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.