Knhum tau Tai Ches bi dong… (Dec. 07) - Part 2

The rest of the week went by pretty fast with nothing extraordinary happened. Well, at least until Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was a different day for me. It is the first day which I experienced a full day. The day started with 7:00 am devotion for the leadership team, which comprised of the church-school teachers, all the church leaders, and all the missionaries. It is a weekly event, although this is my first time being invited to. Devotion is like a mini service, singing praises, the study of the Word, and a period of prayer request. It is good but I find it extremely tedious, maybe because I am not used to waking up so early and that I drift in and out of consciousness a few times. Devotion went on until 8:30 then we have an hour break to eat breakfast or drink coffee before each is off to do his/her work. For me, it was a beginning of a 2-hour drive to the village on the outskirt of another province. Again, this is my first time being on this trip and what a trip it was.

We travelled on one of the ‘interstate highway’. The 2-hour drive is definitely far from comfort. First, there are at least 10-14 people going in one truck. What that means is that there are some that are cramped into the inside of the truck. And there are some who has to sit in the back of the truck. On the back of the truck, there are two benches bolted down but they are on the opposite end of the pendulum of comfort as the Lazyboy couches. Another factor is that the road is extremely dusty. A large portion of the way there were spending in cloud of dirt or cloud of carbon monoxide from cars which are too old to be on the road or would never past Aircare. So basically, whoever is sitting on the outside in the back of the truck will inhale a combination of dust and carbon monoxide from other cars on the highway. Basically, I was one of the fortunate few in the back who come to realize the importance of nose hairs. What makes it even worst was the drive from the highway to the village. The road was neither paved nor well-maintained. Thus, the truck kicked up quite a dirt storm while driving through. It is quite an experience driving in the dirt storm for 20 minutes. Side note, I was wearing a white shirt there and by the end of the day, it was reddish brown due to the dirt storm. I ended up having raspy voice to the dirt accumulated in my throat. I pray that I’ll be a lot more prepared the next time I go into this village. The last and the worst part of it all is ill nature of the road. Yes, we did spend a large portion of the time driving on the ‘interstate highway’ but the highways here are not as what we come to expect in the Western world. They are filled with potholes and irregular bumps due to poor maintenance of the highway and large number of overloaded trucks on the highway. Not only that you have to avoid the potholes and bumps but also oncoming vehicles trying to past a slower vehicles. Therefore, it was a constant drive but a series of continuous acceleration and deceleration. Sitting in the back, with no seatbelt, and no cushion required that you are to hang on to the sidebars and experienced a continuous torrent of jerking motions. After having been through all these, I really come to appreciate the sacrifice and the determination of one individual.

His name is Trong Thanh Tran (aka 3T, ba tê, or special bread spread in Vietnamese). There are a lot to be said about this certain individual. If there is one person whom I come to respect and admire, it is him. I must admit, he has a few flaws but his heart for serving God is undeniably there. He is a member of a local church but his responsibilities, at his requests not by recommendation of others, are to Taiches, which is the village I visited on Saturday. He is one of main teachers of Taiches school and its church secretary/elder/treasurer/advisor. He spends every Saturday and Sunday in Taiches to help out with the school and church. So you can probably do the math. He spends 8 hours a week on purely travelling to and from Taiches. On Saturday, he spends four hours travelling with others to Taiches to teach. Granted that he doesn’t drive but he still have to endure the roughness of the trip. On Sunday, he takes a motorbike to drive different preacher to the village so that they can preach. On top of that, he also leads service on Sunday so he has to prepare before hand as to how the order of service for that day. If you are wondering why he is doing all the work and not giving any responsibility to the locals. Well, the church is still in the process of finding those who are capable as most are illiterate. The ones who are capable are not believers. The amazing thing is that he has been doing this for a long while before I arrived.

Another good thing which I admire the most about him is that he is definitely a man with integrity, financially at least. As the treasurer of a church, he has many opportunities to ‘help’ himself. However, he asked my mentor’s wife to help him with the church finance. He even go the distance of asking my mentor’s wife to keep all the money while he only keep the booking. The reason he does this is to prevent himself from temptations due to his family financial conditions. Even when hanging out with people, he often does not feel really comfortable to have people pay for him. He rather stayed home and not go out if he can’t afford to go out. Unlike the majority of people who feel completely normal when it comes to ‘rich’ foreigners treating them, he actually feel uncomfortable about it. Not because he is afraid of people seeing him as a smooch but because he is afraid that he is unable of reciprocate the friendly gestures, although he knows that they do not expect a return of any kind. I can’t say anymore about how I am impressed with his determination to serve and his financial integrity.

Anyhow, back to Taiches, it is basically a big house/building. From a far, it looks just like any other house. On the left is a picture of the school from afar. As you notice, the water has receded quite a bit before I arrived. It was much worse during the rainy season. The water will cover everything and the only way the teaching staff can enter the school is by boat. Just to tell a little bit of history of the school/church. This school/church was build not too long ago. It was a joint project, oversee by Pastor Khang, of the believers and the local villagers. The whole building cost around 4,000 USD. It has wooden pillars, metal sheets as roof, palm-tree like walls, and wood planks as floor. It is not exactly the luxurious castle but it is more than sufficient as a school/church. The church is surrounded by farms and houses of the Vietnamese Khmai. This village is the most ghetto village I have ever been to. There are no electricity and they still are heavily dependent on rain for drinking water. When in the dry season, they used the water from the river for consumption which creates a plethora of health issues.

The whole entire place is one big room divided by screens. Therefore, the noise from one classroom can easily be heard in another classroom. Regardless, it is pretty nice because sometime, one class would try to out-scream another class, especially when they are trying to spell out a word or a sentence. It is pretty funny I thought. There are four classes in this school which are primarily focused in teach Vietnamese to the Vietnamese Khmai here. For most kids, this is the only form of education that is accessible for them. Few kids do have the luxury of going to a public Khmai school but again, the number is an extremely small number. The focus of the school is to give the children who are unable to go to a public school a form of education. Although it is once a week class, most kids love the class and are learning quite a bit. There are two classes of grade 1 and two classes of grade 2. Unfortunately, there is no plan of implementing higher classes as the financial resources are limited and the school/church is not officially recognized as part of the New Hope schooling system. It is currently funded from the personal financial aid from believers outside the country, mostly from Australia and Canada.

My first time to Taiches resulted in many shocks. The first being the trip itself. It was long, extremely uncomfortable, and dirty. I can’t believe there is a village this far out. The second being there are so many Vietnamese people in this village. There have to be at least 20 Vietnamese families here. This place is extremely far away from the borders of Cambodia and Vietnam. It’s not like there is a river from Vietnam which they can just travel to here. I wonder how they got here in the first place, about 100+ people coming together and form a small community. The third being the fact that they are extremely poor. As you can see the picture, those are floating houses. While most live in houses on land, there are a few families who live on boathouses such as these. The reason being that they can’t afford to rent the property and the property tax. If you zoom into the picture, you’ll see that the roof and the walls are made out of dry palm tree leaves. This is extremely bad as the weather tends to destroy the leaves easily leaving the house exposed. Can you imagined experiencing a leaky roof in the cold and rainy season. Third, there are tremendous health issues here. Most of the health issues here are attributed to the source of drinking water. Although they have reservoir / water tanks holding rain water to drink, they are not very clean. However, the rain water is a lot more desirable to drink than the water from the river in the dry season. If there are health issues not resulted from drinking water, then they are due to the poor living conditions of the people here. They can’t afford a lot of food and mostly survive on rice, dried fishes, and whatever vegetable they can get from the land.

So the next day, I get to visit Taiches again. This time, the trip was only my mentoring couple, myself, and Trong. My mentor was schedule to preach at Taiches that day (The churches here operate on a cycle sermon. Everyone who can preach is put into the cycle, myself included. Every week, each church has different preacher although the church may have a pastor/primary caretaker who is capable of giving sermon. Not the best system I find but it works for them and they do not want to change it). So again, at 7:00 am, we started our second trip in two days to Taiches. It is more a lot more tiresome today. A cup of ice coffee, an hour of nap, and a few power naps in between, Trong and myself found ourselves at Taiches village. The service started with the gathering of both young and old villagers. The number of children greatly outnumbered the adults. As a result, the service was often interrupted by the noise of children bickering, swearing, and crying. By around 1, we started heading back and have lunch on the way. I am actually very surprised at my mentor’s endurance. He drove both ways without getting tire. I am very impressed. By 3, I am found myself at home and starting to head to Saigon 2 to pick up Lam (the dude whose picture is above) and Hoai, the dude who does not have the opportunity to go to school and whom I mentioned a blog ago, to go to Mekong church. We were 10 minutes late due to the traffic at the Saigon bridge but it was okay because they were still in the praising part of the service. After the service, a whole bunch of us, Lam, Hoai, myself, and all the Mekong youth group, played badminton, kicked around the Asian hacky-sack like made out of feather, and I pulled out my DS which captured all their attention. All the youth were madly in love with Cooking Mama 2. They can’t seem to get bored of it and even ‘line up’ to play it. It was a fun day. I got to know a few more kids from the Mekong church. It was quite a productive day even though I was extremely lazy.

Knhum tau Tai Ches bi dong (Dec. 07) - part 1

Another week has passed, time sure flies fast. It’s time for another update. Last week was quite a busy week, but fun. Earlier in the week, I had the chance to invite two of the youth interchurch committee members out for lunch/dinner fun day just to encourage them. They are also the same two I prayed for in Viet at the first interchurch youth meeting that I attended. Each was the youth leader at their respected church. My goal is to get to know each youth leader as well as encouraged them for the good work that they are doing. Because of the lack in entertainment in this city, I decided to take them to Sorya mall. It is a seven-stories mall, the second biggest/newest mall in Phnom Penh. It is a popular hangout place for teens. I see a lot of teens playing hooky here daily. The mall itself does not have a lot to offer in term of products wise. It, however, offers the ability to kill time through window shopping, the food court, the arcade, and the rollerblade rink at the top level of the mall. I guessed that is the same with the Western mall. However, there is an interesting event which I would like to tell you guys about.

As I was driving Lam and Thuy to the mall, I have a little run in with the traffic cops. Rest assured, I know I was not breaking any traffic law at all. If you wondering about the legal limit of the number of the people on a motorbike, it’s the number that you can fit on your moto. So I know I wasn’t breaking any law regarding this limit. However, as I was driving, this traffic cop came out to stop my moto. He tried to stop me by taking his plastic red and white barber /candy cane batton and smack one right in my chest as I was trying to slow down. I don’t see why he should hit me when I was slowing down. But as I come to a complete stop a little further away due to momentum, the two behind me urged me to just leave. Adrenaline was pumping, all I can hear was “Go, go, go”. Reacted to my impulse, I revved the moto and booked it. It was pure joy to see that traffic cop started to run toward me only to catch me looking at him driving off. It was bad I know. But before you say anything about my poor judgment I really think it is from hindsight), the cop were just pulling me over to haggle some money out of me because he saw that I am a foreigner. Reflecting back at the situation, I had the legal number of people on my bike and my bike has the useless side mirrors which nobody ever used but can be finable if you don’t have one. After driving off, those two pointed out even more cultural issues which I started to notice a lot more during the trip to the mall.

First, traffic cops can fine you for anything and everything. Your moto does not have the useless side mirrors. FINE. You turn on a green light. FINE. You turn with 5 seconds left on the turning light. FINE. You drive through the intersections with 10 seconds left on the green light. FINE. You are driving normally, obeying all the international traffic laws. FINE. You drive a moto. FINE. Do you see a common theme here? Everything is finable.

Second, there is no common spoken / unspoken rule in regard to driving / riding motos here. The laws vary from corner to corner as traffic polices enforces their own laws. You may say it’s usurp but it’s true. It is hard to follow rules here when the rule changes from one intersection to another. Also, they can fine you for anything and everything. Remember in my first post I talked about the fact that polices here are to serve and to extort and that foreigners are cash cows? Well, it has been reconfirmed. I see the locals runs red lights, turn on red lights, drive on the wrong side of the street, making illegal u-turn, and out running cops when the cops try to stop them but the cops would just stand and watch. However, try doing that when you are a foreigner driving a regular moto / car and they will have a welcoming committee waiting for you.

Third, the fine money does not go to the treasury of the state but to the individuals giving out fine. From what I learned and observed, the traffic cops will have a little box with them at the corner. This box contains all the fines collected throughout the day. Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention is that the traffic cops collect fines on the spot. There is no ticket given, no place to go to pay fine, and fines are bargain-able (I have heard story of missionaries refusing to pay fines. The missionaries ended up sitting there for half an hour before the police let them leave because the police know that they can’t make any money from the missionaries). At the end of the day, a decent percentage goes to their officer in charge and the rest are divvy up equally amongst those who are present.

Fourth, the missionary rule ‘When at lost, do what the local do’ do not apply to all situation. Since the traffic police are looking out for foreigners, they will skip / turn a blind eye to 10 locals who are breaking 100 traffic laws just to catch 1 foreigner who may or may not be breaking 1 traffic law. So doing what the locals do would only get you in trouble with the traffic cops. Or you could do what the locals do and just drive off when they try to pull you over.

Having said all that, I do not have any negative thoughts regarding the culture. In the words of a missionary I know, ‘It’s not bad. It’s just different’. I found out that learning the culture is a day by day immersion of experiences. It’s not something you can learn in a few months time by reading a book. As the day progress, I am learning more and more about Cambodian culture and I am learning to appreciate it more and more. Days of reflection tell me that all culture has its good and bad. I am just praying that I can keep the good and block out the bad. But that is enough, back to the day with two youth leaders.

Having undergone the traffic experience with them, I have plenty of questions to talk to them about and learn from them. Honestly, I thought it was going to be awkward considering there is a huge age gap, cultural difference, and different mindset but that traffic incidence really helps the conversation going. We ended up walking around the mall a bit before heading to the arcade to play. The arcade here consist of a lot of those ‘claw-to-win-stuff-animals’ machine, a bunch of poker machines, a row of machines contain shooting games. That is it. It is smaller than what I expected. Even so, this is considered pretty fun for them. We poke fun at each other miserable attempts at the stuffed animals machines as well as each other extremely poor hands-eyes coordination at the shooting games. We followed it up by having dinner at a restaurant inside the mall called Master Grill. It is basically a hybrid of MacDonald and KFC. They sell both burgers and fried chicken. Each combo ranged from 2-3 USD. The food was cheap according to Western standard and extremely expensive according to Khmai standard. Considering an average person wage is around 2-3 USD a day. It is quite expensive. I asked them if they have ever tried these kinds of food and they both shake their heads saying that it’s impossible for them to try because they don’t even work. It made me realized what a privileges it is for me to be able to afford these kinds of meal for myself. It is somewhat a cultural shock for me to be able to witness this as I could never imagine somewhere else in the world can be this impoverished. I mean sure you can read book, read newspaper headlines, and even watch TV news about world poverty but all those do not come close to the first-hand experience I just experienced.

Afterward, we went around the mall for a bit and just did more window shopping. It was fun and we ended the day with ice cream at Swensen. For those of you who don’t know what Swensen is, it is an extremely pricey ice cream parlor with extremely delicious ice cream. I am not trying to flaunt my wealth to them by inviting them to eat here with me. Rather, I want them to know that the work they are putting into their respective church and the interchurch youth group is greatly appreciated. I confirmed over and over that I really admired their willingness to serve even though it may be more than an inconvenience for both to do so. We had a blast just talking and eating ice cream. It was fun. We talk about their lives and how they are coping with the business of school and church. It was fun. They tried to hide from me when I went to pay the cashier. It was cute. Little did they know that I had the key to the moto and could easily left them behind. But it was their act of playfulness which makes me feel at ease with the both of them.

The following day was horrible. I was extremely thirsty throughout the whole day. I do not want to eat anything except for drinking glasses and glasses of liquid all day long. I tried to work on my sermon for the monthly interchurch youth group meeting this Saturday but eventually give up because of the constant run to the washroom. I later found out that I have a minor MSG reaction. I found out that MSG doesn’t like my body and vice versa. The good thing is that I found out the source of the problem which cause my body to behave erratically. The bad thing is that I have to be extremely careful of what I eat because MSG in food is as common, if not more, than salt and sugar in food. Khmai people love sugar and MSG. They go together like fish and water; grass and cows, etc. (pardon my poor attempt at being a poet). The rest of the day went fine as I was able to meet up with Duc and had a venting session with him. He told me about various things and we also went to get his Bumblebee painted. The bike looks really sweet after the paint job. It now resembles the real Bumblebee. It looks sweet.

Knhom tiw sala (I go to school) – December 2

This week has been a little slow. Nothing much happened except a few meetings with people and a welcoming party. First and foremost, I had a meeting with the person who is in charged of the interchurch youth ministry. His name is Tuan Anh. He is the person who is in charged of the monthly interchurch youth meeting which I talked about in the last last update. He’s a carpenter by day, pastor-to-be at Kilometer 11 and bible college student at a local seminary when he’s not working. He’s a pretty busy guy all around. Basically, if it’s involved youth ministry, it’s under his jurisdiction. We meet up for breakfast. Went to a decent restaurant according to Khmai standard. It was good. The food was okay. The talk was very informative. I found out that there are many needs, ministries, and definitely many difficulties concerning the youths here. There are many factors which the teens face here. Female teens who are decent looking are endangered of being sold into prostitution. Male teens are mostly likely to quit school after they finished grade 5 (they started school late so by the time they finished grade 5, they are 15) to help out the family financial situation. Very few Vietnamese teens here are able to study past grade 5. Even for those fews who made past grade 5, they are forced to go to public school which they will be endangered to negative peer influence. Honestly, there are ‘educational landmines’ everywhere for teens here. Those who made to higher education (above grade 8) are so rare. The talk involved mostly of the teens and the problems they are facing. It was good until he dropped the bomb on me. He wanted me to preach at the next monthly interchurch youth meeting on December 13 (IN VIET). Of course I said no but he was very insistence. He told me that eventually I will have to preach to churches so I might as well get some practices in. It made sense so I accepted his proposal. Of course, it was extremely nerve wrecking.

The meeting with Tuan Anh was over around 11. Not because we finished talking but I had to attend another meeting. It’s the missionary meeting at cô (aunt) Kim Ngoc’s house. In case I have never told you who she is. She is basically my friend’s aunt whom I meet 3 years ago in Toronto when I first became a believer. She was also the person who sowed the seed of Cambodia in my head and heart. Needless to say, she made an impact in my life about missionary work in Cambodia. The meeting with the missionaries was about various issues and upcoming events regarding the Christmas season as well as the possible scouting of new church locations. And of course, I have the privileges of seeing David Manfred at work. I have more and more respect for him as he is calm, collected, sharp, and always considered the national churches interests while getting the job done. I think this is a perfect fit for him as the role seemed so natural to him. After an hour and a half, the meeting was over. As many Asians out there know, there can’t be a meeting without a feast afterward. And what a feast it was. It featured Vietnamese salad roll (self roll of course), Vietnamese noodle, and Khmai soup. The best part is that it’s a welcoming party for Duc and I to Cambodia. Unfortunately Duc did not show up. Fortunately, I got all the glory to myself. Muwahahahahahaha. Oh yeah, the best part about the party is that I get to drink ‘ginger beer’. Wait, before you think ‘what is up with missionary meeting with beer at noon’, let me explain what ginger beer is. It basically grinded ginger paste with a little sugar water frozen as ice cube and 7up for fizzes. It looks like beer. It tasted somewhat like cooler. BUT it has 0 alcohol content. So no, we didn’t get drunk on anything but the Holy Spirit during lunch.
Another interesting event occurred this week is that the rein on my Pegasus broke. Basically, my gas throttle cable snapped while I am out with my brothers and two of his dormmates. The good: it snapped while I was idling. The bad: Duc and I as on the way to drive his dormmates home so we can attend the missionary prayer meeting. The worst: it will cost us 10 USD to haul my bike back to my brother’s dorm. But again, God is always good. He not only solved the situation but also blessed me with an awesome Cambodian experience. After 20 minutes of deciding on what to do, the four of us decided that we will drive my moto home. Basically, we have Bumblebee which is running fine and Pegasus which is fine but can’t gas it at all. So we decided that two of us will sit on Bumblebee will pull the other two on Pegasus while putting Pegasus on neutral. It takes some time to get used to driving but we got back to Duc’s dorm fine. The awesome part is that people weren’t even staring at us as it was an odd thing. It was perfectly normal. If I remembered correctly, we saw a dude on a moto pushing another broken moto by putting his foot on the other moto’s passenger stand. It was quite an experience. I don’t think we can ever do that in Canada. Only in Cambodia. I ended up saving 10 USD so I bought dessert for all the guys in the guy dorm. Those two deserved it because it was quite a work out for them to be pulling us. I had videos of us driving home and videos of us driving to place where they fixed my Pegasus. It was a very memorable event.

This week has also been a blessing for me as I was able get to know my mentor couple a little bit more. We had many opportunities during the week to sit down and talk. It was very good. My mentor’s wife told me about her life growing up in Vietnam, her finding God, meeting up with her now husband, and of course, the process of her becoming a missionary. She is very open and very awesome person to talk to. I feel like I can talk to her about anything. My mentor, however, is the exact opposite of his wife. He is the serious traditional Vietnamese fatherly figure. He naturally has this solemn demeanor to him that gives the impression that he is a no non-sense kind of guy, and he is. In public, he is just a very well respected man. However, there are a few random moments when he becomes the jester of the house. Although those moments are few, I am beginning to see more and more of that side of him every day, especially when he is around his wife. They are the most “whacked” Vietnamese pastor couple I have ever encountered. Separated, they are your standard serious Vietnamese people, but together, hell breaks loose (in a good way of course). They are serious but funny in a weird way. They way they communicate with each other are almost childlike. Yes, there are times when things may not be smooth but most of the times, they poke fun at each other, make each other laugh, and causing troubles for each other. They are the most unique old Vietnamese couple that I have seen. I really admire them as a couple. They have this joy that not a lot of other couple has, which I can only attribute to the joy they have in God. Each was a firm believer prior to meeting each other. Both wanted to become missionaries at a very young age. Both have a strong relationship with God. You can see it resonates in each of their lives. I can’t help but secretly wish that my future wife and I would experience the same joy that they have in God and as a family. Anyhoo (my favorite nonsense word), enough with the mushy stuff. Let’s move on to the introduction of more people.

Aside from my mentor’s couple, here is another person I would like to introduce to all of you. Her name is Vo Bich Van. She is our house helper. As the oldest in her family (if you are wondering, she is Bich Thuy’s oldest sister. The one I mentioned about waking up really early to go to school), she does not have the luxury of going to school past grade 1 in Khmai school or grade 3 in Vietnamese school. She is 21 and is extremely shy. At first glance, Duc and I thought she was a 13 year old Cambodian girl. She definitely looks really young for her age. Or maybe it’s the Asian thing. She started the same day I started living with my mentor so we were both getting to know each other. (And no, getting to know does not imply courtship, Emma. And she already has a boyfriend who is a really close friend of mine). She started at 8am in the morning and worked until noon. Her job is to clean the house and to prepare lunch for us. Although she stared at 8, she normally arrived at 7:30am for ‘family devotion’ or so I like to think of it. My mentor, his wife, myself, and Van normally have devotion together at 7:30am or whenever Van comes. The reason I called it a ‘family devotion’ is because the atmosphere of our morning devotion is a picture perfect, at least in my mind, what I would imagined a God-fearing family would have every morning prior to the business of life. In a way, I see my mentor couple as the parents leading their kids in the ways of God. I am really glad for these morning devotions, although I am barely focus, because they offered me a fresh start to my days. Another reason that I really appreciate having Van around the house is that I have a ‘free’ Khmai tutor. Throughout the course of the day, I would often come to bother Van with my Khmai questions.

Talk about Khmai questions, here comes the highlight of my week. I am starting Khmai language study at Khmai School of Language center. It is pretty much a house about 5 minutes walk from my house. This place is very well known Khmai language school among the foreigners. A majority of the people who attended this center are new missionaries, Catholic priests, international workers. Quite a few of the CAMA missionaries study Khmai here. It was highly recommended by my mentor as his wife and himself are also students of this school. The school offers different type of programs which are tailored to a wide spectrum of students. For myself, my mentor opted that I should study Khmai phonetic. It focused on the speaking, dialogue conversation, and not on the writings system. As an intern student with only 8 months living in Cambodia, he felt that I should not worry about the writing part but more on day to day conversational skills. They have a 2-months, or 40 hours, book which would cover quite a bit of day to day needs. Without further adieu, here is a picture of my teacher. His name is Samnang. He is 23 years old but looks a lot older than me. Maybe because of his dark skin. He is an extremely funny dude. He jokes a lot during my class which makes the lesson fly by pretty fast. One of the most extremely awesome qualities of his is that he is very knowledgeable in English, compare to a lot of Khmai people I have encountered. The downside to this is that he has a strong Khmai accent which makes him hard to understand on numerous occasion. Overall, he’s an awesome guy. He loves food as much as I do. He even recommends quite a few good restaurants around Phnom Penh. If I ever get fat while being here, I would definitely blame him for it. I think that is it for this week, stay tuned for more update.

Chum Rie Ab Sua (Nice to See You) (November 24)

My mentor, Pastor Tin, and his wife, Anh, picked me up today from the Duc’s dorm today. He drove his truck ahead to lead while Duc and I followed him with Bumblebee and Pegasus. The drive to his house is a lot nicer today because the Water Festival is over and everybody left. The street is a lot less busy which is good because we do not know our way around the city and we have to keep catching up to my mentor Tin’s truck. Actually, we were more trying to stay behind the truck rather than keeping up. In Phnom Penh, cars / SUVs would take roughly twice the amount of time to get to the same place as a moto due to traffic. Here are a few pictures of his house.

This is the living room. It is quite spacious. My mentor used this space to park his truck at night time.	As you can see, there are two levels to this house. But it is only considered as one level because of the high ceiling. My room is the one on top. My mentor and his wife live in the room below.	This is the kitchen area. It is quite small. However, there are additional space for kitchen purposes through the big brown door. The door to the left of the picture is the door to the washroom.
This is the other view of the kitchen with the fridge	This is the washroom of the kitchen. If you are wondering about the hose to the left of the toilet, it’s the reason why people don’t shake with left hand here.	Here is the second kitchen area in the back. Those lines that you see are to dry clothes after they have been through the washer.
This is my room. I have a work station, a closet, and a bed. Pretty simple	Pretty simple. Nothing too fancy.	This is the other room, next to mine. It served as a guest room for anybody coming over.

Immediately the next day, I attended (very briefly) the New Hope Committee meeting. New Hope Committee is mostly comprised of leaders from all 8 churches in and surrounded the Phnom Penh area as well as missionaries from other countries (for now it’s only my mentor). My mentor, Tin, wants to take the initial 5-10 minutes of this meeting to introduce me to the whole team. It went pretty well. People were happy to see me and are looking forward to working with me, so far… :-). A very noticeable person here is David Manfred, the field director of CMA in Cambodia, aka the big head boss. Through email conversation, I expected him to be a big imitating dude who does not fool around. I was right about the big part but was wrong about the seriousness of the dude. I mean he’s not like a goof but he’s a pretty relax, friendly, soft spoken dude. Kinda surprise me for a bit.

Two days later, I have a chance to meet with David again for my orientation. It went pretty well. He dispels any of my misconception of a no nonsense kind of guy. He is actually pretty chilled dude. He may be soft spoken but he knows how to get things done while taking people situation into account. A very impressive person I must say. Aside from that, he also taught me a few things which I think is pretty insightful. He taught that God can work “in me, through me, and in spite of me”; I should not close any doors to anything, God is should be the one doing the closing. Are you having problem with language study? Here is an advice that he gave me. If God can make Balaam’s donkey speak, God can make you speak any language. Are you willing to admit that you are a donkey that needs His help? I hear amazing testimony in regard to this issue. God is limitless in His power and what He can do.

And two days after the orientation, I was invited to attend the monthly men’s breakfast along with my mentor. It was quite a nice breakfast. We ate at Freebird, a very nicely Western style decorated bar, nicer than at least half of the bars in Calgary and Vancouver. Apparently, it has the best western breakfast food in Phnom Penh. I met some very interesting men here. Most noticeable is David Ens, Marie Ens’ son. The nice old Canadian granny who ran an AIDS orphanage for Cambodian children. He is quite a character, a very funny dude. And I can’t forget Bill Lobezoo, Duc’s mentor. He’s a very funny dude. Always making jokes out of everything. I cannot believe that this dude is Bernie’s best friend and best man at Bernie’s wedding. I am very interest to see how they chill when they were younger. I can never, in my mind, imagine Bernie to act like Bill. But the most noticeable one is Chris. He is a dude around my age, a little older. He left quite a big impression on me. He sat at our, Duc’s and mine, table so we talk quite a bit. He told me of his life story and how he became a missionary upon finishing seminary. It was a very encouraging story. He half jokingly said that don’t be thinking that this is a short term mission trip. He came here and Manila for his intern and guessed where he’s at now. Who knows Duc and I might be heading back here upon finishing our schooling. We already have talk of about the possibility of coming back here and serve. It is a very probable option. Like Chris, we love the people, the attitude of the people, and especially the atmosphere here. God is working here and to be a part of God’s work is an amazing opportunity.

Next is the highlight of my week. It’s the monthly youth gathering of the New Hope churches. Every month, all youth belonging to the New Hope churches are gathered at one church to have fellowship. Big churches—Saigon 2, Small Market, Mekong, and Kilometer 11—all have their own weekly fellowship. However, for others who do not have a big youth group, this is an opportunity for them to join the bigger churches for fellowship. Each month, the meeting is held at different church. This week happened to be at Kilometer 11. Kilometer 11 is like the city outside Phnom Penh. Like its name, it is about 11km outside Phnom Penh. However, it is extremely erroneous if you think that it doesn’t take long to get here. It took me nearly half an hour to get here from Phnom Penh. On my way here, I followed the leader of this church on the back road of the country, which is a faster route. The “highway” from the city to the church takes quite a bit longer because it passed two major markets and it is more used by motorists. When I say back road, I mean dusty, potholes filled, following and passing trucks with no lane. It was quite a nice ride. The scenery is amazing too. There were many farms along the way. A lot of them are filled with leftover water from the rainy season. They are not neatly organized as western farm where you have a section of something here and a section of something else there. It’s chaotic. A little here over and a little over there. It is totally different but somewhat beautiful. Unfortunately, I can’t take any picture as I tried my hardest to avoid any pothole that might topple Pegasus and myself.

The youth gathering is quite nice. There were around 40-50 teens here. A lot of them cannot make it as they have to work on Sunday. Teens here are totally different from western culture. By the time they are 15, most of them would drop out of school to find a full time job to support their family. There is no such thing as an adolescence period. You become a man instantaneously. What is even more surprising is that there is no janitor, each church would cast lots to see which part of the clean up duties they are responsible for. Such responsibilities includes cleaning the sanctuary (collect all the garbage, putting away chairs, sweeping the floor, and mobbing the floor), cleaning the yard outside the church (pick up garbage, sweeping the yard), washing the dishes (a lot of plates and dishes), cleaning the eating area (there were many rooms), and the worst job of all, cleaning the toilet. All these responsibility belong to the teens. However, the teens from the hosting church are excluded from these responsibilities as their job was to prepare the food for everybody prior to the service. Needless to say, it’s something that you don’t see a lot in western church. I think this is quite neat. Something I am hoping my home church would adopt.

It was a great event. I was able to meet a lot of teens from different churches. The event was extremely simple but there is something beautiful about its simplicity. We started out with prayers for the opening service. Then followed by the singing of hymns. It was extremely simple, two guitars and everybody belching out the lyrics from the overhead. People were a little bit off key but you can tell people’s hearts were in it. Afterward, it was the time where each church brought a little something to the worship. One church did a mime dance, one performed a dance to “Every move I make” in Korean, another presented a hymn, other presented dance, etc. After the worship was the prayer for the sermon. Surprisingly, the speaker was David Manfred, the field director. The sermon was entirely in Khmai. Obviously, I did not understand a single thing that was coming out of his mouth. Some of the teens did not understand Khmai as well. Luckily, their friends translate for them. I got a translator as well. She is the leader from Small Market, Oanh, whose job is to run one of a shelter houses for girls who were sold into prostitutions by their parents. His sermon was the usual Western type sermon which encourage the teens to think. However, some of the teens complain afterward that he was so loud that it seems that he was yelling at them. I thought that was pretty funny. After the sermon was the end of the service. WHICH MEANS FOOD TIME!!! I love the Asian culture. Church is not church without food. We have lunch together and have an hour to go around and get to know teens from other churches. I made use of this time quite nicely. Going around talking to teens from different churches. Food is a great way to get people talking. The later part of the day includes girls vs guys dance off, games, fellowship, and of course bible trivia.

At the end of the day, there is a surprise for me. There are two teens who are joining the New Hope youth committee (pretty much an interchurch youth committee). All the leaders from different churches were to come up and pray for them. Being “respectable”, they invite me to come up and pray for them as well, IN VIET!!!! You cannot imagine the horror that went through my head as I walked up to the front. This is my first time praying in Viet, IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE WHO I JUST MET FOR THE FIRST TIME. Lucky for me, the person who prayed in front of me did an extremely long prayer. So my extremely short prayer in broken Viet was quite welcomed by many.

But the most memorable event here at the youth gathering was not the event but was actually the conversation with one of the leaders whom I prayed for. Her name is Bich Thuy. She is 17 and is attending Khmai public school here. She is one of the few who has the opportunity to do such. You remember one of those stories that your parents / grandparents told you about waking up early in the morning before the sunrise, walked a few kilometers in the freezing cold to school to study, etc… Well, it’s her story. Not to such extreme but close. She has to wake up at 5:30am every day (Monday to Saturday), ride her bicycle to a friend’s house, pick up her friend, and ride to school. School starts at 7:30am and goes till noon. She get one hour break for lunch and then school again until 4-5pm, depending on the day. After school, commuting home is probably another hour or so. So technically she spend around roughly 12 hours a day, commuting to school, school, and commuting home, six days a week. She considered herself pretty blessed. It was an extremely humbling experience as I recalled my luxury of picking the time of my class. Some days I will sleep in until noon, wake up, and go to class at 1pm. So this is quite a contrast from my western lifestyle. Yet, when I go to school, I always considered it is my right that I am in school. A story like this really gives me a different perspective at looking at life. One of the things I realized while hearing this story is that the amount of blessings God has poured out into my life which I am totally oblivious to. The sad thing about it is that I do not realize the blessings which God has given me until I hear stories of somebody who is in a worse situation.

Another story which I got from talking to one of the youths here was this dude name Hoai. He is 15. He loves school. When I say love, I mean extremely love. This dude never missed a day. However, this year, his mom, due to financial situation, coerced him into dropping school to help out with the family finance. He got a job for two months as a carpenter but was laid off after because there was no job. He can’t go back to school because the semester is already started and they don’t want to let him in. It was pretty bad. This guy situation was special because he has funding for school through New Hope organization with the condition that HE MUST NOT MISSED ANY SCHOOL YEAR. So now, he missed this school year and he will never go back to school again because of the lack of funding from New Hope organization. Such a wasted opportunity. Now he is unemployed with no opportunity to go back to school. PLEASE PRAY HARD FOR THIS DUDE. He is a pretty bright, friendly, and very nice guy. Pray that God will open the door for him to go back to school with funding, either through the organization or from somewhere else.