It snowed in Phnom Penh!

From delivering school kits to a school in the province

Hello all. Need to update the past week and get some really great photos up to you all.
Last Saturday was a very great day for Steph, Julia and I, as we got to accompany some other staff members who were going out to a school in the province of Takeo, to take out 500 donated school kits to the kids there. We have a Khmer TA on staff, Srey, who is from this province and has relatives who teach at the school. She is friends with our kindergarten teacher, Polly Yoder, who went out to visit and stay for a few days last year, and looked into the school rooms and was taken aback at how little they had. Hence, the dream to give 500 of those school children, Grades K-5, a kit with notebooks, rulers, pencils, color pencils, erasers and tracts. Her family back in Pennsylvania fundraised the money to do it, some goods were shipped over from the states (the rest purchased here) and the date was set Sat. Jan 24 to go out there. (Yes Khmer kids go to school 6 days a week. Their only day off is Sunday.)
Originally I knew about the project, and helped just a little bit with the kit packing, but was not going out with the team. However, space opened up on the van and I was invited to go, and could bring ONE of my daughters. Ended up taking 2 of my daughters (couldn't choose) and there was plenty of room for them.
So, were we blessed. Lines and lines and lines of beautiful Khmer children walked from their classrooms to the front building, sat and listened while their principal talked, Polly talked and shared the gospel in front of the whole audience, including a monk. It was a pretty special time. (they served us all coconuts for beverage!)
In groups, we went up and down the rows, handing out the bags of school supplies, stamping hands and saying "Yay su sraline, p'own." Jesus loves you.

From delivering school kits to a school in the province

What a great experience for the girls. THey were really involved and like doing this kind of stuff. We toured a classroom afterwards, and visited some of Srey's relatives in their home. I tell ya, what a great way for children to grow up, compared to the city. So long as there's food, they have acres and acres of land and rice paddies to play on, and so much of the rural living is like camping, that it just must be fun. Lots of work for adults, but for kids, alot of good things.
Need to mention that there were special packages for the teacher's as well, with pencil sharpeners, books, etc. They were given an orientation to be taught how to use all their supplies to the best of their advantage. To my surprise, most of the teachers were men, and a few women. Many were a good age as well, and they seemed quite pleased at their goody bag!!!

From delivering school kits to a school in the province

Remarkably, we weren't supposed to make it home until around 7, but things went so smoothly that we got home early at 5 pm. This allowed us enough time to actually make a concert date that we had tickets for! A Korean University had a dance group that was hosting a ballet concert that night, that they were giving our free tickets for at school. I was so looking forward to going, that I almost didn't go out to the province because then I'd have to give up the Ballet. However, it is amazing: Lay down the things you most desire, and God lets you have more. We still got to go, with all our family.

From delivering school kits to a school in the province

Maya loved it. It was beautiful. A certain sight for sore eyes! Lovely costumes, beautiful dancers, a truly elegant night, at the lovely Chenla theatre, at the Phnom Penh Cultural centre, the first time we'd been there.
That, by the way, is where it "snowed" in PP! THey made it snow during an exerpt of the Nutcracker, and it was funny to watch everyone's reaction, trying to figure out what this "snow" consisted of. haha
This week at school, we enjoyed the Logos jog-a-thon, a huge fundraiser for our new school building. If you check out the school website at http://logoscambodia.org you can see pictures of the fun event. It was on Tuesday, and students raised donations ahead of time, to run laps around our new school site.

From Jog-a-thon 2009

This was the first time I had seem the beginnings of the new building, and it was pretty exciting! We are due to move in october 1, and we are starting school one week earlier next year, in order to have and extra week to move the school at that time. The new campus is consierably further outside the city (all the international schools appear to be headed that way, as land is cheap to lease or buy, and rents in the city are going up astronomically and unpredictably, with no government legislation or rental caps. Amen to democracy!)

Logos building

So, other than that, things are well. Julia's had a nasty cough for a while now, with some choking phlegm, but no fever, so we're keeping an eye on it, but riding it out. It hasn't slowed her much, as she's simply the best darn female soccer player in Phnom Penh! (Ok, mother's eyes!)

Steph has been on student council all year, and among other things they've planned, it's going to be crazy hair day this Friday, for the 100th day of school.
Maya is happy in Pre-K 4, although had a tough time understanding that once she turned 5, she was not going into Grade 5. Poor thing. She's ok with it now, but it was tough going for a while. haha.

From delivering school kits to a school in the province

Dean's spending one half day at home each week, preparing documents for our acsi accreditation visit which will be in a couple of months. There is SO much paperwork that is expected of the school, and if we pass this accreditation and become a member of the ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International) it'll be a huge upgrade for Logos. So, it's a pressing deadline, and on top of all the things that cross the principal's office, between Dan and Dean, they are swamped on a minute by minute basis, so the home day allows for work on this accrediation stuff to actually get done.
I (Lesley) am good, but maybe I'm homesick a bit, I don't know. I bit unsettled, very tired again, and need so much sleep just to function. I think it's a combination of my typical January Blah's (doesn't seem to matter about the weather, I guess) and the post-party down time after Christmas and birthdays... Anyways, there is always a ton of stuff to do and look forward to on a weekly basis at school, that I am already rallying. Sometimes things are just so, how shall I say it, difficult? strange? unusual? here, that it wears on you. Even one could say, spritually draining.
For examples, just Driving home from the province, we witnessed a huge mob of women outside a factory on strike, a massive dump truck which was full of coconuts on it's side, tipped over on the road, and a live, pet monkey tied to the roof of a travelling car (among other luggage) and wearing clothes! I mean, he was walking and jumping around the roof of the car, with the leash on! Strange. Yet, there are so many people that ride on the top of buses or vans or even higher, on the top of LOADS on the roofs of buses and vans. People just precariously positioned for the trip.... Good heavens. It's a wonder anyone survives at all.

From delivering school kits to a school in the province

We are in the process of purchasing another moto, and we're finding it just the best way to get around (quickest, that's for sure) and we are oriented enough now that we pretty much know where we're going and can get there on our own. It's a nicer freedom now. With two motos, our whole family can travel at the same time. Also, if I need to take a motodup to get anywhere, I at least now have enough Khmer language to tell directions. That means I can pick up a driver that has no english, and I'll pay cheaper rates. If you get a moto driver that speaks even a few words of english, you'll be paying through the nose. Unfortunate...
Well, I am being evaluated tomorrow morning in my Gr. 1 classroomso I had better head to bed! Friday morning I head teacher devitionals at 7:30 am, Saturday Steph has to be at school at 8 am for a 3 on 3 basketball tournament, and Julia is seeing the orthodontist at 10. SO you see, our lives really aren't that different than anyone's in north america. haha. We are just sweating right now, and you're all freezing. haha
Thanks for the donations, the prayers, the e-mails, the comments on the blog (more of those, please!) the facebook comments (although I don't really see those, Dean does) and the phone calls. Take care all, and will write again soon.
L
PS I forgot to mention that this half of the week has been CHinese New Year. ANyone with any affiliation whatsoever with the Chinese (there is alot of influence and intermarrying here, apparently) has celebrated by closing down their shops. THe traffic has been WONDERFUL, as getting to school is easy, roads are free of the usual conglomeration as many are staying home and visiting with family. Nice. No days off school, though and that's OK. We have a full week off for Khmer New Year in April, right around Easter, and another full week off in May, right before school is out! GO figure! So, happy Lunar New Year to any of you who celebrate!!!
Bye for now

We all wish Oma a Happy Birthday

Happy 29th birthday once again to Oma Weiss living in Winnipeg! It is hard to believe you can stay 29 for 30 years! HEE HEE!!! Anyways this little video is Maya giving you her rendition of Happy Birthday (Khmer style)!?

Thanks for the package Inga and Claire

Well, thanks again for the Christmas package it finally got here! Not bad, only 1 month late. Of course it did have it's drawbacks as it was tampered with and already opened up by the time we got to it. We will send you some pics and let you see what may be missing. Even though Steph's words, in regards to the already opened parcel, were "that sucks", she and all of us were excited to open the package! Thanks so much for thinking of us!

The good part to that story was...

If you have read the previous post on "our Saturday afternoon", you were made aware of a lady who was trying to have a baby in the dirt in front of our place and the whole rigamarole that followed during that afternoon. I just wanted to add a strong highlight to that story.

As John (a former cop turned missionary), Darryl (teacher at Logos), Dr. Kim, Lesley, and I were trying to get this pregnant lady to move from her present location (in front of our house) and to a hospital or clinic, we all noticed how futile it was going as at every turn, this khmer lady, unable to talk, refused to let us take her somewhere to deliver her baby.


At one point, I turned to John and asked if he had any "cop" field experience with pregnant ladies. He responded with "Ya but I never knew one who didn't want to go to a hospital before." Well we weighed the pros and cons of lifting this lady physically and placing her in a Tuk Tuk. After I said, "if she has the baby here in the mud, or if things go wrong, I am not sure I would feel very qualified to deal with that. Nor would I like all the spectators (including my children) to have to deal with something like that." So with that logic, we decided to lift this mute and uncooperative lady into a Tuk Tuk. And Wow... did that go badly.

Despite our best efforts, John and I were futile against the raging strength of a woman in labour. Actually, I think John wimped out (just kidding). This lady would have let us break her arms the way she was swinging around with a crazy hormonal birthing rage. So we stopped and had to back up a step.

Well no one was able to communicate with this lady as she moaned, screamed and mumbled the whole time. We had been dealing with this uncooperative lady for over 2 hours, there were now at least 25 interested Khmer onlookers, and we finally decided to pray. We prayed, "God, we have no idea what to do! There is no social network here. The local clinic will not accept her because they think she is on drugs (even though we never said that), the tuk tuk driver won't even stay around to help, and we seem to be out of options. Lord please give us direction and help."

Immediately after we finished praying, John (who spoke Khmer) crouched down to the dirt and tried to assure the lady we were there to help. Dr. Kim (also in language training) then immediately spoke to her and convinced her to move to our driveway to help deliver this baby out of the dirt and onto the concrete. Amazingly the lady decided to move! John and I immediately took this lady, lifted her up and while she was moaning and leaning heavily on us we started to move her to our gateway. As we were in transit, Darryl shouted out, "Hey, why don't we put her in Dr. Kim's van and get her to a Japanese Hospital". John and I didn't even bat an eye, and in a flash, we quickly spun her around and she was placed into the van. She didn't even know what hit her!!! Next thing I know, Dr. Kim and Lesley are in the van with this lady (and her 3 year old boy was placed in there too) and John is on his Dirt bike trying to lead them to the Japanese hospital because neither of the two ladies knew where to go.

So in a flash, after 1 minute of praying, it was all over in front of our place! Those of us who were left behind literally looked at each other in stunned relief. The moral of the lesson, "think about praying first???"

The good part of the story to share here is that we are thankful that the Lord heard our prayer because He knew we really felt hopeless at that moment when we called on Him.

Maya turns 5 and Dean turns 40???

Maya's Birthday	Dean's 40th birthday

Maya had her 5th Birthday while in Cambodia! Here are some of the pics! Enjoy! Thanks to the many of you that sent E cards to her. She was quite taken by them.

For Dean's 40th birthday, Les held a surprise birthday party on the roof of their place in Cambodia. Dean was surprised and could not believe that over 60 people were there to celebrate the night!

Thailand for Christmas-Its worth the trip.

christmas in thailand

As many of you are well on your way to starting the New Year, let me say to you "Happy New Year!" We had a good Christmas in Thailand thanks to some directed funds from family members. It was nice to briefly get out of Cambodia and enjoy big malls, western food, and the beach.
The girls were all very down on Christmas Day especially when we heard that there was snow in Abbotsford. Steph and Jubes were a little sad and misty-eyed when they thought about the traditions, friends and family we enjoyed around Christmas time. There is no replacing a trip to Thailand with Canadian Christmas but we did try. I found it a bit hard as well, however, I was glad to be able to get out of Phnom Penh to prevent an idle mind from remembering Canada too much.

We all enjoyed Bangkok and we had fun just walking around regular shopping malls and eating food from regular chain stores like McDonalds, DQ, and Pizza Hut. It is all much cheaper than Cambodia! We enjoyed some Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts too. I even had a steak for the first time since Canada(imported from Australia). You can tell we took advantage of our stay! It was all so inexpensive! Since Cambodia doesn't have any movie theatres, we even went to see Madagascar 2 on IMAX on Christmas Day!

From Bangkok, with our family in a poor public bus, we then took off for a week to the beach in Hua Hin on the coast. When we got there we stayed in a 3 bedroom condo a far ways off the beach. It was alright for me, but Les would have liked a place that was cleaner and that was closer to the ocean. We rented motos while we were down there and had a chance to explore and see a variety of beaches and other areas (we all like that). We also rode some elephants, went mall walking, and did some beach relaxing.

After our week there, we went back to Bangkok for a couple of days before we headed back to Cambodia. And even though we missed Christmas and everyone back in Canada, Steph did say, while she was riding the elephant, "Now this is better than a Dec 27th back in Canada!"

Blessings,
Dean

PS. Our Internet is finally working after 2 months of being mainly down! YAHOO! You just have to smile.

Our Saturday Afternoon.....

Hi all. Happy New year. We trust the Christmas season was a blessing for your family. Yes, lower mainland, we heard all about your snow and now your flooding potentials! Sorry, but also sounded a bit like some fun was involved. I don’t like missing the Christmases with snow, but this year, it was a hot one for us.
Dean is going to write a bit about our Christmas break, and time in Thailand. He is also going to upload a ton of pictures, cuz it takes him a much shorter time to do so. I take the pictures, he posts them.
But I will tell you, since school has started again, we’ve had a good week. Maya Roxy had her 5th birthday on Friday, Jan 9, and she got lots of e-mails, phone calls, well wishes. She had chocolate cake with her classmates on Friday at lunch, and a nice small party with 3 little prek-4 friends (they’re so CUTE) on Saturday. She had fun, opened a few presents, wore her new fancy dress (the Khmer kids can get REALLY dressed up for their parties, so we thought Maya wouldn’t mind) and was quite pleased with her little life! Would have ended great, if she hadn’t landed on her head on the concrete by tripping over a soccer ball after the party was over. Nice blue goose egg to match her eyes! Oh well.
Dean is really requesting me tell you how we spent the rest of our Saturday afternoon yesterday, and I’m hesitant, because it’s still pretty raw, and I’m still reeling from it all. I’ll try to tell a very long story consicely, to give you yet another glimpse into this crazy (but still loved!) country.
When the kids were leaving Maya’s party at 2 pm in the afternoon, we all noticed a lady sitting directly outside our gate, she had a small child with her, and was very pregnant. She was moaning, eyeballs were rolling, the child was pretty dirty and dressed in a little dress, but was really a boy! She didn’t look well or all there, motioned to me for some water, which I gave her, then proceeded to make hand signs for help and kept moaning. Some Khmer neighbors came out and tried to ask her her name, what was wrong, if she had a husband, but were met with no answers, just ignoring them and acting mute. All she could translate was that she had “no money.” I was certain she was in labour.
We were starting to collect a crowd, her moaning got worse, so we started phoning people we knew, to ask what to do—where to take her? Who to call? What hospital would take her? (again, no money) and friends of ours, some who spoke Khmer, arrived to help. She would offer no answers, just moans, cries, and hand motions. We called a tuk tuk to take her to a hospital, we waited for phone conctacts to tell us where to take her, and Dean and another coworker even tried to physically lift her (gently) into the tuk tuk so we could send her to help, and she screamed and resisted, acting very out of her mind the whole time.
It was distressing to say the least, we felt very helpless, although she seemed to be in great need she was very unco-operative, and when we had finally exhausted all our “human” capacities of ideas, we decided to pray (duh! Like why not do that in the first place? We humans are so slow to learn sometimes.) Within minutes we had somehow convinced her to get up, move to the concrete, so as not to actually give birth in the dirt she was sitting in. It appeared by now her water had broke, or urine. We managed to maneouver her into a missionary doctor’s van who had also come to the scene to aid, and we were set to take her and the little “boy” to the Japanese hospital, as that hospital would take her. (I was told that some Khmer dress their sons, especially first born sons, in girls clothing, to trick the evil spirits into thinking they are girls, and then they will be left alone and safe. I thought for sure she was just so poor that this was the only clothing she had. There is always more to the story, here…)
So, we are driving in Eda’s van (the doctor) with the lady in the back seat—we’re not far from our house, and she starts screaming and pointing to a clinic on the side of the road. Motioning she wanted to go there. I thought we should go, as she might know the doctor or something (perhaps this is where she was headed and just couldn’t make it from our house???) We turned back and she got out into the clinic. There, the 4 attendants recommended we take her to the hospital, but this was all without any real examination---they were starting to listen to the baby’s heartbeat, but that’s as far as it got. Out of the clinic we take her and she diverts from the van, refusing to get in and sat a few feet away on the driveway. The clinic staff, us three foreigners and a few bystanders then tried to ask her questions.
Suddenly she could communicate pretty well. No more moans or rolling eyeballs. She used hand signs and some words to convey the following information: She was from one of the provinces (outside the city) and wanted to go back there to have a c-section. She needed money. Her mother was blind (picture her acting it out) and her husband had beat her (showing punches to the stomach). She was divorced. She needed money to go back to the province and have the baby. She also indicated that she was only 7 months pregnant.
As these truths unfolded before my eyes, I began to realize what was happening; A desperate scam for money. There was no baby on the way. The moaning, and pain? I guess it was a pretty good front, because I’ve given birth 3 times and I was pretty sure she was in significant labour pain. The broken water? For sure urine. The crowd began to dispurse, and she sat there while 3 of us foreigners tried to figure out what to do. We were of course not going to give her money, but wanted to help. We asked her how much it would cost just to get back to the province, and she told our friend an exorbitant price that he, having lived here for 10 years at least, knew was 3x the actual amount. She wanted money. Somehow a taxi stopped to look at her, and she got up and started to wander away. This lady, who was stuck in front of our house moaning, and unable to move without help from others, was now walking on her own accord, took the little boy’s hand, and wandered down the street in the other direction. No wonder she was so resistant to going to the hospital and accepting help!
The good doctor who had conversed more with the bystanders, were told point blank that she was trying to trick us. So, I got back into the van, and we drove a very quiet ride home. It was all over.
I was in complete shock. It was 4:10. We had been dealing aggressively with this woman for over 2 hours. We had made phone calls, given her water, given the little boy food, order tuk tuk’s, driven her in a van, and it was all a hoax to just get money. Flabergasted is the word to describe what I am still feeling, 24 hours after the incident.
How desperate is a person, to do this kind of thing??? Her situation was obviously poor in the first place, but to take things so far as to use up other people’s time and concern like that, and to go to the lengths she went to to get money??? I can’t conceive of it, because I have always had what I needed. I still feel sorry for her and especially for this little child, who has no choice. But whether or not she really needs a c-section, was beaten, lives in the province… who knows. It was pretty emotional for me anyways, and I certainly hope I don’t avoid helping someone else for fear of being taken in again.
So, that was our Saturday afternoon. How was yours?????
PS. The pics are just Random, but there is alot of dust and smog in the air these days!