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."

School day...

Was up by 5:30am as it was getting bright. School started at 7am and I attended their morning assembly.

It was quite fun watching the kids being so excited so early in the morning, running and jumping into line. Some of them would put their hands together and mutter some greeting in Khmer to the teachers as they ran past. They then proceeded to sing “This is the day that the Lord has made” and “With Christ in the vessel”. Not very accurate pronunciation of some of the words, but they sure received full marks for volume!

The teachers then headed to the principal’s office for morning devotions where Mr. Yeo shared from the passage in Luke 12:22-31 from the Bible. One of the teachers read it in Khmer and I tried to listen for words that I could understand.. haha.. none! Good thing I could still follow from the English Bible to know that the passage was about Jesus telling his followers not to worry about meeting their daily needs like food, drink, clothes.. for if God never fails to take care of the birds and flowers, how much MORE will He provide for us, His prized possessions! So Jesus calls us to put God’s kingdom as our primary concern, and all our needs will be fulfilled as well. Definitely a good reminder to me as I learn to trust God to provide now that I don’t have a stable income!

Had a little sore throat from last night – probably due to the 2 pieces of durians and lack of water. The price I pay for greed!

Had a chance to sit in one of the English classes for a short while to observe. The teacher was teaching about reading the time on a clock in English. Was interesting to hear how they pronounced “seven” and “eleven”.. like “se-van” and “e-le-van”

Attended the session on Christian Education held in the church hall within the school grounds. Those school kids sure are full of energy, running and screaming into the hall. I was sitting quietly at the last row, not knowing what to do ‘cos of the language barrier, until this little boy turned around and asked me “What is your name?” in English! Hahaha..

The girl sitting next to me also started asking me some questions in English, and we had a short exchange of names, her age, where I was from, and how long I’d be here for. Could have carried on but thought it best that I stopped talking to her so that she could concentrate on the singing (in Khmer) and lesson that was going on at the front!

Man.. I tell u those kids can sing the house down! There was this one particular song which looked really fun, with actions and all, and at the end, the kids would do like a twist as they sang “Hallelujah” and ended it with a jump! Hahaha.. sure drove the kids nuts everytime they sang it!

Again, I couldn’t understand the lesson that was in Khmer, but from the pictures, I could tell that it was about Easter Sunday – where Mary and the women went to Jesus’ tomb to embalm his dead body, but found that the stone in front of his tomb was rolled away and his body was gone! Angels then appeared and told them that Jesus had risen from the dead and is alive! He appeared to his followers and showed them his hands and feet where the nails had pierced through so that they may believe. The lesson then ended with more boisterous singing, and then a prayer with a loud “AMEN”!

I’m actually quite excited about the concept of this school. The Christian schools back in KL are probably run in a similar way, but I’ve never been exposed to one back there. What an experience for me! And what a great way of instilling in these kids who God is, right from their development years!

The Khmer Rouge did terrible things in this country, destroying so many of the elite and forcing the people here into the state they are in. Education is a key element to helping this country, but what they need even more is spiritual education – where they can grow up knowing the God who loves them. And I pray that these kids will one day, by God’s grace, grow up to lead this country with the godly values that they are learning now.

Safe arrival..

I’ve arrived safely in Phnom Penh yesterday and am staying in the Methodist School grounds at Toul Kork with my kind hosts – Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Yeo. Thank God for the smooth journey – our flight arrived on time, and David and I were warmly greeted by 2 staff workers from the Cambodia Campus Crusade for Christ – Khay and Chenda at the airport. Will probably be meeting them for dinner tomorrow.

First impressions – hot & dusty! Not too good for my sensitive nose but will have to put up with it. Otherwise, traveling down the streets of Phnom Penh in a van was rather daunting as I couldn’t quite make sense of the traffic system here! Vans, cars and motorbikes would just weave in and out from left right center.. rather chaotic by my standards.. but to the locals, there must be some kind of order amidst the chaos since everyone seems to know what to do!

Mr. Yeo (the principal of the Methodist school) presented some options for me to help out in the school. Contrary to my initial expectation of teaching English, there wasn’t really a need for that as all the classes had existing teachers. The options are:

1. Data entry and maybe some troubleshooting with some database program that he is setting up
2. Help to sort out the library books into a systematic catalogue
3. Help the English teachers here and there – but probably not doing the main teaching
   

Option 1 seemed to appeal to me most, though it was definitely far from what I had imagined doing during my one month here. I could almost picture myself writing a little macro (program in Microsoft Excel) already.. haha.. ok, I think I must be missing my job! =)

I could also potentially do all three options, but will see how things go before deciding. Option 3 would give me direct contact with the school kids, and also opportunity to sow into their lives.

The weekend’s looking good cos will be heading down to Kampong Som where the beaches and seafood are! Yum! Look out for the pics later!

Ah Prudential.. how I'm going to miss you

I found an entry in my old blog .. totally forgot about this dream (or nightmare?!) that I had before I put in my job application to Prudential after graduation:

I was at the Prudential office, the company that I am writing a resume for right now. (I had the privilege of serving a term of internship there in my first year and would love to work there again.)

Well, I was there, having just returned from Australia and was visiting some of my past colleagues. Having heard from my supervisor that they have just employed 2 new graduates, my heart sank as I felt that my chances were slimmer now.

Saw the fellow intern whom I worked with. She had just returned from Australia too. The head of the department was looking through her job application, and decided to employ her. Immediately, I asked the head whether there were still any vacancies available. NONE.
I was devastated, because I was that close in having a chance too. If only I had applied earlier...

Hahaha.. well as you know, my dream/nightmare didn't turn into reality and its been a great 2 years working in the actuarial department of Prudential KL. Am really thankful to God that I was given the chance to serve there..

Here are some photos of my colleagues.. yes, am going to miss them very much. Feels rather strange that I won't be seeing them for a while now having spent so much time in the office with them.

Group photo on my last day at work:
















Front row (from left) :
Lin Ho, Pearley, Lisa, Pei Mei, Elaine, Pei Wei, Ashiqin, Sen Mee, Wai Kuan, Me, Wai Sum, Lee Lee

Back row (from left) :
Joon Foong, Ryan, Mum Kitt, Boon Teik, Emmett

Missing in action :
Su Yern, Yuen Teng, Diana, Sharifah


Individual photos with the MIA-s..

.................Su Yern.................................... Diana..................


................Yuen Teng.................................. Sharifah...................

Photos from my farewell lunch at Ozeki, Japanese Restaurant:





The wacky bunch from Marketing:
(Sorry guys.. temporarily unavailable because the photos were taken as videos! Will post them up after my trip!)