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."