A Boy Named Happy (part one)

They call me sister. It’s a cultural thing, I think. 
I don’t look a thing like them, I can barely speak their language, their customs are still foreign to me, but we are still brother and sister because we share a bond deeper than bloodlines, we share a love stronger than familial affection.

They call me sister, and I don’t know if they realize how true that really is.

 

Today started like most days here do; me lying awake at 5:30 in the morning listening to the rustlings outside, the roosters crowing, the geese honking, and the sounds from the pagoda down the road. At 6:15 my alarm goes off and I get up and get ready for the day. My team and I share breakfast, pray over our day, and then head out on ministry. Today, however, was a little different. We walked down the 2 flights of stairs from our Khmer house to see six bicycles, six Cambodian boys, and Sukhun on his moto with a huge straw hat on his head. They smiled as they explained to us we would be riding their bicycles with the boys on the back to Sukhun’s church 4km away, where we would be teaching English for the next couple of hours. Not being very coordinated, this made me a little uneasy. The wellbeing of a Cambodian teenager was literally in my hands, if I steered us wrong I would not only hurt myself but also this sweet boy and his bike.

 

Smiling through my reservations I climbed onto Happy’s bike with him on the back. Happy is a young boy from a local village who is in my English class at a nearby school, he’s very sweet, very eager to learn, and as his name implies, he’s happy. Also, thankfully, he is light and has very good balance and encouraged me as I pedaled us along the dirt roads. On our 20 minute ride to the school we made small talk, not being able to talk much as we were limited by his English skills and my Khmer skills.

 

When we arrived at this church/school we were instructed to take off our shoes and slosh through muddy water and sticky brown mud (probably more than mud, but I’ll leave the rest to your imagination), promised that we could wash our feet before we went into the classroom. So I took off my Chaco’s, hiked my pants up a bit, and went through the squishy warm muddy water. I did not, however, get to wash my feet. A boy named Naan stood on the steps with the small pail of water in his hands, his feet just as dirty as mine. I told him to wash his feet first, but instead he lifted the pail of water and gently poured the cool water over my feet. He did this three times to be sure there was no remaining mud. I stood there gobsmacked. In Cambodian culture, as in most countries that are predominately Buddhist, the feet are considered the lowest, dirtiest part of the body. Knowing this, I was moved that he thoughtlessly moved to wash my feet, unknowingly blessing me. Even more so, there is the Biblical significance of having your feet washed by someone. I was deeply moved and humbled.

 

We taught the class of varying ages about fruits, how to greet someone at different times of day, and then sat in small groups and did our best to make conversation with the older kids. Carly, my team leader, and I headed up a group of teens varying in age from 12 to 17 and learned various things about their lives. One of the boys named Kohsol asked us if we would come to his learning center and talk about our culture and our religion with his classmates this evening. We were also invited to Sukhun’s house later in the day to meet his family and talk with them about God, which if you knew Sukhun’s story you would be as excited as I am to go and tell them about Jesus. Then it was time to ride back home.

 

Happy and I hopped on his bike, and I started once again peddling us down the dirt road out to the main highway. As I looked around me at the green fields that stretched as far as I could see, at the palm trees scattered over the landscape, the clouds floating in the sky, the dragonflies, birds, and butterflies swooping overhead, a song of praise rose up inside of me. So I started singing. When I stopped Happy patted my back and said, “Again! Again!”. So I sang the song again as we rode past cows, chickens, trees, cow dung, mud, and even as we rode past other Cambodians who stopped and turned to look at us. What a sight we must have been! A white girl driving a Cambodian boy around on his bike, singing some weird song in a language they don’t know. But it was this beautiful stretch of time, as I belted out honest worship to my Heavenly Father and heard Happy behind me asking me to sing more and more and more. Every now and then I would feel his hand rest gently against my back and great joy would rise up in me. He may not have understood the words that rose out of my throat, but I know he felt them as I felt them, that his spirit stirred in response to the wonders of our Creator.

 

A boy named Happy sat with me in our daddy’s countryside.

A boy named Happy traveled with me into freedom.

A boy named Happy rode with me in the Kingdom today.