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.

Sap Sa Bye (Hello)

Hello everybody, it has been a looooonnnnngggg time since I have updated this blog. A lot of has happened since so I have a lot to type. Get a cup of coffee, find a comfortable place, and relax while you read this somewhat long update. First thing first, I want to thank Father for His extremely generous blessings upon me this summer. Thank you Papa for allowing me to work at my home church in Vancouver this summer. It has been a wonderful experience. Four plus months of many challenges, many ups, many downs, many relationships strengthened, and many relationships loosen. But needless to say, Papa is always present throughout those times. He has trained and shaped me in so many ways. The people that He has blessed me with are unbelievable supported, emotionally and financially of course. Here is a sample picture of what we have been doing over the summer.

Secondly, I want to also thank Papa for giving me the opportunity to serve here in Phnom Penh (phnom – mountain; penh – full). Again, His hands of protection have allowed me to arrive here safely without any trouble. Flight schedule was on time; customs did not give me any trouble. Everything worked out in every way possible. Papa is pretty good in smoothing things. I arrived here on Tuesday the 18^th at noon. The first thing I noticed after landing was that it was extremely hot. I was already sweating buckets when I stepped out of the airport. It brought back many memories of my trip to Vietnam a couple of months ago. Same degree of dryness and hotness. Lucky for me, Duc and his dorm RA, Phaerom (pronounce Pay-rom), were already waiting at the entrance to the airport so we quickly grabbed my luggage and jump on the tuk tuk. If you don’t know what a tuk tuk is, it is basically a metal cart attached on a moto(motorcycle – also the main mode of transportation for the people over here). See picture to the right for explanation. The tuk tuk belonged to the neighbourhood chief’s son. It was very customary to create relationship through business dealings here from what I have heard so far. Duc and I, however, got on his lover, Bumblebee, and followed the tuk tuk back to the dorm which Duc is staying at. It is a very long and dusty ride. But I learned three important things about Phnom Penh during my trip from the airport to the dorm.

1. The bigger vehicle ALWAYS has the right of way. Even if it is driving on the opposite lane. I think I saw a couple of trucks driving on the wrong side of the street and people just move out of the way. It is also normal for moto to drive on the wrong side of the street. To sum it up, there are two lanes but you can drive on either side in either direction; smaller vehicles yield to the bigger vehicles.

2. TO SERVE AND TO ………….. extort. From what I have heard from many, the police here are no different than the police in Vietnam. Their purpose is to serve their own interests and to extort money from people. On the way back to the dorm, we passed by many police road blocks. Basically, these road blocks are to stop foreigners’ tuk tuk, indicated by the luggages visible to them, and fined them for no apparent reasons. I think we passed at least three road blocks on the way back. Each time, the tuk tuk driver carrying my luggages just drive through the road block without stopping. Apparently, this is how the locals avoid the police. Drive off without paying attention to them. If they can’t catch you, they can’t fined you. All the time, the police will be too lazy to try and catch you so they just let you off.

3. FOREIGNERS ARE CASH COWS. This is extremely apparent and there is no attempt made to hide it. On the way back, as Duc was talking to me about his experience here, he has also posted this on his blog, he revealed that if you don’t look locals or don’t speak Khmai properly, the shop vendors will charge you an arm and a leg for anything they sell. It is normal here.

However, not all are that bad. There are many things here which I love here. Actually, there are three things which I really love here.

1. NO TAX. I love this rule the most. All prices here are NO TAX. Those words are magic to my ear. It is so nice to be able to buy things without worrying about how much tax is because there is no tax. I don’t know if tax is included or not but it’s nice to pay exactly what the advertising price is. This is going to be one thing I missed the most about Cambodia when I go back to Canada. Everything is tax free.

2. BARGAINING ALLOWED. As if no tax is not good enough, you can bargain for anything and everything here. This is my second favourite thing here. The best part for me is not about getting the item I want but haggling to the price that I deemed worthy of the item. I have been to 2 major malls and 2 major markets here and everything is hagglable (if that is even a word). I know the vendors here will mark up the item up at a ridiculous rate if they see that you are a foreigner. Haggling is the only way to deal with this. Haggling to me is not just a skill but now it’s a sport for me. It’s like a battle of tug of war during the bargaining process. Whoever gives in first lose. I know for a fact that I am still paying a little more than what the locals pay for a certain item but the discrepancy between the prices the local pay and I have to pay is a lot closer than if I were not to haggle. Needless to say, I love haggling. It’s fun to haggle in my baby Khmai language. Clyde Boon Mang, How much, and Clayde Klun Na, too expensive, are the first two phrases that I learn after learning numbers and the day of the weeks. Very, very useful in the art of haggling.

3. IT IS EXTREMELY HOT HERE. Another aspect which I love so much about Cambodia. There are only two seasons here. Wet and dry; hot and hotter. It is the perfect place to live if you want to lose weight. Everything you eat will be sweat out within the hour or two. I think that working out here is like working out twice as hard in Canada. Sweating is my preferred choice of cardiovascular exercise. And I am doing a lot of that here by just walking outside or sitting in my house. Regardless, Duc talked me into going to the gym with him. I believe that Papa has blessed me with this time in Cambodia to serve Him as well as a time to train me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Like Duc repeatedly say to me, “Use this time wisely as you will never have this chance again. Do not go back to Canada with regret.” Sometimes I wonder if I am the younger brother. But thank Father for blessing me with a wonderful brother, whether he is older or younger.

Aside from the lessons above, I feel pretty much at home here in a way. It is strikingly similar to my memory of my birth city, Saigon, before moving to Canada. You see a lot of motos, bricked houses separated by a wall, the people and the way they dressed. It almost as if I am rewinding back to the childish days. So far so good for me. I have been here a week and it slowly feels more and more like home to me. I guessed I have to thank Papa for raising me in Vietnam when I was younger to dampen my cultural shock now. Papa always has His reasons for doing things even though they may not seem so transparent at the time.

I stayed with Duc at his dorm for a couple of days. Most of the students who stayed in the dorm have gone home for Water Festival (a celebration for the end of the raining season?). The dorm is pretty much made up of Duc, Phaerom, and I. It was quite nice. The streets, however, are different. It was extremely more busy than normal as people from the Provinces (outside Phnom Penh) all gathered in Phnom Penh to celebrate the Water Festival. Regardless, we went out and eat out everyday that I was there. Duc’s called it the adjusting period. I called it getting to know the city. We went to various malls here. The first day I arrived, Duc took me to this mall call Sorya. It’s probably the equivalent of Metrotown of Vancouver. Lot of shops. The neat thing about all the malls and markets is that all the stores selling similar merchandises are all gathered in the same section / floor. No need to travel anywhere. One interesting thing I noticed is that some people from the Province (outside Phnom Penh) are scare of escalator. Serious, some were hanging on the railings for their lives. Some jump off, instead of walking off, the last steps. There are even escalator service personnel to ensure that people are using the escalator properly. It was quite a shock for me to see this, probably the first cultural shock for me in Cambodia.

Over the next few days, Duc and I went to shop for my necessities here, phone, moto, shorts and shirts, etc. It was quite a week. I got my cell phone the second day I was here. I got a used Nokia N73 for $150 USD after a few hours of looking and haggling. It works very well. I love it. From what I have heard or seen, probably 70+ percent of the people here use Nokia. So you are guaranteed a genuine Nokia when you buy one. The danger of buying other brands includes cheap imitation, no warranty, or consistent signal loss. All in all, I went along with what is safe here. Even though it is a little expensive for a used phone but it is a lot safer than $300 iPhone imitation. It was pretty easy making the decision of which phone to buy. However, not everything is an easy decision as a phone.

My moto shopping is definitely one of those things. I have so many problems with moto shopping. There were many criteria which we are suppose to abide in when buying a moto. I believe that people in leadership here do not want us to buy an automatic or relatively new moto because it would serve as “STEAL ME, ROB ME” sign. Anything flashy is considered as drawing attention to oneself which invites scorns from the locals or thieves and robbers to “have a chat” with you. Duc learned it the hard way with his bling bling. I am trying to learn from his mistake. No automatic and no relatively new moto means that my choice are cut down by 70%. With the 30% left over, I either have to settle for Daelim City (which is probably like Pinto or the worst beater you can imagine) or Daelim City. As you can imagine, this is definitely not worth it. Duc told me that when he first went shopping for his bike, some people actually tried to sell a beater Daelim City for $500 USD, a very outrageous price. Lucky for me, Duc already found a solution to the problem when he bought is Bumblebee. The majority of the moto here are automatic (no clutch, or amp ya in Khmai) and they prefer automatic over clutch. So I followed Duc and went with a decent moto with clutch instead of automatic. Needless to say, the market for manual moto is small. To be more accurate, it is extremely small. Say about 1000 motos you see on the street, a generous estimate would be around 3 of those motos are manual. Also not a lot of people here know how to drive manual so it would deter a lot of thieves or robbers from stealing my moto. After a few days of looking, we narrowed it down it to two choices. (Actually, we only have two choices). The Yamaha manual and the Honda Sonic. The Yamaha is a 110 cc and the Honda Sonic (Bumblebee) is 125 cc. I am very leaning on the Yamaha because Duc already have the Honda Sonic (Bumblebee). If I get a different bike, we can always trade when we are bored with one. However, I ended up getting the Sonic for two reasons.

First, I did not like the vendor of the Yamaha moto, “not like” is an understatement BTW. So we bargained down the bike from $700 to $560. Before we left, he told us that we can get it for $560 if we pay him right away. We went away to look at other motos, and decided to come back and get the Yamaha moto. But when we came back, the same vendor who told us of $560 now asked for $600 firm. He knew that I like the moto and that the manual bike market is extremely small so he can set at whatever price he wants. I definitely did not like the dishonesty of the dealer. So we left. After a few days where we cannot find anything we like, we came back, biting the bullet and our pride as well, to buy the bike for the $600 asking price. Before setting out of the house, I prayed that God will find a good moto for me whether it is the Yamaha or something. I do not want to buy a crappy moto for an outrageous price. After much searching, I decided to come back and just pay the outrageous price for the moto because I need it and there is no other bike. Luckily for me, the day we come back to the moto market is the first day after the Water Festival so there were a lot more store opened. We search around for a while and decided that the best way to do so is to test drive the Yamaha to compare to Duc’s Bumblebee. After test driving both, I found out that the Yamaha pale in comparison to Bumblebee in performance and in condition of the bike. A good indication for me to leave and not buy the Yamaha was the dishonest vendor showed up while I was talking to the other vendor who was working there. Yeah, that was the last straw for me.

Second reason why I got the Sonic is that it felt nicer, faster, and the conditioned of the Sonic is a lot better. The person whom I bought the Sonic from is the same person who sold Duc’s his beloved Bumblebee. We went back and saw that he has three other Bumblebee which he is also selling. Two blacks and one exactly like Duc’s Bumblebee but is a year younger and with an electronic starter instead of the kick starter. He asked for $700 but agree to sell it to us for $620. He actually received only $600 because he gave $20 to Phaerom (Duc’s RA) as coffee money because Phaerom was the one dealing with him for both transactions, Duc’s Bumblebee and my Pegasus. Yup, I called mine Pegasus because it can “fly by” a lot of locals with their Daelim and other automatic. I pushed my Pegasus to its limit a couple of time. Not as fast as my “Black Delilah” back at home but Pegasus will do until I see my true baby again.

Personal note to Emma. If you are reading this, I know what you are thinking. “They better get helmets to protect them”. Don’t worry, Emma. CAMA required all its employees to wear a helmet when driving a moto. They are just as concern, if not more, for its employees as much as you are for us. To the right is a proof that I am following the proper protocol that you are setting out for us to follow. And if you are also wondering why on Earth did Duc and Hung get a moto, it is a necessity as it is the main mode of transportation around here. There is no public transit. (except for tuk tuk but they are not very cost efficient). We can get a bike but it’ll take us forever to get around the town. (very inefficient method of getting around town). Plus, most of the churches that I’ll be working with are spread around the city. Some are quite a distance away from Phnom Penh so I think it is appropriate to get a moto.

I think that is enough for today. Tune in for more update.

Joom Riem Ab Lear (See you again)