Brunch

It's 1.52pm and I think it's about time I got out of my sleep clothes and walk out the door of my room into the windy corridor and say hello to the world. You see, us teachers rarely get to sleep in. So my roommates and I veged out last nigh on Friday. I ate cornflakes and a banana-nutella-peanut-butter-sadwich (there was a typo with sandwich but I thought this was more fitting) for dinner and watched Glee and Briget Jones' Diary. This morning, we just cleaned up our mess off the floor - bowls, cups, crumbs, laptop, wires... And ate a huge stack of french toast. My roommates are out at the beach but I'm home taking it easy. But now I think it's time to take a walk outside and have a good chat with God.

Apologies

This blog has become quite scanty of late. For whoever reads it regularly, I apologise. Things are well - although I am getting a little physically, emotionally and spiritially tired and would love some prayer if you're able. 

Our kids are.. well, kids. Frustrating, endearing, crazy... 

Almost 8 months here and about 4 more to go so there's still much going on and much to do yet. The race is not over! Please pray for these things:

1. Spiritual strength and stamina for myself, the other teachers and professors. Physical protection too!

2. Financial and other forms of support for our organization and schools - Life University, Life School (Khmer primary and secondary school), Life International School (the school I'm at).

3. Encouragement for our English Church Service which as far as we know is still the only English service in Sihanoukville and does not have too many resources.

4. Our students. So many of them have made amazing progress in academics and spiritually also. A number of the children in Life International School have made personal decisions to follow Jesus. Pray that God will continue to be with them as they learn more, grow and go through life's ups and downs.

Thank you.

Welcome to Wonderland

Hello readers,

My name is Kim, and I am guest-blogging today as an honour from Camille.  I've been visiting her here in Cambodia for the past little while, and spending some time learning and being refreshed by the change from Canada.  Something that Camille told me one day, during one of our many discussions (this particular one was on the movie "Alice in Wonderland" and the meaning and themes behind Wonderland), was "Cambodia is a lot like Wonderland, it changes how you see things and challenges your view of reality, turning everything upside down."  (Camille says that "this is not a direct quote, and that it is only your interpretation of what I said", I say, "whatever".)

The other day we witnessed just such a reality challenging occurrence.  Camille and I had spent the day at the beach, just chilling and spending time with God.  Towards the early evening, we decided to take a walk on the rocks to watch the sunset.  The particular beach that we were on had a lovely board walk along the sea, and further on rocks jutting out right up to the sea.  Other tourists were passing us by, mostly going the other way, from the rocks to the sea.  When we came round one bend, we reached a spot where a couple weeks before we had eaten a picnic lunch.  Instead, we saw a group of seven little people clad in brown Tarzan-like outfits, and three little fairies.  On closer inspection, there was one little girl fairy, and one little boy brown-clad, and the rest were all... little people.  And then there was a woman, in a short flashy dress, brightly coloured, with a wig and heels, very flashy caberet style, sitting around, texting on her cell phone.  On closer inspetion, "she" turned out to be a "he", and there were two other cross-dressed men, just like him sitting nearby.  The tourists were all just walking by, (much like they would in Toronto, as if this happened every day, and was completely normal, meanwhile Camille and I stood there for at least 10minutes staring...).  Then, who do you think would saunter down the walk then prince charming himself, clad in a gray cape, and knee high boots.  He walked down to the rocks at the sea, and was followed by a collection of photographers, at which point we realized that this was some kind of strange photoshoot that we had walked into.  Prince charming takes a seat on a rock at the edge of the sea and begins to ruffle his cape so that it billows in the wind, meanwhile tossing an empty can onto the rocks.  "Is that Diet Pepsi?" I ask Camille, "No," she says, "I think it's Ankor, the local beer".  At this point the brown-clad little people and the fairies, and the cross-dressers began to stare at Camille and me, giving us dirty looks, as if we were the ones who were cross-dressing, so we decided that it was time to move along, which we did.

But as we were passing by again on our way back from climbing on the rocks, Camille said to me again "Cambodia is a lot like Wonderland..."

From what I've seen of this country, and learned from talking to people and hearing about their experiences, this land really turns peoples expectations on their heads, and always seems to dish-out the unexpected.  In a different way God is like that too, and has been using this Wonderland to surprise me and change my own ideas about Him and about how He works - revealing to me greater depths of His goodness and His Character.  It has been quite a time of refreshment and discovery.

It's now Easter, when we celebrate the time that God turned all of our expectations on our heads.  When Jesus, who deserves everything, all of our honour and praise, instead humbled himself and took on all of our sins and inequities, and in exchange gave us His righteousness.  How amazing and crazy, and reality-redefining is that?

I hope and pray that you have a happy and blessed Easter.

 ^{Isaiah 55:1-9}

¹ “Come, all you who are thirsty,
   come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without cost.
² Why spend money on what is not bread,
   and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
   and you will delight in the richest of fare.
³ Give ear and come to me;
   listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
   my faithful love promised to David.
⁴ See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
   a ruler and commander of the peoples.
⁵ Surely you will summon nations you know not,
   and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the LORD your God,
   the Holy One of Israel,
   for he has endowed you with splendor.”

 ⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found;
   call on him while he is near.
⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways
   and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

 ⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,”
            declares the LORD.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Village

I love being in Cambodia NOT because I change lives everyday, but because I get to witness God changing lives everyday. Most intimately, my own broken life.

The beautiful face of Cambodia

Kids playing ingenious games in the sand. Much more clever than my drawings in the sand!

Making gentlemen out of roudy boys

S'aat! - Khmer for beautiful!

Miss Cutie Pie

Mr. Cutie Pie

More cutting!

The little village church where we were stationed for the day

Everybody! Dr. Baek, in the safari hat and light blue scrub shirt a true medical hero displaying much humility, grace and love

Little sisters on the steps of the church

Sarah, my roommie, hard at work with the girls' hair!

Updates

Unfortunately, things happen faster than I can type or than I can find TIME to type out on my blog or respond to emails or send out emails. So this is a short snipet of some highlights:

1. I'm going to my second Cambodian wedding tonight. Should be a hoot. They always are. Especially if there's Khmer dancing emo boy bands in the mix. 

2. My roommate, Sarah, and I went on a medical missions yesterday with nursing students. They did health check-ups and consultaions in a small village about 2 hours from our town. Sarah and I obviously didn't do the medical aspect but I cut hair and played with the children. Very sweet. Will blog about that soon, God-willing!

3. This one's pretty current: NO WATER and limited electricity.

 So those of you outside Life University, don't mind me if I seem rather distracted and M.I.A. The running water's been cut off for majority of the day and night since Monday. Water gets turned on around dinner time and cut off again around 8pm. So we spend our post-teaching hours rushing to use the water, stocking up on more water in our little bucket or scrounging from generous water-donors who have much bigger buckets. Some of us teachers have been going down to school to take showers. This also means no laundry, dish-washing, cleaning and cooking. It's a bit of a pain and a bit of a pain on top of 8 hour teaching days and having to find water at 6.30am. But all in all, we've had more times laughing out of helplessness than crying so, thank God.

4. I've decided to go running whenever my roommate goes running. She goes at least once or twice a week and is quite a stallion. So I figured if I tag along, I could definitely shape up over the next few months. My first run was Tuesday in the rain. Quite the adventure, let me tell you that. Grit my teeth and challenged the rain, as I did laps around manly, muddy football players on the football field. Felt very tough. Also a very spiritual experience - been learning to pray as I run. Good times to vent emotions too as I listen to heart-pumping music. Hoping that when I'm done I'll be a force to be reckon with.

5. The university's in a bit of a hard place financially (hence the energy/water crisis) so that's something to really pray about.

6. My school, the Life International School, is starting to raise funds and prayer support for a new building next school year. It's a big need of ours because we have no more classrooms for next year. A hefty undertaking, but nothing God cannot provide for. It's actually really exciting being able to be part of something so big that will definitely affect many children and their families. We have about 120 kids now and more to come next year. That's a bit less than 120 families that will benefit from a solid primary education and access to Christian education. I need your prayers and support!

6. My kids are well by God's grace. It's intriging to see them grow and learn to read right before my eyes! It's hard work and I fall short so often but my grade 1 class is getting there! Thank God. 

7. My dear friend, Kim, is coming in less than a week! And we'll be heading over to Vietnam for Khmer New Year :)

Gelato

It started with an idea of going to Italiano Gelato for homemade gelato. The store is having a 15% discount moving sale you see. So each scoop is 60 cents. Now how could one miss that deal? Plus the idea was to get all the teachers out for a time of bonding and fun after a long week of work. 

So at 4.45pm on Friday, we left the school and walked to the cafe about 15 minutes away. By "we" I mean myself, 6 other teachers and our funky 21 year-old administrative officer. Oh, and how could I forget, dear Poll, a little Korean punk who's sister just arrived from Korea and just started volunteering as a music teacher in our school. She was invited to come, so obvisouly Poll invited himself to come as well. Poll is an interesting 10 year-old boy who is quick, streetwise and a little James Dean - quite the diva. And I have the honour of being one of the teachers he acknowledges. Remember, he's quite the James Dean so it's a compliment that he says "good morning" to me at all.

Suffice to say, the highlights of the evening were:

5. Talking at the top of my voice in a mixture of Korean, Khmer and English with Poll.

4. Being called "Teacher Caramel" by Poll.

3. Seeing Poll ever so non-chalantly go for his fork and carve chunks off my gelato! After which, making faces to express either his disdain or delight at the particular flavours. 

2. Having 4 scoops of gelato! 2 of which were Peanut Butter flavoured and tasted like a milky version of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Chingan-nah (very delicious, in Khmer)!

1. Being pestered to run up the hill as Poll calls out "pah-li, pah-li!" (faster, faster in Korean?) to me at the top of the hill.

Fun times with the teachers and Poll! That kid cracks me up. And I love him to bits. Life is quite a little adventure in Cambodia. But the best thing about this place, is not the place. It's the people.

Letters!

I got letters! Well, technically a bunch of letters from my dear Jill Kortleve. My roommate and I both got letters today and we screamed and ran down to get them. Life can be tough here and lonely or tiring sometimes. 

But when you get that letter, or that honest email from someone that you haven't talked to in a while, or one from an old friend saying they're going halfway round the world to visit ME, or call home and get to talk to your family about babies and chocolate cake and shovelling snow, and they ask me how I'm doing - not just in passing but like how ARE YOU doing? I feel like I couldn't be more blessed. I don't deserve any of it.

God has answered my prayer and the prayers of people in finding community. Because it's hard to see and understand community when people are not physically around, when a couple wall posts on facebook from time to time just seem lame (no offense), when we all get caught up in our own lives (myself included). But when there is satisfying fellowship and community found in God alone, then everything else is like a bonus. A nice treat or the cherry on the top. 

I am not perfect and always feeling this way. We all still long to and want to feel loved. To have people remember us always. To have them be there when we need them most. To get cards, letters, phone calls. Honestly, I can count the number of phone calls and letters combined I have received over here on my two hands in the past 4 months. It's hard to decide not to feel bitter. But God is teaching me, disciplining me, loving me. And I can rejoice in that.

ps. Oh and basically what I meant to say in this post is THANK YOU to friends and family that have supported me here. And of course, Thank You, God for providing in big ways and small.

This is me, just rolled out of bed, with the letters and a bag of TAZO Chamomile Tea looking very pleased!