Cambodia 2010 - I Love This Country

We'll start out the Cambodia 2010 post with some honesty... I was not planning to go on the trip this year. As close as February when the team was being formed, I was not on it. I figured I would take a break from Cambodia this summer and just relax, perhaps go to Vietnam with my brother, work on my garden, play a lot tennis and not worry about planning, packing or stuff like that. Around late April, I was starting to regret the decision a little bit, but I figured it was too late to do anything. The team had already been formed and have been prepping for a couple weeks. Well, to make a long story really short, some stuff hit the fan, and a slot opened up and I was asked if I wanted to take that slot, and with very little hesitation, I took it.

The fact that I ended up going on this trip I consider one of the biggest blessings that happened to me this year. To think that I was so close to missing this trip and missing all that happened on this trip boggles my mind.e

It's really hard to describe what we did on this trip. For the first time ever, we wanted to look at this trip as more than just a one year thing. We wanted to use this trip as a possible launching point for a longer term vision for our church's relationship with the country. The theme of this trip was 'Stories, Stories, Stories'. The idea was to create space for us to learn the stories of the people in Cambodia we would interact with. Not just the orphans (though we would spend the majority of our time with them), but with the leaders and with people we would meet in the community. The thinking behind this is that there is no way we can figure out how to serve the people of Cambodia if we didn't know anything about the people in Cambodia.



Hence, it has been a little bit odd answering the obligatory "what did your team do in Cambodia?" question that teams always get coming back from a missions trip. I don't want to say we just "hung out" and "chilled" for nine days with the orphans because... well, that just doesn't sound right for a missions trip. I mean, it doesn't sound too exciting or such a good use of resources. Mission trips are suppose to be hard, busy and hectic. But in a way, that's kind of the truth, we kind of just hung out with the orphans for most of the trip. It's true that we also did some teaching, a couple of short Bible studies, and some computer work, but the majority of the time, especially the the last couple days, we just hungout and engaged the orphans.

Honestly, i'm a little nervous what people think when people read this and find out we just "hung out" in Cambodia. I mean, I'll even admit that sounds a little odd and impractical... When we were planning this trip, one of the jokes was to not plan anything and just let it be "spirit led". Last year, what the Cambodians told us they wanted us to do, they never really wanted us to do it. Last year they changed the schedule on us so much, that we had were left scrambling in terms of what to do each day. So this year, we joked about not planning anything and just see what God leads us to do there. Living on prayers... The ironic thing is, that's kind of what happened. We shucked the schedule and itinerary just a few days into the trip and just went freestyle. (For more details, see my Guerrilla Warfare post I put up during the trip)

Disclaimer... We did plan for this trip. We planned a lot for it. I don't want to make it sound like we were irresponsible and careless in our planning. That was not the case.

My hope with this blog is to share these stories with as much people as possible.... so here we go.

Story 1 : Motorbikes and Bicycles
It's neat the things we can pick up by just being part of Cambodian society. To be Cambodian means to be familiar with two things, bikes and football. The first story involves motos and bicycles.

As I mentioned in my Guerrilla Warfare blog from Cambodia, we 'embedded' ourselves into some of the orphan's lives for a few days. That meant we did what they did, ate what they ate, went where they went. When they went to the bathroom, we went to the bathroom. To be part of a Cambodians life is to be acquainted with a motorbike. Bikes and mopeds are the number one choice of transportation in the country. Especially getting around the city, bikes are super convenient and efficient.



Most all of the older orphans have motorbikes or regular bikes. The type of bike an orphan has usually depends on the generosity of the orphan's sponsor. Some orphans have really good sponsors and they have motorbikes, laptops, phones and all sorts of good stuff. Other orphans have cheap sponsors and they have just normal bikes or no bike. It really is a crapshoot, i always thought a system like that would breed jealousy and envy, but I sensed none of that amongst the orphans. I sensed that there is real genuine sense of appreciation of just getting anything from anybody.

I asked one of the orphans what they do when they need something they don't have. They say they pray to God for it. One orphan told me he had to pray for two years to get a laptop he really needed. Imagine that. I think one of the greatest shames of being middle-class American is that we'll never know what it means to truly depend on God for something. And because of that, we do not know how to fully appreciate all we actually have in this life. And that is a damn shame.

Story 2 : Futball and Faith
To be Cambodian means to love futball. (Actually, i guess to be any other nationality other than American means to love futball... anyways...) These kids play futball at least once a week and the orphanage actually has a team that play against neighborhood kids. It was somewhat fortuitous timing, since we were in Cambodia the same time the World Cup was going on in Africa. That gave us an easy ice breaker with most of the people we met. Our driver for the trip would greet us each morning with results from the previous nights games. He would say things like "Goodbye England", "Goodbye Argentina!", "Bye Bye Salinas!" as a way of telling us the scores.



We took in a professional soccer match in the CSL (Cambodia Soccer League). The field they play on is pretty ghetto, but they have cool uniforms. This has absolutely nothing to do with the story, but i just thought you guys should know. Rose Bowl the field is not, but that is just the way they do things in Cambodia.

The team itself got a chance to ply it's trade in soccer as well. I dunno how they do it, but the kids somehow manage to play ball in this weather. Their usual 4PM to evening activity is futball. There is a field about five minutes away from the student center that the orphans play on against the village kids. The field is a dirt field next to a small stream that may or may not have left over landmines in it from the war. Here are some pictures of our team 'playing' soccer.


Left : Some of the kids getting ready to play soccer. I don't know how it is that all Cambodian kids just seem to be naturally good at the sport.
Right : Chris on the field that we played on.


Left : Here is some of our team getting ready to play ball!
Right : Here is me, about ten minutes later, about to die.

The kids use these soccer games as an opportunity to evangelize and share Jesus with the village kids. I don't know why this surprised me, but it surprised me. They talk of sharing Jesus as if it was a normal everyday activity and they do it with such confidence and ease..... which come to think of it, shouldn't this be normal everyday behavior for all of us?

It was not only the soccer, but other areas of life as well. They tell me that sometimes when non-Christian affiliated mission teams come to help, they try to share the gospel with them. I asked one of the older kids about why they do this and they said it's because that is what God calls them to do.

I think one of the most ironic things about this trip is the Bible lessons we had planned for the orphans. Part of our vision of the trip was to teach the orphans to be missional, to make them become healthy contributing members of society. We had studies planned from the gospel about bearing fruit, about the Good Samaritans, etc etc. We thought we were prepared, but we weren't. After hanging around with these kids just a few days, it was obvious we could learn something from them about being missional, about being bold, unafraid and unashamed. About sharing the gospel. They could have taught us lots more than we can ever teach them. And that is the sad truth.

Story 3 : Conversations
The Cambodian way of life is just so different than the American way of life. In America, we're always taught that we need to occupy every single moment of our days with stuff to do. We can't have any downtime. We are in the world of high-technology which enables us to do ten things at once and with our laptops, iphones, ipad, and facebook. We're more connected and more efficient than ever. In Cambodia, the pace of life is a lot slower. People take naps, people are not rushing, and take more enjoyment in the simple things. Some of my favorite parts of the trip was just sitting around to chat or joke around. Many an afternoons, after the tutoring and the studying was done, we just sat around and chatted. At first it was a little awkward, as both sides got to know each other, but after the first day everything became very natural.



It's amazing how quickly we were able to reach deep levels in conversations. At first, we talked about things like school and soccer, but after a while we would start talking about more serious things. There were two main themes in most of these discussions. The first is the tragic backgrounds. Almost each kid has a past that is enough to reduce a person to tears. I think the interesting thing is how freely and how openly these kids talk about their past. They talk about things like their parents dying from HIV, parents committing suicide, or their parents getting murdered as if they were talking about the weather. Heart wrenching stories told with little or no feeling.

The second main theme of discussion was about overcoming the past. Almost all orphans talk about how blessed and fortunate they are to have been delivered from that past and into the orphanage where they are loved and provided for by God (through sponsors and caretakers). And I think part of the reason why these kids are able to talk so freely about the past is because most of overcome it and it's behind them. They no longer dwell on it and it's beyond them and they can focus on the future.

It's funny, I thought that by the end of the trip, the orphans would be sick and tired of us, but they were not. Some of them welcome the chance to practice their English, others just wanted to talk.

Story 4 : The Anatomy of the Bulldozer
One of the orphans I got to know fairly well was this kid named Paul. The guy is a civil engineering major studying at a local university. I met him for the first time during our initial tutoring sessions. Our first day at the student center the guys on the team walked into the front door and pretty much declared ourselves geniuses in every single subject known to man. We told the orphans to bring their academic problems to us and we will make them disappear.

This turned out to be much harder than we expected. Much harder. Some of the kids needed help in English and Math, but some of the subjects like statistics and engineering that our team had no idea what to do with. I was lucky (or unlucky) to get Paul. Paul was a civil engineering major and he asked me for some help on computers. So I said sure. And the next thing I knew we were in front of a computer and he pulls out a document about bulldozers and construction vehicles, his task was to identify the various parts of a bulldozer and create a PowerPoint presentation.... yeah.

It is at moments like this where i have to step back and just thank God for Google. Obviously, i know nothing about construction vehicles. Nothing. But luckily, Google knows everything. After a couple hours and a few clever searches on Google and Google Photos, we somehow had a presentation about bulldozers and construction vehicles... Of all the things we did in Cambodia, this presentation is one of the things I'm most secretly proud of.

The best part of it was that the guy did the presentation in front of his class that evening and he got a 95% on it. Yes. Yes I am that good.



That is the aforementioned, bulldozer presentation.

Story 5 : The Strange State of Technology

From the above story, the one thing I took away from it is that it provides another lesson about the growth of Cambodia. Sometimes, I feel that the country of Cambodia is growing so fast that people are getting left behind. The technical growth of the country has been pretty stunning. Having been there the last three years, i can see it happening. The first year I was there, I saw very little evidence of anything technical, there was no computers at the orphanage or anything. When we came last year, I saw a little more technology. The orphanage had a computer lab, but the computers in the lab was not connected to the Internet. This year, the orphanage was completely wired, the computer lab was wired, most of the university students had laptop.... All the kids knew how to use Facebook and the Internet. I was pretty amazed.



Cambodia technology is in an interesting place. The country is getting more and more wired each day. Especially in the cities, you can find a hot spot in most cafes/coffee shops. The orphanage is wired, both hotels we stayed in were wired. The internet is a little bit slow, but i can't complain.

I think the one thing that is lacking now is how to best use this technology. An example of this is from the previous story. You know how I used Google to pull all that information about bulldozers? We had to do that because the kid knew nothing about how to do searches on the internet. He had this top of the line laptop from his sponsor, but he literally had no idea how to use it, except other than to do Word documents and play solitaire. He knew nothing about sites like Google, Youtube, virus protection, email, very basic things like that. When i showed him how easy it was to look up answers to some of the questions he needs on Google, he was amazed. I then showed him how he can learn things like using powerpoint on Youtube and he was even more amazed. The next day when I came back to help him, I saw him searching for things on Google... it was as if a whole new world had opened up to him. In terms of the tutoring I did, I think that might be the most important thing I taught any of the orphans.

Story 6 : Kim Sophal
Let me tell you a little more about Paul. The kid's Cambodian name is Sophal AKA Paul AKA the bulldozer guy. He was one of the orphans I got to know the best, since I spent a lot of time working with him on his engineering projects. When Sophal was five years old he was sold by his parents to a Chinese family to work as a servant. So at the age of five, he was waking up at five AM in the morning to cook food for the family, clean the house, and feed the dog. He didn't goto school, he didn't play with the other kids, he had no child hood. He pretty much was a slave from five to the age of fifteen. At the age of fifteen, his parents died (not sure how), and he was released from his contract from the family. From there God lead him to New Hope and he has been there for the last ten years or so.



This kid is amazing in many respects. He comes from almost no educational background to studying civil engineering (in ten years!). The skills he learned as a slave (like cooking) he uses now to serve the orphanage (the kids take turns cooking meals and they say he is one of the best cooks). But I think the most amazing is that there seems to be not one trace of bitterness in him. We had many conversations during my time in Cambodia and not once did he say anything bad about his parents or the Chinese family that enslaved him. He never complained. Instead, his outlook was really positive. He talked about things like prayer and how he believes in it. He tells the story of how he prayed for a whole year for a bike before he finally got one. He was the one who told me the story about witnessing to non-Christian teams that come through the orphanage. He talks about his sister Lily in the province. He talks about his dreams of becoming an engineer and helping rebuild the country. And the kid studies really hard. He has books upon books on engineering, math, physics all that stuff. He tells me he doesn't use Facebook cause it's a waste of time.

He faces a lot of the struggles that most of the orphans face (like resources and friends), but this does not change his outlook on life. I love this kid, he was one of my favorites in Cambodia.

Story 7 : A 90's Arcade
We take a break from the serious stuff to show you some pictures from different parts of our trip. First of all, one evening, we took all the orphans to an arcade.


Left : Me. Playing my favorite arcade game. Time Crisis. Yes.
Right : Because lots of Cambodians are short, they have stools in front of each arcade console.


Left : Me, Victor and another orphan playing air hockey.
Right : Dance Revolution.


Left : The kids all crowding around some game
Right : The older kids playing Street Fighter


Left : Basketball
Right : More game machines

Story 8 : BBQ Finale
This is becoming an annual tradition, but as we did last year, we had a BBQ for all the orphans on the last day of the trip. This year's party was slightly more subdued than last year's due to heavy rainfall and another missions team that was there, but it was fun nonetheless. The BBQ is always one of the best moments of the trip.


This was what the orphanage looked like a couple hours before the BBQ. Heavy rain. Flooded.


Left : The BBQ pit.
Right : The food. The chicken was really good. The corn on the cob, not so good.


Food preparation.


Left : Group pictures
Right : More group pictures


The kids did a dance for us


Happy Kids!


More Happy Kids! This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip.

Story 9 : To Infinity ... And Beyond
The question we ask after every tripe is. "Where do we go from here?" What happens after this trip? At the end of this trip we have all these stories, but what do we do with them? And when we leave, do these kids even remember us? Or are we like the wind, that just comes and goes?

Being the cynical person that I am, I have a tendency to think that these kids will forget us the moment we step onto the airplane. But when I fall into this cynical state, one story reminds me that this might not be the case.

Last year we met a girl named Sreynin. She's about ten years old, was skinny as a pole and knew no English. It's hard to describe her personlity, but she had this type of quiet spunkiness about her. I remember her because everytime I was around, she always wanted to hangout with me. I nicknamed her "Number 10" because she wore a #10 jersey and because I couldn't remember her name. And she liked the nickname, cause by end of last year's trip, she started called herself that. Here she is from last year on the last day of our BBQ. From last year to this year, she grew at least half a feet, maybe more.



Coming back this year, I was wondering if little Sreynin would remember me. She not only remembered, but she remembered the nickname. When I first saw her this year, she came up to me and said "number 10". Picture on the left is from the BBQ last year, picture on the right is from the BBQ this year. Her english from last year to this year improved a lot. But that means she went from knowing hardly any english, to knowing very little. Last year I couldn't say much to her, but this year we actually had a real conversation. It went like this

Me : What is your favorite food?
Syrenin : My favorite food is soda
Me : Umm. Okay. What is your second favorite food?
Syrenin : My second favorite food is coke

I know it don't sound like much, but it was a ground breaking conversation. When talking to the younger orphans, that's usually as good as it's gonna get. I watched her drink three cans of soda that night. It's because they get soda so rarely than when it does become available they must go all out (something i'm sure we're all familiar with).

Why am I sharing this story for you? If a little girl can remember a visit from a year ago when the relationship consisted of just laughter and playing together, I wonder what happens to those relationship that consisted more of that. IE, the relationships that were formed this year. The most exciting thing i see is that the relationships we formed this year, they are still being formed right now. Since getting back, we've had numerous conversations with the kids via skype, instant message, facebook and email. We've even done a video conference with them a couple of times. And this is pretty awesome. Technology has allowed us to build on the relationships that we started in Cambodia.

I'm already looking forward to next year to see the kids again....

Story 10 : Coming Home
I'm gonna close with this. This is the first year where I was not looking forward to coming home. I am a big 'home' person. I love my home. Last year, the trip was amazing and fun, but I remember thinking during our BBQ on the last evening that 'I love it here, but I'm ready to go home'. This year it's funny, at the exact point of the trip (last evening BBQ), I remember sitting on the swings thinking 'Wow, i'm not exactly looking forward to going home.' This was the first year that coming home did not really appeal to me that much. Going back to work and adjusting back to 'normal life' was not as easy as it was the last couple of years. Six weeks later, for better or for worse, i've pretty much 100% back into the normal flow of things (whether this is a good thing or not, I don't know). But still, there are moments where I wonder about some of the orphans in Cambodia, I wonder about their testing and their schooling and their lives and I start praying for them. I've really been trying to pray for the orphans there at least once a week at least and that has helped me keep their memory fresh in my mind.

Well. That's it. Sorry this blog took so long to get out. Hopefully you enjoyed reading about our stories, and more hopefully, you're inspired to do more! My only regret is that I don't have the time to tell you even more stories about the trip. On behalf of the team, thanks everyone for reading!