Believe

I was challenged last Saturday during our weekly Neighborhood Kids Outreach (NKO). It is an event where we reach out to the kids in the community around our largest school, Logos. Each week anywhere from 120 - 320 kids from the neighborhood surrounding the school come onto our school grounds from 1 - 3:30. We divide them in 2 or 3 groups, depending on numbers, and have them rotate between Bible/English lessons, soccer and pool time. By far, the highlight for the kids is their time in the pool. These children rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to swim...especially in a real pool. Consequently, we try to avoid cancelling the swimming time at all cost. However, at times it becomes necessary, for safety purposes. to keep the kids out of the pool. 

Well, that's the decision we were facing last Saturday. We had the kids divided into 2 groups. I was in the pool playing with about 50 kids and my friend Sato, the Cambodian man who oversees the activities each week, was helping out with the Bible/English time. During the first rotation of kids in the pool, the clouds started to move in and the sky darkened. As time passed, we began to hear rumbles of thunder and I was certain that the second group of kids would have to miss their swimming time. "That is such a bummer for them", I thought. "Oh well, nothing we can do now." 

30 minutes later, the rain never started and the thunder kept quiet. The second group of kids had been in the pool for about 15 minutes already and still had about 20 left. "How cool, I can't believe the ran held out", I thought. I got out of the pool and went over to talk to Sato to ask how things were going for him and to make sure that everything was running smoothly. He said things were going great. Then, with a big smile on his face, he told me about the second group's Bible time. He said that the kids that were going to swim secod were concerned that their pool time would be cancelled. Instead of resigning himself to the fact that it would rain and we would have to cancel, Sato believed that God was in control of the weather and that He could and would hold the weather off so the kids could swim. He then lead the kids in a prayer asking God to hold off the rain and then they sang some praise songs. 

Well, the second group of kids did get to swim for their entire time. And, despite the fact that this may sound like a Hollywood ending, literally as the gate closed when the last child left the pool area, drops began to fall. I was so surprised...but then not. God is in control and it took my Cambodian friend and a group of 50+ Cambodian friends to remind me of that...to remind me to believe. That encouragement came at just the right time as God knew I needed the push to believe Him for something big this week. It is so cool when God uses unexpected sources to teach us profound lessons.

A couple kids swimming at NKO

Alex pulling a train of neighborhood kids.

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Always big smiles in the pool.

My friend Sato keeping control at the outreach

Love those faces.

Cameron and I hanging with some of the kids

Abby helping one of the girls to the side.

Floodgate

Ahhh. Mid-May....the time of year when the floodgate of visitors/volunteers/teams/interns/helpers...etc opens wide and our family gets to meet a whole new round of cool people coming all the way to Cambodia to learn and serve the Lord. It really is a pleasure to be able to be at the "front door" to welcome people to Cambodia. I love to be able to show people all of the amazing things God is doing in Cambodia in general and through Asian Hope in particular.
May always starts our busy season and it doesn't usually taper off until the end of June. This year is no different. Between now and the day I leave to fly back to the States (June 29th), we will have right around 60 different visitors/volunteers come through Asian Hope. They range from a "group" of 2 to a group of 27. We will have groups or individuals from New Zealand, Hong Kong and the US. The ages will range from mid-teens to...a lot older. The teams will pitch in and help in one of our Asian Hope schools, our village development program, one of our community outreaches or work with one of our partner ministries. There is no shortage of work to be done here.

A riverboat ride on the Tonle Sap river with a group from Louisiana

A game of cards with some Asian Hope students and a team from the US

Sharing exotic treats (bugs and snake) with visiting friends.

Part of morning school gang heading to "crazy hair" day at Logos.

A team of 51 college students from Washington listening to a presentation.

An amazing photographer and videographer who shared their talents with us.

A group of 28 from Hong Kong  enjoying Angkor Wat.

More fun in our home with a team.

One of the things I love most about this part of my job, however, is to hear all of the amazing ways that God has called each person to a period of service here in Cambodia. God has uniquely wired each person in our family to really enjoy inviting visitors into our home, welcoming them to Cambodia and getting to spend one part of their life with them. We have really met some amazing people and I am sure this year will be no different.
If you or someone you know would like to spend some time visiting and volunteering in Cambodia, let us know. We would love to host you as well.

Chuckle

As I found myself chuckling out loud several times on Monday, I thought I should share a few of those things that made me laugh and that remind me that we live in Cambodia.

• The appointment: Carolyn and I had scheduled a meeting with our landlords for Monday morning. We were going to sign a new 2 year lease on our house. We were ready at 8:30 to sign and move on with our day. Well our landlords showed up a few minutes late. They were customarily well dressed and overly enthusiastic with their traditional greetings. We returned their greeting and proceeded with the pre-arranged appointment. There was a moment of awkward silence as we waited for the lease documents to be presented...it was then that our landlords asked us when we would like to meet to sign our lease...What?  Inside Carolyn and I were both laughing, outside just smiling. Isn't that what we had arranged this appointment for? We meet again on Friday. Hopefully that works out.
• Power: After the nearly futile appointment, I had to go home for a Skype appointment. I got home in time, got some coffee and had the computer all set. Literally within seconds of receiving the text that we were ready to begin, the power went off at home. Not to be discouraged, I packed up my computer and took off to a coffee shop to Skype and work. I was able to Skype but the power went out at the coffee shop soon after so I needed to find another place to continue working. Then I packed up again and headed to Logos, Asian Hope's largest school. I sat down, opened my computer and guess what happened...yep, the power went out. Really. It did return 20 minutes later but I did have to laugh, or else I would have probably said things that I wouldn't want to put in this post.
• Meddling Kids: During my Skype time at the coffee shop I saw a group of 7 Cambodian teenagers walk in. I was thinking they were probably going to be loud and unruly. When I looked up at them 5 minutes later, they were all engaged in a game of UNO. UNO? I just had to laugh out loud. Certainly not what I expected from a group of older teens out for a good time together.
• Diligent: Later that day, we had an absolute downpour. I was completely drenched when I made it home on the dirt bike. When I turned down our flooded street, I saw on old Cambodian man in front of his house just across the street from us. It wasn't until I stopped that I realized what he was doing. During super soaker downpour, he was using a small container to diligently scoop water out of the gutter and pour it on his plants. Maybe he didn't think they were getting enough water with the rain.  
• Frisbee: I was playing Frisbee in the rain with Alex and some of the guys from House of Hope (Asian Hope's Boy's home). At one point I had to go out of our neighborhood to grab an errant disc. When I walked out, I noticed an unnerving site. During the heavy rain, I saw an aluminum ladder leaning up against some electrical wires where workers had just been working. Nearby there was a large electrical box on a pole with the door open letting the rain run in.  Maybe that has something to do with our power outages.

Although there are many things that we still look at daily that remind us of how different our lives are in our new culture, we do enjoy life in Cambodia. Laughter just makes the day go by easier sometimes.

I'll leave you with a hilarious sign we saw in Thailand a while ago.  We see many like this in Cambodia as well.  Makes you laugh.

Thanks for translating into English...but what does it say?

Perspective

Perspective: "The state of one's ideas; the facts known to one." Everyone has one. Most of us usually think ours is right...until it is challenged. Until someone else comes forward and says "why don't you look at it from a different perspective?" I don't usually like that because more often than not when this happens I am already heading down the path of realizing that my perspective is either highly skewed or sometimes totally incorrect. That's what happened this morning.
I went for a run at my usual time, which is around 7:30 am. It was also the usual temp, which is around 84 degrees (heat index nearing 100). Dumb, I know. Anyways, from my perspective, I had a lot to lament during the run. I was listing them off as the kilometers ticked off:

• "It is sooo hot" (I have a/c and a fan to go home to)
• "These shoes are hurting my feet" (I have shoes)
• "The stopwatch on my ipod didn't work correctly" (I have an ipod - actually it's Carolyn's but she is letting me say it's mine for this post).
• "My eyes get stuff in them as I get blasted by dust, smoke and/or exhaust constantly" (My eyes work)
• "I'm so thirsty" (I have a tall glass of ice-cold water waiting for me at home).

As I went on and on with my laments, however, I conveniently never included the parenthetical comments. I was only seeing things from my perspective. All of the parentheses would be filled in later when one chance encounter instantly changed my perspective. I never spoke to this person, never met them and am pretty sure they didn't even see me. It all happened within just a few seconds. It was during my last lament (and subsequent parenthetical statement) that opened the flood gate to all of the other ones. On the last stretch of my run (and always the hardest and hottest) I was saying to myself:

• "My legs are sooo tired" ...then I passed a woman dragging her legs behind her as she scooted along the hot dusty pavement looking for someone, anyone, to give her some money or food. She also had a young girl walking alongside her. I was heartbroken. My perspective didn't only change, it was obliterated...(At least I have legs that work).

One of the streets I run along. Busy, dusty, hot...but it's home.

A boy loading bags of recyclables onto a trailer. The man sitting in the background was waiting for donations from people. 

Monks walk from house to house in the morning. They stand in front of your house. Once you put some money into their bag they will pray for you.

These kids are walking in the exact spot where I saw the woman  scooting along the ground.

Instantly I began thinking of all of the things I had to be thankful for. I am sure that woman would love to run and have her legs get tired. I didn't have anything with me but I knew I wanted to do something for her. So I ran the rest of the way home and told Carolyn about her. She had seen her as well after dropping the van load of kids off at school. She had also been profoundly affected when she saw her. We agreed to pack up some food, a water bottle and some money to bring to her. I quickly loaded it up and took off on the dirt bike to find her. Unfortunately she was no longer on the street...but the impact she made on me will be felt for a long time.

Sadly, this type of scenario is all too common here in Cambodia. In order to survive here there has to be some level of detachment or other coping mechanism in place. However, her presence came at the perfect time to snap me out of my lamenting and help me to view my life from her perspective.