Day 1-2, August 5-6th:
The first day of my trip was a very
long travel day. I left from LAX at 1:35A and flew into Taipei
Taiwan. This flight was long but wasn't too bad and in Taipei I met
up with Ginny Davis who is also volunteering at the orphanage until
September 25th and we flew together from Taipei into Phnom
Penh Cambodia. It was a blessing to be able to have our layover and
connecting flight together for the start of this journey, we were
able to get to know a little bit about it each other which was great
because we are going to be roommates for the next two months. I am
very blessed to be able to share this spiritual journey with three
other girls.
I know that
some of my friends and family are worried for my safety here, but I
know the Lord has called me here and I have full faith in Him and His
plan for me being here. I am encouraged over and over again by Him in
His word of His protection of us, one verse of many is Isaiah 41:10
“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy
God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will
uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”
After we arrived we were met by the
director Kit and another volunteer Laura who arrived earlier that day
and is staying until August 22nd. We loaded up our stuff
and went into town to pickup another volunteer, Jessica, who has been
here since June and will be staying until at least January. We had
lunch in Phnom Penh and then headed to the orphanage. We continued
our drive to the orphanage and I found myself shocked by the driving
conditions. Most people here drive motos (little motorcycles) and fit
1-4 people on them including children and helmets are very rare. It
is crazy to see the difference in safety standards from the States to
here, it is illegal to have a child out of a car seat at home but
here little babies and children are crowded on a motor without even a
helmet and they are driving on crowded roads with basically no
driving laws to abide by. After an hour or so drive we finally
arrived at the orphanage on Monday August 6th around 4P.
When we first arrived we got a tour of
the orphanage and quickly got to playing with the kids. By this time
it was playtime and they were all out in the backyard playing
different games. This one that the younger ones love to play is two
kids hold a string from each end and the others jump over it, they
make it a little higher each time until someone touches the string, I
have seen them play this simple game for over an hour, they are all
so amazing and so easily entertained. The first thing I had noticed
was that everyone here is barefoot. They do not wear shoes in the
home here, which I knew, but I did not realize it meant they went
around barefoot all the time. I later realized they all wear
flip-flops if they leave their house, but mostly at home they are
barefoot. After play time we had dinner, shower, Bible study in which
the kids practiced two worship songs to sing to us, and then it was
bedtime after being awake for nearly 48 hours.
Day 3, August 7th:
Each morning we are able to have our
own quite time with the Lord praying and reading on our own, it is a
blessing to have our own time with the Lord before the start of each
day. Each day usually starts with reading, then breakfast, and then
teaching at 9A. This morning Ginny and I were able to help Jessica
teach English to the older kids. The kids are on break from school
now but they still have to do studies at the orphanage Monday-Friday,
they have an hour of English each of these days which we help with.
We have lunch around 11A and then after lunch until 2P is
rest/naptime, this was very good news to us as we were all exhausted
and jet lagged so we were able to rest.
After rest time we went into the
“market”, the market is on the main dirt road and it is the
villagers homes. They all sell things outside their homes such as
fruit, vegetables, clothes, meat, etc... We just looked around, a few
of the kids came with and got some rice soup from one of the
villagers and we headed back. At this time the kids were all playing
again in the yard, flying homemade kites, swinging on the swings,
playing tag, and kicking a soccer ball around.
After
playing we had dinner, shower, Bible study, and then bed.
Monday-Thurday the kids have Bible study taught but one of the
volunteers, staff members, or Ream. Friday they have a Bible test,
Saturday is movie night so no study, and Sunday night two of the kids
or chosen to share for Bible study. And they attend church every
Sunday morning at the local Christian church, Ream's father is the
pastor there and this is also where their private school is located.
They also have a Bible memory verse each week which they all repeat
before each meal to help them learn it. It is so amazing to be apart
of a Bible filled organization and help minister and be a good role
model to these children. One of my prayers for these children is that
after they leave here they will stay faithful to the Lord and not
fall back into this world and their buddhist culture that they will
be surrounded in. The Lord commands and encourages in Proverbs 22:6
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he
will not depart from it”.
Day 4, August 8th:
Today Ginny and I started to teach
English class to the middle age kids, I am so excited to be able to
teach English to the kids. I did not know before coming here that
they studied during their break so I did not think I was going to be
able to be involved in their schooling until they start school in
September, so I feel blessed to be able to start that right away as
that is one of the things I felt led to do here.
After lunch I felt ill so I slept most
of the afternoon to catch up on some sleep. Afterwards it was early
Bible study since Wednesday night is movie night, then after Bible
study it was playtime and Kit had asked if we could get out the
cleats I brought for the kids to play soccer again. I had brought
cleats for the kids which were most all donated from Ahwatukee
Foothills Soccer Club whom I had coached for, and I was so excited to
give them to the kids as I had 18 pairs of cleats, 8 pairs of
shinguards, a keeper jersey, and a pair of goalie gloves. After
seeing them play barefoot and realizing that some of these kids have
never worn a pair of shoes before I was very apprehensive about
giving them the cleats as I thought they would not want to wear them
since they are not used to wearing cleats. Was I ever wrong!! The
kid's faces lit up so much when I brought the cleats out, they were
all beaming with the biggest smiles and were more excited to get them
than I was to give them. It was so amazing to see these kids put on
the cleats and their smiling faces, they were sharing shinguards,
putting them on upside down, tying them on with string, none of the
boys cared that some of the cleats had pink on them, they were just
in awe and amazement of getting these cleats. Thank you to those who
donated items as I cannot even began to explain how joyful the kids
were!!
We played through dinner time since the
kids were so excited and we ended up having a late dinner, during
dinner the kids lined their cleats up along the wall neatly and I
looked around and most of the kids were still wearing the cleats in
the house which they DO NOT wear shoes in the house. They wore them
while eating dinner, they were wearing them after just walking around
in them, and some wore them while doing dishes!! It was such a
blessing for me to see these kids so happy with these gifts donated
from people back home. I literally had to start telling the kids to
take the cleats off and leave them alone before they got in trouble
for wearing them in the house, a couple of them were just hovering
around the cleats and kept touching and pointing to the ones they
wore and just smiling.
Afterwards it was dinner, shower,
movie, and bedtime. Ginny and I missed the movie as we spent some
time with Kit and Ream and they were sharing with us about the
education system here in Cambodia. I will share that in another blog,
it is truly disturbing and heartbreaking to learn about how corrupt
the education system is here and they are only harming the children
which is the future of their nation.
Day 5, August 9th:
Today Kit took us to the Christian
private school that they started, it is K-6th grade. The
school is really amazing and they are only about to start their third
year. The first year was only kindergarten and it became so popular
among the villagers that they grew to K-6th their second
year. This school is such a blessing to these children, they have
Bible study first thing in the morning and then school studies the
rest of the day. The teachers here actually teach unlike at the
public schools. Kit and Ream were sharing with us about the public
school system and it astonished me at how corrupt it is. I will share
this later after I am able to visit the public school and learn more.
After we got back it was chores time
and I try to help in the afternoons with them to learn what they do.
They are amazing, the kids have crops growing that they tend to, they
have over 500 catfish that they take care of, they have goats,
rabbits, chickens, and geese. Each week the kids are assigned tasks
to complete during chore time. Some tend to the crops by watering,
hoeing, sowing, fertilizing, or pulling out weeds and grass. There
are so many different farming and cleaning tasks they are doing
daily, they are such hard workers and extremely resourceful. Today I
helped by pulling grass out of the crops which they used to feed the
rabbits. Almost everyday I try to help with something during chore
time, I have pulled weeds, fed the fish worms, chopped plants to mix
with something to feed the geese, helped pen the chickens, and a few
other things.
After chores the boys were wanting to
play soccer again, they are so funny, before they were even finished
with their chores they were putting their cleats on and then finished
working. I had brought my old coaching shirts from AFSC, the same
club that donated cleats and it just so happened that I had 9 red
shirts and one jersey donated from someone and a keeper jersey. This
fielded a team of 11 perfectly. I gave the kids the shirts today so
we could actually know who was on who's team and they just LOVED
them!!
Afterwards we had dinner, shower, Bible
study, and bedtime.
Day 6, August 10th:
Today was a special day, it started off
at English class. Since it was Friday the kids told Ginny and me that
Fridays they get to play a fun game so luckily we had something
planned a little fun planned already. I had brought some school
supplies which have come in very handy, we gave them each a coloring
page which consisted of one of the U.S. States and had little fun
facts on it. The kids colored the picture and then had to speak on
their state they had colored. They had so much fun coloring and
learning about the states. One of the girls colored Arizona, another
colored Alabama where Ginny and Laura are from, and another colored
Hawaii where Jessica was from so they all thought it was a lot of
fun.
We had decided the day prior that today
was going to be soccer day for the girls, only a couple of girls had
shown interest in playing the past few days so I wasn't sure if
enough girls would participate. The boys of course were sad because
they wanted to play. At playtime in the evening the girls put on the
cleats and jerseys and played for almost an hour!! It was so much fun
playing with the girls, the whole time it was just laughing and
giggling. The boys watched and waited for the girls to finish, some
were laughing at the girls playing and others just looked so sad that
they were not playing. It wasn't too long until the boys slowly
started taking over playing one by one.
Day 7, August 11th:
Today was a great day of getting to
travel a little and see part of the country. Kit had hired us a tuk
tuk, which is a form of a taxi, and us four girls, along with two of
the kids named Tate and Chanlay, and Sowly, one of the staff members,
went to see some ancient temple ruins and visit Sowly's family. The
temple is on the top of a hill and they have cement stairs all the
way up the hill to reach them. We had such a good time hiking around
and seeing the ruins, the view from the top was amazing. The
countryside here is so beautiful, we were told that the land used to
be full of trees like a rainforest but overtime they have cut down
most all of the trees which saddens the people but the land here is
still very beautiful.
After the ruins we went to visit
Sowly's family in a neighboring village, we were all so blessed by
them. Her family was so kind and accommodating, they kept giving us
snacks of various fruits from trees around their house, they made us
tea, fed us a delicious meal, and took us out on a pond full of
lillypad and we were in a canoe which had been carved from a tree. At
their house I had my first ride on the back of a moto, Sowly and one
of the kids that went with us wanted to go get ice from a neighbors
market so I jumped on the back of the moto with them and the three of
us rode together. I told them my mom would be very upset if she knew
I road one and without a helmet, they thought it was funny because
they do not think of safety standards here when they drive.
We were able to visit Sowly's cousin's
house, she is coming here to be a new staff member because one of the
ladies is leaving to study to be a teacher at their school. We saw
her and Sowly's family making fabric on weaving tables, their fabric
is so intricate, it amazed us all how they dye the string which they
get from silk worms and create these fabrics and scarves with such
detailed pattern and pictures. I still have no idea how they are able
to do that, but the work is so beautiful! On our way back we were
able to stop at Sowly's relative's house and purchase scarves they
made.
After a long day of travel we finally
made it back to the house and were able to play with the kids and
have movie night with them before we headed to bed.
This first week was so amazing, I was
able to see some of the countryside and get a view of how the people
here lived, and my time has mostly been filled with playing with the
kids and getting to know them and learn their names. There are 41
kids here, 4 staff members, Kit's family, and others that help out
here so there are a lot of people to meet and names to learn. Each
day I have been getting a chance to play with the kids and I
absolutely adore each one of them. I get to teach them in English
class, play games with them, and just sit and talk with them. The
kids here are so beautiful inside and out, they all have such amazing
personalities. Each child is unique and it has been a blessing to get
to know them, at times it is so hard to think about their past and
what struggles that have endured and will endure. Each child has
their own story of what brought them here and they are really
heartbreaking. I pray that I can continue to be a light and witness
for the Lord to these children and can bless them as much as they are
blessing me.
Psalms 78:3-8
3 Which we have heard and known , and our fathers have told us. 4 We
will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to
come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful
works that he hath done . 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob,
and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that
they should make them known to their children: 6 That the generation
to come might know them, even the children which should be born ; who
should arise and declare them to their children: 7 That they might
set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his
commandments: 8 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and
rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright ,
and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
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