somtoh.....

somtoh somtoh somtoh (sorry)...i've been awful at writing on here lately! I definetely need to update! The past month has been so crazy and busy! At the end of September we went to the coastal town of Sihanoukville. We stayed at a super cute hotel for $9 a night each and hung out on the beach and went and saw some waterfalls. It was kinda rainy but that didn't dampen our moods. We met up with our new friend Charlotte and hung out with her quite a bit too.
Since being back in Phnom Pehn I've been very busy at work doing report cards and trying to get ahead in my planning. Me and Kim are just getting over being sick...we think Kim caught a weak strain of dengue fever. I had a fever for a couple days but it went away.
Last weekend we got together with a whole bunch of other Canadians and celebrating thanksgiving with a huge feast...even pumpkin pie! It was great! We had a scary ride home on a moto though as someone speeding by on another moto tried to grab Kim's purse and almost pulled us and our driver over into traffic. It was quite the scare and reminded us just how careful we need to be.
There is now officially a family of rats that live at our gate. There is hardly a day that goes by that I don't see one or two. We have also discovered.... to our horror...that the wierd squeaks we hear at night are bats outside our window. Those of you who don't know me that well....I am PETRIFIED of flying animals..ie birds and bats. This is not good news...not at all. Further news with animals...there are two very cute little kittens that live on the roof outside our back window but are very very scared of white faces and "here kitty kitty kitty" and run away. The dogs have stopped barking at night which is AWESOME.
I am continuing to love my life and adventures here. I walk home from school everyday and just take it all in. The crazy traffic, the stares, the people doing wierd things (yesterday me and kim saw some ladies shaving another lady's back..no lie).
Oh yeah and my teacher assistant Sichan and her husband adopted (well not officially but nothing is here) a baby girl from a very poor family that lives up near the Thai border. The family had no money and it was the sixth girl under 12 years old. So Sichan and her husband drove up there and gave the family and community money and food and took the baby home. Her name is Sotheary which is a very common name here. She is beautiful and only 3 weeks old. Sichan is loving being a mother and talks about her all the time. Its the most beautiful thing to see....she gave this family and the community all of her money and even borrowed some from her aunt. Everytime I think about it I am floored by her compassion and giving heart. I wish you could all meet her. She inspires me to be a better person. I am so thankful that God gave her to me this year at school.

renewed inspiration

I've always been inspired by people's stories....especially those of humble beginnings who went on to do great and life changing things with nothing but their simple faith and obedience in God. Missionaries stories have always touched my heart..maybe because something inside me hopes that one day people might talk of my life with that same inspiration.

I wasn't expecting to be challenged at church yesterday...as horrible as that may be.  God had other plans though..like He always does. Marilee Dunker, the daughter of Bob Pierce who founded World Vision spoke. What an amazing story she told of her father going to China as a young man and God impressing upon his heart the great need for both spiritual and physical aid to those living in poverty and hopelessness.  Marilee said that her father's prayer as he started out was simply this:

May my heart break with what breaks yours Lord.

Wow. Not an easy prayer. Can you imagine! This world....so full of suffering, cruelty, injustice, poverty and hopelessness. I don't think my pitiful human heart could withstand the burden...the million pieces of brokeness...the overwhelming heartache that God has for the people of this world.

As daunting and overwhelming a challenge it may be though...that's what I desire. Only then will I be able to love God's people the way they were meant to be loved. Only then will I be living not for myself and what I may gain in this world...but for others. That others may know the joy and hope that floods my soul and gives me reason to live. 

God is passionately in love with every single person in this world. Every single person in Cambodia.  I am surrounded by them everyday. The storekeepers, the moto drivers, the women living on the streets with their babies, the guy that works at the internet cafe, the girls that sell us fruit. He loves them all!! My heart bursts with "God loves you! Preah Ang sro lyung neyek!" That simply phase has more potential for giving life than anything else. 

We make life complicated..full of excuses..centered around ourselves.....what we are going to do or who we are going to marry. Where we are going to live...if only we'd stop and for once realize that maybe just maybe....life isn't about all that at all. Have you ever truly considerd that there just might be more to existence that our perfect, cozy, wealthy  little lives back home?

Yesterday I re-focused. My purpose was made clear. I was inspired.    

we love science!

Math and reading...boring. Boring to teach and i can't imagine that much fun to learn either. But science..now that's grabs their attention. My students can't get enough of learning about everything from hurricanes and tornadoes, how a tadpole becomes a frog, the solar system and sharks...just some of the topics we discussed this week. OFFICIALLY we are learning about plants in Science. Today we drew pictures of the 5 stages in a plant's life...their interpretations of what a plant looks like when it dies is priceless and a clear indicators that they watch WAY too much tv..haha.
Every morning we have half an hour of circle time...we all sit around in a circle and talk. They love to tell me about their weekends of excitement goin to Lucky Burger for supper or playing with friends or siblings but what they like the most is when I read to them. Forget about little kids story books...they are SO too old for that. They want books with facts and information with big words that they can go home to their parents and ramble on about stuff they probably won't understand. Today for instant...I've never answered so many questions about blizzards in my LIFE! Snow and Canada is so enchanting to them...our favorite thing to do is look at the globe and the different countries. And the question of that day.."If God made everything in the world..then He must of made tornadoes but why? They destroy stuff and hurt people." Uh.......uh.......good question!
Dara...my other favorite besides Souvith...puts his hand up with the answer for ANY question I ask...regardless of whether he actually knows the answer. When I do call on him....he puts his finger to his lips and goes "uummmmmmm" and then shoots up his finger into the air and blurts out a completely random(usual wrong) but absolutely adorable answer with his cute little lisp. Hands down..its the cutest thing in the entire world. When he gets really excited or upset his lisp gets worse....to the point where i can't understand what he says and spit is flying everywhere. He is best friends with Bonn..the kid with the rat tail and big lips. They make a funny pair.
SeeChan my amazing assistant in my class was gone all week to Singapore...a friend of hers from there paid for her to come visit! How exciting for her! Her first time on an airplane...she was so nervous. I assured her that everything would be fine. But I have missed her! I can't wait to hear her stories!

brownies in a frying fan.....?

so..i'm a good cook. so is kim. I just didn't know how AMAZING of cooks we were until last night. Let me set this up for you. We have no oven. We miss ovens. We miss baking. We miss baking brownies.....but did that get in the way of us doing it anyways? no.
We were at Lucky yesterday...our friendly neighbourhood air conditioned, organized grocery store. Our favorite shelf is the sale items..stuff that's near its due date but still perfectly fine to ingest. Nothing new was really on it..the same old things that clearly no one is going to but until they jack down the price again. So of course we are over by the ice cream freezer...we know our way around it pretty good:) Out of the corner of my eye I see betty crocker and hersey's chocolate coming from inside a box. Curious as I am..I opened the box to find betty crockers double chocolate fudge brownies with real hersey's chocolate...or something like that. AND..it had just been reduced in price to $2. so of course we bought it....not really fully realizing that we'd have no way to bake it. Do not dispare...we worked around it. I mean...if it'll cook in the pan in the oven you must be able to fry it in a pan..kinda like scrambled eggs. Did it work? of course. Was it amazing and gooey? you bet. What would we do without our beloved frying pan? i do not know. It has become our wok, toaster, oven dish and pot all in one.
Oh and there is another tom gon-dol (big rat) living by the front gate. It scared the crap out of us when we got home from Lucky. Our screams called the attention of the moto drivers down at the end of the street. One guy even drove over...turned off his moto and came in to try and catch it. Between my knowledge of the word for big (tom) and Kim's actions of a tail and big teeth..they caught on what we were scared of. Hahaha...oh man. We are convinced that we provide more entertainment for the moto drivers down the street than they've ever had in their lives. They are in thralled with everything we do. We've made up nicknames for them all if we don't know their names. There is Run...the ring leader who often drives Kim to work and says "wow" in a super annoying and creepy voice at every little thing that happens....Kim calls him her man servant There is Tdill...Kim's not so secret crush who is mixed up with yes and no but has the cutest smile EVER. Then we have Ace Ventura...spitting image of Jim Carrey with an Asian twist. Darth...the guy who always wears a huge black helmet. Mask...the old guy who always has a surgical mask on to keep out all that Phnom Penh pollution that fills my lungs each day. And Glasses...the guy with the coke bottled black rimmed glasses that saved us from the rat. Oh and Soka...he's such a nice man with a big smile and a helping hand. They are our friends and look out for us even though none of them really speak English. I don't know what we'd do without of Street 63 moto men....and our frying pan:)

Our weekend out in the country

It was a wonderful weekend. Kim and I decided we needed a break from Phnom Pehn and there is no where more relaxing in all of Cambodia than the orphanage I taught at last fall. So we took a tuktuk (with a short stop at the airport for a DQ blizzard) out to Place of Rescue...a 45 minute ride out into the country. Rice fields, sugar palm trees, cows and country folk. It was a beautiful day..not a cloud in the sky. The dirt road from Baek Chan (a village outside of Phnom Penh) to the orphanage is one pothole after another....I think Racachu thought his tuktuk was gonna fall apart.
We helped Grandma ice cakes for the birthday party and then she took us down to the baby house. Two brand new babies....one was only 15 days old. They were precious. Their moms were young girls who came to Rescue pregnant and alone. They lived at the orphanage until the babies were born then left them there....wonderful futures are in store for these two little ones.
And I am so excited because within the next couple of years adoptions out of Cambodia to Canada will again be possible!!!! The thought of coming back here one day to bring a little baby home to love and give a future to gives me such joy and excitement!
Me and Kim have also been throwing around the idea of getting our names in Khmer tattooed on our feet when we get home...although I'll need a bit more convincing I think:)
The birthday party was a blast as usual. The kids were thrilled to have Kim and I there.
We slept over up at Grandma's house...no fans..no AC...no sleep. We woke up at 5 and got ready for church...had a nice morning chat with Grandma out on the veranda.
We went to New Life church this morning. Some of the kids from the orphange came too...their reward for memorizing verses. Its a Khmer church with an American pastor and an OUT OF THIS WORLD worship team that does Hillsong in Khmer. Its amazing. I just stood there..tears rolling down my cheeks as I watched the Cambodians singing...crying out to God....praying for their friends....overwhelmed by His love for them and their country. It was so encouraging and challenging. The poverty and seemingly hopeless situations that daily face Cambodia pale in comparison to what I know God is doing and has the power to do here. God is here....big time.

finding my place...

That has been the story of my time here in Cambodia thus far. Where do I fit? What am I doing here? Am I helping and serving? Do I feel alive and full of joy?
I had many expectations coming back to Cambodia. What it was going to be like...how I was going to feel. Teaching at the orphanage and experiencing all I saw here was heartbreaking and eye-opening and what I thought was a "real" third world country experience. I saw people dying, starving, Aids stricken....living in a garbage dump. I saw the inside of prisons and remote villages....I spent hours a day on a tuktuk....and I felt alive in every sense. I felt awakened to emotions I'd never felt before and to realities I thought only existed on National Geographic and World Vision commercials. I felt joy in teaching those orphan children and giving them love and attention.
So I come back here and walk 5 blocks to work everyday to a beautiful new school filled with children who have PARENTS and pools and fancy backpacks and talk of their weekends at their beach houses....this is NOT what Cambodia was suppose to be like! And I did not feel like I wanted to feel!
So its been a journey. Coming to the realization that I am indeed back in Cambodia. And although my helping and serving looks vastly different...I can allow God to use me in the same way and capture my heart with the same joy and aliveness that I had before.
I may be teaching the wealthy class children and although they have everything given to them...I am beginning to realize that these children are in just as much need of love and attention. Most of them don't even see their parents all week. They've been raised by nannies or relatives who care little to see the pictures they've colored or math problems they've solved at school. It breaks my heart to hear them talk with such excitement that they ACTUALLY get to see their mom this weekend.
This time my adventure looks quite different. In almost everyway. But it's an adventure all the same and I know with certainty that God can and will use me as I teach and love the future of Cambodia.

the rat

This is how it went down. Cheetit from my school called to say he was bringing us a new water jug..actually he can't speak English but somehow i understood. So i went down to open the gate and wait for him. I unlocked the gate and swung it opened. From behind me came the most awful squeal/cry/screech I've ever heard. I wheeled around to find a RAT in all its disgusting glory...wriggling around on this make shift trap that the downstairs neighbors had rigged up. A plate with poison and crazy sticky glue. So there it was...fighting its little bum off trying to get free. I screamed and started yelling at Kim to come down. So she books it downstairs..barefeet and all. She runs out and almost steps on the thing. She screams so loud and runs out of the gate and CLIMBS....yes CLIMBS onto the hood of an SUV parked in front. Only then does she realize that there is a little old Cambodian man sitting inside the vehicle and looking at her like she's crazy. By this time the ENTIRE street had stopped and is staring at us...people on motos even. So this nice girl that lives beside us came over to see what the problem was and she moved the rat out of the way into a corner..to die. It was absolutely hilarious and disgusting and embarrassing. Later on it poured..like torrental downpour. We went down to see if it had drowned but it was still wriggling away...mournfully crying out for help. This morning it was dead.....but the story lives on.

I saw beauty today...

Another week gone by and a great weekend has pasted and I find myself on a beautifully hot Tuesday afternoon. No rain today so far. My kids got to go swimming this afternoon for the first time..its usually raining in the afternoons. They were super pumped...Richard told me about a game they play called "eel"....pretty much they just swim around and catch each other. hahaha.
Richard is the smartest 6 year old I've ever met. Today he was able to explain gravity to the class better than I could...put me right in my place. See Chan my assistant was killing herself laughing. She's so great...somedays I think she should be the one up at the front and not me. I am humbled by her willingness to serve. She inspires me. Her warmth and smile are inviting. Her love for the children is so evident. Beautiful. She is beautiful.

Its really cool getting to know the kids more..their personalities....the things they do constantly that annoy the heck out of me....the things they love to do.
When I was in Cambodia in the fall and teaching out at the orphanage..it was amazing how the children there were so different yet so that same as children back home. Even though they had entirely different backgrounds and upbringings (most of them tragic and heart-breaking) and in a culture COMPLETELY different than our own....God still makes children all with the same heart. The same innocence. The same amazement at the world. Teaching at Heritage..where I'm teaching children who all come from extremely wealthy Cambodian families, I see it more and more.
This "universalness." This sameness. Its brings me both joy and comfort and amazement at our Heavenly Father.
It brings all new meaning to the song I sung as a little girl..."Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white. They are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world. "

Those big brown eyes....

Sovith. He's my favorite. Is that bad? I don't care. I've never seen such cuteness inside such a small six year old body. He's beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful child I've ever seen. Beautiful brown skin....the littlest nose...but the biggest brownest eyes I've ever seen. He probably weighs 50 pounds soaking wet and isn't much taller than my waist....Cambodians tend to be on the smallish, shortish side. He sits in the front of my class at the Tiger table. They all made up names for their tables....the snakes, lions, cheetahs, leopards and tigers.
I can't help but just watch him. I could sit there for hours and just watch him try and read to himself. He's just SO CUTE! And such a good speller...always done his math questions first.
He made my day today. Just his presence. He doesn't know it....but perhaps for the first time since I've been here....I was happy.
I tell ya....its those big brown eyes.

Massages, DVD Players and Pizza Company!

Well I made to the weekend. My first two days of teaching were chaos. My students are almost all Khmer with a few Koreans. They all have the cutest names...Yuki, Sovith, Chantara, Vireak...LONG. And his twin brother Leng is in the other grade 1 class and they are OFF THE WALL. Not too sure how I'm gonna handle him all year. We've already done some science experiments with water and floating. Read lots of books..they love Dr. Seuss. They all can't say my name so they just call me "Teacha" and show me every little thing they draw or color.
I am still feeling very overwhelmed and anxious about it all but each day gets easier and more enjoyable.
Our nights in Cambodia have been rough. I've had anxiety attacks and nightmares although praise the Lord Kim hasn't had any night terrors or sleep walking incidents..yet. The neighborhood dogs seriously bark all night. Earplugs are not really drowning them out so we're getting used to going to bed around 8 so that when we are awoken at 3 am we have already had almost enough hours of sleep to sustain us thru the next day.
We had a super fun weekend. Friday night we went to The Tamarind for supper. Its this gorgeous Meditteranean restuarant with a rooftop patio. We had delicious samosas and chwarmas and hummus. On Saturday we walked to In-Style Spa and got glorious one hour full body massages for $10. Then we tuktuked it over to Sorea Mall and had lunch at Pizza Company.
We even found a DVD player and an awesome DVD/CD store....6 for $10. We decided to have a girls night and we ate left over cold pizza and watched Made of Honor on my great big king size bed. Just for a moment...we may have forgotten we were in Cambodia. Then we would hear the dogs bark...an angry shout in Khmer...the sound of a moto drive by below and it all would be real again. Sometimes I find it hard to believe I'm here again. SOOOOO many things remind me of my last time here with Brittany and Kristie. It makes me miss them and the fun memories we made here. Its good though...it helps me remember and relive and I like that.
Sometimes I wish I was seeing it all through fresh eyes. The excitement of it all for the first time. But theres a comfort in familiarity and the longer I'm here...it all comes flooding back.

Each day gets better!

Yesterday was the first day that I liked being back. Its hard to say that...I feel like I'm expected to love being back and living here. I guess I expected it from myself. It wasn't there at first though. All I wanted to do was go home. Back to familiarity and normalness. Back to Matt. I miss him terribly. Me and Kim are hoping to get a laptop and internet at our apartment so it would make it alot easier to call home on Skype. So back to yesterday. We went to market and bought some more things for our apartment. I took her to the "pile" shop which is what me, Kristie and Brittany had affectionately called our favorite clothes store. Its just a HUGE mound of clothes and then bags more stuffed along the side. Straight from the factories. We found Hollister jeans for $14!! SO awesome. So buying some clothes definetly made us feel better. Then we went to Bohhdi Tree for supper which was one of my favorite restuarants. AND I saw Mong who used to be one of our fav tuktuk drivers! But of course...when I asked him how much to give us a ride me said.."Whatever you think"! AUUGGHHH. Brittany and Kristie...Mong is STILL the same. I have yet to call up Kong..another one of our tuktuk drivers. Hopefully he remembers me:) We also got a washing machine installed so Kim was busy today washing clothes. What a great roommate:)
Today was my first day at work. Very overwhelming. But exciting. I have 26 1st grade students and a wonderful assistant called See Chan. She's gonna be my lifesaver! Thursday is the first day the kids come...we've just been getting things organized. It is going to be a challenging year I think....I never knew being a REAL teacher was so much work. Oh well. I know I can do it. OK...I'm heading home to make supper with Kim. We still haven't found househelp so we've been cooking ourselves. I've never ate such odd mismatched meals in my life...hahaha...oh man.

So I'm finally here.

I'm here. Kampuchea. Or atleast that's what the locals call Cambodia. Wow. Where do I start. We arrived in Phnom Pehn last week. It was almost dark and pouring rain. The shock of seeing dark faces and motos everywhere was much less shocking than I thought it would. Everything felt familiar....but strange. Everything was as I remembered it but somewhat intimidating. Oh if only I could have been seeing everything through Kim's eyes. What a different picture it would have been....chaos.
We live on street 288. A much busier street than I lived on before. This one is actually paved and there is somewhat of a sidewalk even! Stepping into our apartment that first night...we were shocked. The ghettoness of it is hard to describe. Our kitchen has a SMALL fridge, two propane gad burners, a sink and a counter about 5 cm long. Today we had a washing machine installed beside the sink so when we aren't washing clothes it will probably be used as counter space. There is two bedrooms. One is like massively big..the other is roughly the size of a closet. So we moved both beds..both king sized beds... into the big room and use the other room as our "spare bedroom".....hahaha. Actually all that is in there is a broken lamp and an ironing board that is so dirty and stained I wouldn't dream of bringing my clothes anywhere near it. It's scary. Our bathroom is alright except one of the like 25 taps jutting haphazardly from the wall leaks like crazy so the floor is permentantly wet. Our living room is better now that we rearranged. We are gonna try and find Febreeze to spray down the couch and hopefully buy some fabric to replace the dirty strained curtains. BUT we have cable TV!! Its been our saving grace. We are already addicted to "Star World"..its an English channel that plays Friends like all day long..and other good shows.
We've only encountered one mouse so far. Kim killed it with her journal so we stuffed the huge massive hole in our bedroom wall with a bandana to deter further rodents from finding their way in. Oh and a huge dead rat on the road. I almost stepped on it.
Our first 4 or 5 days have been really tough. We haven't really gotten any help from anyone so we've had to figure out alot of stuff on our own. We finally got cell phones...they even threw in some Nokia hats for free. They are quite possibly the funniest/ugliest hats ever. I wonder if it was a joke. Probably not.
Cambodia had a national election yesterday and we haven't really heard how it all went but we stayed inside all day..it was a long day. The last couple days have been a little scary here..lots of demonstrations and parades. Soldiers. A much different vibe than when I was here last. So we hope that everything with the election went well and life can get back to normal.
We got to go out to the orphanage that I taught at on Saturday night for the July birthday party. It was the best feeling in the world to see all those kids again. They were SO surprised!! They had no idea I was coming. The looks on their faces was priceless. Kim was beyond impressed at how I knew all their names....and how to pronounce them...hehehe.
I start my teaching job tomorrow. We have two days of inservice and then the first day of school is on Thursday. I'm teaching grade 1 which is pretty exciting. They are all Cambodian..mostly from wealthy families and they speak English!!! YEAH!!! And there is a pool that staff can use on the evenings and weekends...something me and Kim will take full advantage of.
Surprisingly I don't have that many funny stories yet. They will come though. That I am sure of.