one month, so we renewed our commitment to always serve diligently. For these next six countries and six months, we are determined to give 100% in our efforts. In our downtime, we will most likely be sleeping heavily. So the name is pretty accurate.
Prayer Requests!
Please pray for our relationships with the children! We are trying to develop lasting and trusting friendships between Bright Start Learning and the students. Sharelle and Stephan (our hosts) are trying to bring hope into these kids lives and can only have opportunities to change lives if the students trust them. Breaking through can be difficult because of the language barrier but please pray that we do not become jaded or overwhelmed by the communication issues; we want to overcome these and pour into the kids God has brought to us.
Also, Christmas… the homesickness is getting rough. I am really missing my family right now. If you haven’t met them, they’re pretty great, maybe even the best. If you think of it, please join me in praying for my people’s safety and health. God is good and I see that in my family every day.
Merry Christmas to you all from here in Cambodia! Thank you 8lb 10oz baby Jesus! What an amazing time of year that we get to celebrate with each other and our blessings. I am so grateful to all of my supporters back home! You bless/rock my socks off. I hope that whatever this season looks like for you, you are able to find joy and hope.
And please let me know how I can be praying for you!
