What I Did In Cambodia

Almost every morning this month, two of my teammates and I woke up to do Insanity.  It's a work out that you watch on a computer led by Mr. Shawn T.  It absolutely kicks your butt and with the lack of A/C and the 90+ degree weather, sweated dripped off of us the whole time.  Afterwards we rushed to the one shower we shared and spent our allotted five minutes getting a good clean in.  The water, of course, flowing from the same ditch that the cows bathe in. 
 

Then the day really began.  An apple or bowl of oatmeal would bring in just enough energy for a two hour class of beginner students.  Usually Kaitlyn and I would have 2-8 students in our 8AM class.  Some could say "Hello, my name is…" some could only trace letters.  But we worked our magic.  We taught them colors, body parts, stars and planets, and mostly the alphabet.  The best part about being a native English speaker is that you can pronounce words correctly…most of the time.  So we taught them the sounds each letter made. 
 

    From there we had an hour and a half break until our next class.  Sometimes this meant riding our bikes to the market or walking to the coffee lady.  Sometimes it meant sitting and spending time with Jesus.  Then we started out 11:30 class of Let's Go 3.  One young man Kosal (I pronounce it Got Saul because that's what it sounds like to me) usually translated for us because he could speak enough English.  This class was a little more complicated because they were beyond basics.  We spent a few days teaching them Verbs and Nouns.  Then we spent a day doing verbs, yes we had a dance party.  And after this class my day of teaching was usually over. 

 
      Lunch would come and we would eat rice and noodles or rice and French fries, yes that is a full meal.  Someone would wash the dishes in the water that the cows bathe in and we would all pretend that the soap was good enough to clean them.  (Anyone still wondering why so many people got sick in Cambodia?)  Then came the time of sitting around.  Some of the girls taught a class from 2-4 and I would spend that time watching movies on my computer, reading my Bible, reading a book, talking to a teammate, riding a bike, play guitar. 
 

    From 5:30-6:30 every night we had a Bible Study that I ended up getting to lead about 7 times this month.  It was for the older students in their late teens and very early twenties.  We taught them everything from fasting to prayer to water baptism.  The last week I got to use some of my skills from my first time doing Long term missions and I taught them a Bible story and focused on their English. 
 

   Then it was dinner time.  Sometimes we got rice and meat… would have to pick off the fat and throw it to the dogs.  But the meat was usually really good.  If nothing else was going at night, we would have team time and I was off to sleep by 9 at night and ready to start the day again by 6:30 AM.
 

We also a few Day Off Adventures.  We visited Phnom Penh, one of the major cities in Cambodia.  We celebrated Emily's birthday Asian style.  We all dressed up, ate Mexican food and sang Karaoke.  One day we visited the beach.  It was an "up and coming tourist attraction" which meant about ten tourists had actually discovered it.  But we had a good time playing in the water, laying out and eating salads/pizza.

 
   We even got to go to a wedding one night.  Weddings are a big deal here in Cambodia.  All the women buy really elaborate prom dresses and get their hair and makeup done.  So a lot of the girls rented dresses and we got all prettied up and walked about 20 minutes down the dirt road to the wedding.  There was food: rice, fish, noodles, chicken, other stuff that I'm still not sure about and unlimited drinks.  There was dancing and of course we had to show them how it's really done.  It was a good time.

 
   A YWAM team also came to stay with us for a week.  They mostly did evangelism and manual labor, but we were able to worship with them and get to hear their stories.  They became family for the week they were here.