When we were in Vietnam, our team was told we would be teaching English to college age kids, similar to what we had been doing all month in Da Nang. I was pretty excited about that because I really loved working with college students and helping them with their English and in turn they would show us all around the city and take us to all the cool local spots that we would have never found otherwise. It was so great! So to do something similar in Cambodia sounded fantastic.
One thing you learn on the race is to be flexible and expect the unexpected. Our first night at our host building we were told that we were not going to be working with college students; instead, we would be working with elementary kids. Yikes! I love kids but this is basically uncharted territory for me and it presented a lot of new challenges in ministry that I haven’t experienced yet. We are actually teaching English from the ground up, unlike Vietnam where we were helping them with conversational English. The first day was a growing experience to say the least. It turns out keeping a group of 1st graders that can’t speak English interested in the ABC’s is quite difficult. The challenges are areas of growth for me though so the relationship is symbiotic. After getting a few days under my belt, this have gotten easier and I’m truly enjoying it. Sometimes I have to remind myself of the real purpose of why I’m here… to bring kingdom, to love, to help and to be selfless. When you keep that in perspective it makes everything you do so much better.
Yesterday was the day before a Khmer New Year so instead of doing a lot of teaching we just had a fun day with kids. We danced, played games and just had a lot of fun with them. It was such a good day!
