Another week gone..

This is my last week at Phnom Penh , and once again, I’m filled with wonderful experiences of God’s provision and workings.

Cycling around Phnom Penh

One of my most stressful experiences so far – cycling in the midst of the chaotic traffic! To keep myself sane from the stress, I had to do it early in the morning, i.e. at 6 am when traffic is at its minimum.. still it was enough to cause me much distress..!

Campus ministry – personal evangelism*

Visited the Royal University of Phnom Penh with Chenda the last two days. The plan was to follow her around and observe what she does on campus, namely personal evangelism to students around and following up with some CCC students. The strategy for personal evangelism is to look for students who are sitting by themselves or in pairs, spend a few minutes building rapport, and then share the gospel** using the 4 spiritual laws***.

First, we prayed, and then she turned to me and said “Jessica, I’m meeting one my CCC students now. Why don’t you go and talk to that girl sitting over there, and I’ll come by afterwards?”

“What? You’re leaving me all alone?!”, I screamed in my head. I hesitated for a while, but said “Ok, but I’ll need to pray some more!!”

So I approached the unsuspecting girl, and plopped myself next to her. She looked stunned (“what’s this foreigner trying to do?!”), but after some introduction, we started conversing. It went for a good 15 minutes, and I was getting anxious because Chenda was still talking to her student! I had already briefly told the girl that I was here to help out in a Methodist school, but haven’t yet mentioned that I was Christian!

I can’t even remember whether I prayed for help at that moment, but I was definitely battling in my mind whether I should go ahead and share the gospel in English anyway! Almost immediately, the girl turned and asked me in forgetfulness “So what are you doing here in Cambodia ?”

Ah hah! The door was opened! Told her I was Christian, and I’m helping out in the Methodist school. She said “Oh, you’re Christian!” and then she asked “Why do you believe in Christian?”

Ah hah! Door number two! So I did a spiel of the gospel, and then asked whether she believed. She said she thinks about Christianity sometimes, but she’s Buddhist, because she’s Cambodian. Tried to probe for more of what she believed in Buddhism, but she struggled to explain to me in English. She then had to leave to the library to do some work.

Well, so much for my first attempt at personal evangelism to a total stranger! But it was a really good experience as I definitely feel much bolder having done it once! Thank God that I was able to catch her again later in the morning as she was riding home on her motorbike, and gave her a gospel tract in Khmer which I got from Chenda. Pray that she’d read it and believe!

My second attempt with another girl wasn’t too bad either. I was more direct this time, asking “Can I share with you about Christianity?” to which she responded with a smile “Why not?”

She had thoughts like “All religions are good and they all lead to heaven”. Told her that Jesus claims to be the only way to God… But I was especially intrigued by her question “Why do Christians like to tell others about their religion? I don’t see other religions doing that.”

For apparently, earlier this year, someone had already given her the same gospel tract and explained to her in Khmer.. and later on, someone even gave her a Bible to read! So I wasn’t the first person. But I was amazed that she was still willing to sit and listen, and even asked me to go through the tract again, in English!

You never know till you’ve given it a go…

I benefited greatly from this two attempts at personal evangelism. I was rather ashamed to tell So Krun, another staffworker that this was only my third time sharing the gospel so directly with a total stranger! But in all humility, God has given me one of the best experiences I have so far. It is true that most people are more opened to listening to what we have to share than we think they are. So I agree with Nike – JUST DO IT!

Up close and personal…

Also had a chance to talk to one of the staffworkers about her background. Like many in Cambodia , she came from a broken family and her life was filled with lots of hardships and trials, yet also of God’s timely provision in many ways. She left her province to Phnom Penh in pursuit of honour for her family by getting a degree in Physics, yet her tight financial conditions threatened her means to continue many times. But God simply made a way each time through the generosity of others.

She came to know Jesus through an American missionary, her English teacher (what wonders English teachers can do!), and continued to grow in her faith despite rejection from family. Her decision to become a CCC staffworker also meant sacrificing the ability to support her needy family, and brought even more ‘dishonour’ in human terms to her family.

But till now, she has stayed so firmly in her decision to follow God’s ways and has become an inspiration to many other students who has similar backgrounds. What an encouragement!

Praise and prayer points

1. Thank God for guiding and providing the opportunities for my evangelism attempts.
2. Thank God for the encouraging testimony from the staffworker. May God continue to strengthen her faith in Him.
3. Please pray for Keary and Serrainon, the two Cambodian girls I talked to. Pray that God may convict them of the truth in Jesus.

* evangelism = sharing the news about who Jesus is
** gospel = good news about Jesus

*** The 4 spiritual laws:

Law 1: God loves you, and offers a wonderful plan for your life.

Law 2: Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.

Law 3: Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. Through him you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life.

Law 4: We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord; then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.

Campus Crusade for Christ

Dinner at one of the staff's house..



Me sharing my testimony while being translated by Chenda...


David giving his session on DR ABC..


Lunch...

Photos of Siem Reap

Area around accomodation in Siem Reap - Alley of Pub Street..
Very convenient at night as there are lots of restaurants.. walking distance to the Old Market and Night Market (to shop for Souvenirs!)


Shopping at the Angkor Night Market..


At the Angkor Wat...


Carvings in Angkor Wat...


Khmer bridal party!.. what a treat to witness it!


The Bayon Face - four faced statues..


The Bayon with some growth on his eyelid =P


Ta Phrom... a "Wat" amidst the jungle.. lots of vegetation (and MOSQUITOES!)


Land mine victims - playing music outside Ta Phrom...


Terrace of the elephants.. can u see the elephant?


On top of Phnom Bakheng (Phnom means "Hill")...
You can actually take an elephant ride up the hill.. but I walked.. haha..


Lady who was praying to the cow statue...


More statues.. legend has it that the 'gods' churned the sea of milk by pulling a giant serpent so that they can produce an elixir which gives them immortality..


Mini stuff...
- Mini Angkor Wat! Grrr..!


Mini Bayon... can't really see the four faced..


Floating village...
Trading on the river...


Kids rowing their little boats... actually they were trying to sell some bananas to us! You should see how quickly they rowed! Phew!


Little kid in a bucket.. so cute!


Floating school... And that's the floating basketball court!!


Floating Church?


Traditional dancing..


Cultural village..
Replica of the floating village... and other replicas of buildings in Cambodia.. =)




The "choosing a fiance" show... very entertaining!


The Chinese tourist from the audience that got chosen as the fiance! hahaha..

Not much time left!

Only 9 days left till I leave Phnom Penh and head back to KL! Thank God for the time spent for the past week, helping out with the school canteen, and attending the Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) fellowship meeting on Saturday!

School canteen

The missionaries here have been drumming this into my head – expect the unexpected while in Cambodia ! =) Reflecting on the first few days of my arrival here in Phnom Penh, I was anxious to know what I could contribute here, even to the point of discouragement and disappointment when options were rather limited due to my language inability. But on hindsight, God has given me opportunities in various tasks that were indeed beyond my expectations – one being helping out with the school canteen!

I had my share of fun standing behind the counter, selling the rice, meat and soya milk while observing how the kids interacted with each other while they ate. And I had my share of stress when I was left alone to handle it on Monday morning – making sure the eggs were boiled, bread arrived on time, cooks were cooking, that there was enough meat for recess. Thank God for bringing Auntie Jennifer and Auntie Lydia back from Thailand on time to oversee it all again! Phew!

CCC meeting

Visited the CCC weekly fellowship meeting in the CCC office on Saturday morning. Sang a few songs in Khmer (I followed by clapping my hands and tried to listen for any words I knew.. hehe..) and played a game. David and I cooked up a plan to entertain them (at my expense!) – we had to briefly introduce ourselves, and after my usual spill of my name etc., I said:

“David taught me a phrase in Khmer :

Kenyom jeer swa ghon tho-at!”..

which means.. “I am a very fat monkey!”

You can imagine them laughing their heads off.. !

Ok, there were some serious business too.. haha.. I shared my story of how I became a Christian (one of the staffworkers, Chenda translated it into Khmer), and then David gave a short session on First Aid (strangely upon request by the staffworkers.. even though he had a short sermon up his sleeve already). The issues you should think about when performing first aid is summed up in DR ABC -- > Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing, Circulation! Ok, go save them people! =)

Had lunch, prepared by some of the students. I’m still trying to get used to the home cooked Khmer food.. lots of soupy stuff and pineapple!

The CCC staffworkers have to raise their own financial support (a practice that will soon be very familiar to me as I undertake the traineeship with OCF!). Most of them (if not all!), are living under very tight budgets, raising only about USD100+ a month to support themselves. Local church giving has not been too generous and their support comes mainly from overseas.

I had the chance to look at some of their personal monthly budgets – there is just enough money to pay for food, rental and utilities. No extras for giving and savings.. let alone to buy any insurance! Makes me dread what happens if they ever fall very sick..

Yet, they are such generous people! One of the staff, Sakal was supposed to help us buy bus tickets to Siem Reap last weekend. Turned out that he bought the tickets and gave us back all our money! That was a huge USD 8! A generous amount for a guy living on only USD 100 a month! A challenge to all of us living with so much more, don’t you think?

More stories to come..

Look out for more stories as I’ll be joining Chenda on her usual campus ministry routine this coming Wednesday. Would be a good experience to observe and learn!

Praise and prayer points:

1. Thank God – my cough is gone! Gone! Yay – back to those durians (ok, kidding..)!
2. Thanksgiving to God for the abundant material life that I have – much much more than what my brothers and sisters in Christ here are living on.
3. Pray for the CCC staffworkers – that they are able to raise enough money to continue on in their strategic ministries on the campuses. That God may help them to continue trusting in Him to provide for all their needs.

2 weeks gone!

Can’t believe it’s already been 2 weeks here in Cambodia, exactly midway into this trip.

What’s up at the Wats….
Just came back from a 3 night visit to Siem Reap – yes, another holiday for me! It was a long weekend as the King’s birthday is being celebrated – public holiday for THREE whole days! I thought only the Chinese dynasty emperors had such long celebrations!

For those planning to visit Cambodia – May is a particular bad month because of the rainy season.. so it was wet wet wet everywhere we went! Thank God that the rain stopped in the mid morning and stayed dry till evening.. so did manage to do most of the touristy stuff without raincoats!

Visited the famous Angkor Wat and the other temples around it – Ta Phrom, Bayon, Angkor Thom. It’s hard to imagine that Angkor Wat is a temple and not a palace given its grandeur. The long weekend also meant that there were more local tourists around. Also visited a few other places such as the floating village and cultural village. Photos up soon...

It did cross my mind when I saw a temple on a hill at one of the more remote areas in Siem Reap – how there is some sort of seeking for a “higher power” no matter how primitive the culture. There is a yearning for spiritual connection ingrained in each one of us – consistent with what the Bible says about us being created for relationship with God. It did break my heart to see a Khmer lady kneeling before a statue of a cow, earnestly muttering her prayers. If only she knew that it was futile and the only God who could hear her could not be fashioned into a statue… (Acts17:22-31)*

English lesson at the school…
The school just started operating their very own canteen – so it’s been a really busy week for Mrs. Yeo, the principal’s wife as she has to manage it. So I had a chance to help her teach 2 hours of English tuition to a class of 23 kids one of the afternoons – all by myself!

Now how do I describe my experience? Traumatising?!! Haha.. The kids had very limited English – being the lowest level class – and boy were they energetic! I could hardly get two seconds of silence.. and it definitely didn’t help when it rained so heavily outside, drowning my already weak voice due to my flu!

I found myself looking at my watch every so often and muttering to myself – please school bell, please ring NOW! Ok, it wasn’t all trauma as I did have some amusement when one of the boys kept coming up to me and say “Teacher, may I go to the toilet please?” “What?! You again?! No!”

I did enjoy the last few minutes just before the class was over talking to some of the older kids (they were MUCH quieter and controlled!) – learning to pronounce their names. You’d be surprised how wide the age distribution is amongst the kids in school. There was a 15 year old boy in my class who is currently only in Primary 6!

So, hats off to all primary school teachers – you have my deepest respect!

Data entry…
Data entry work using Microsoft Access has been ok, though I’ve had to refer to the help file a lot since I wasn’t too familiar with it! At some point, I was thinking to myself – ah, if only it was in Microsoft Excel, it’d be much easier! But then again, its always good to learn new stuff, though I’d least expected to be learning Access here in Cambodia! =)

Praise and prayer points

1. Thank God for the good time enjoying His creation in Siem Reap
2. Please pray for my remaining time here – just got word from Mr. Yeo that I’d be helping out in the canteen tomorrow, and perhaps even supervising it all by myself next Monday! Ah!
3. Please pray for Piseth - one of the English teachers here. He's been recently diagnosed with a hole in his heart. Pray for God's guidance as he seeks out further medical help and the best options for treatment.

* From the Bible: (Acts 17:22-31)

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man (Jesus) he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

More updates from PP

The past few days hasn’t been too productive in terms of “work”, but it was a great time meeting different people! On Thursday night, had a little ‘mamak’ night with the staff from Cambodia Campus Crusade for Christ (CCCC), and my first ride on a motorbike! Eek! Good thing I was sandwiched between two girls, and I had a helmet on, so I felt pretty safe.. the speed was bearable too.. they tend to go on a much slower pace, not more than 40 km/h, unlike the Mat Rempit’s back in KL with their circus stunts huh!

Meeting people…
It was good meeting the CCCC staff – each of them having their own story to tell about how they became Christians, and the objections they received from their non-Christian family, even more so when they decided to go into full time Christian work! Their ministry is also very similar to OCF’s, so there’s probably even more common ground between us! Looking forward to getting to know them better, and just being encouraged by these brave brothers and sisters in Christ!

Mamak night with Chenda - one of the CCCC staff

Was asked to give a short testimony this coming Saturday at their weekly meeting with the students – am still thinking about it, but will probably give it a shot. Also had a chance to witness (though not tasting it!!) the local delicacy – “belud” or “pong tier khone” which literally means – “egg-duck-child”. Photos below!

Visited the CSI clinic (no, not Crime Scene Investigation .. Cooperative Services International) on Friday – there was some registration work I could do but because of my extremely limited Khmer, I would have slowed down the process having to go through translators. Plus being a non-medical personnel does limit my ‘usefulness’ at the clinic, so I ended up just surfing the net and doing some e-mailing till lunch time.

The CSI clinic only takes in patients by referral from various groups such as churches or Christian groups in different provinces. Most of the staff in the clinic are Christian. The “Jesus film” (in Khmer) is shown in the waiting area everyday.

Met up with a few missionaries from America –and was amazed at how fluently they spoke Khmer (they’ve been here for about 4 years now). They are based in a small village - Chhlong and were down in Phnom Penh for their monthly prayer and fasting meeting. Was definitely encouraged to just meet them as it does make one wonder of the heart they must have for the Khmer people to leave their comfortable home in the States and leave a rugged life in the villages here. To the praise of His glory!

Holiday at the beach…
The weekend was spent at Kampong Som (or Sihanouk ville), a 4 hour bus ride from Phnom Penh. The sun and beach was great – but I could only enjoy it from under the umbrella shade as I had further developed a cough from another dose of durians the night before. DOPE!

.........In front of Central Market....Lyna & Soocheat (CSI clinic staff)..

At the beach.......

The humongous culprit that caused me my misery.. but it was soooO good!

Had lovely seafood – fish and crabs bought fresh from the market and cooked by the restaurant for a small fee .. yum yum yum!

Praise & prayer points…

1. Thank God for the encouragement from meeting up with different people.
2. Please pray for my health – flu & cough
3. Please pray that God will lead and guide me to know what He wants me to do here. My language inability does limit the things I can do – though perhaps God may be reminding me to be a “Mary” rather than a “Martha”, during this trip?

p/s for those unfamiliar with the Bible – here is the story about Mary & Martha from the Bible (Luke10:38-42)

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."