Carnival, Bible Camp, Exploding Wieners and Jog-a-thon, Falling off my Moto

Greetings to all of you. Wow, this last little while has been a very busy stretch. It’s been fun but it’s been busy. In the last 2 weeks we have had the Big School Carnival, I have gone to Bible Camp for the week, hosted Jim and Carrie Williams at our house for a quick visit, and ended it all off with the big school fundraiser “Jog-a-thon”.

From carnival2010

It all started off a couple of weekends ago with the local school Carnival. The carnival is a great event for the school community where all the classroom students in their respective grades design games or events for Logos and community kids to play or participate in. Some of the games are as simple as a bean bag throw or a face painting station. Some other grades create games that involve sheriff stations and placing people in jail or games like ”Are you smarter than a 7th grader?”. At any rate, Dan Hein and I were BBQing hotdogs for the crowd – the REAL fan favorite! Ok maybe not, but we actually used a real North American bbq grill that someone brought into the country and borrowed to us for the event.

From Carnival2010

The bottom of the bbq is missing so all the drippings land on the propane tank. So noticing the front door of the bbq was broken, I placed that on top of the tank and protected the tank. Anyways we had a fun time with that event. The girls had fun playing and participating at the event. Julia’s grade 6ers made mango blended drinks, and Steph’s grade 8s had a wet sponge station. Les helped out putting tattoos on kids at the tattoo station. (You know, the great Canadian dollar store kind that don't exist out here!) The whole carnival was a great success!

From Carnival2010

At the carnival I actually had no voice and I could not talk. Do I hear an AMEN from the crowd! This has never happened to me before (although has been wished upon me numerous times I am sure). The day before I got some sort of frog in the throat and by the next day I had no voice at all. Les made me a sign tag to pin to the front of my shirt that said, “Sorry I have lost my voice and I can’t talk”. This tag really did help, however, there were many people who thought it was some sort of “silent game” at the carnival. When they realized that I was not joking – they were a bit more understanding and I appreciated not having to try to explain my situation. My real concern was that I was suppose to go to Bible camp in a couple of days and lead and speak at the first session for the camp. I had a couple of people pray for me the next day at church and my voice was restored later that day- although I didn’t really try to use it until I needed it. Praise God!
So on the Monday I was off for the week to the Cambodian Jungle for the High School Bible Camp along with 8 other teachers and all the high school students. We all travel about 5 hours north of Phnom Penh to a very rustic camp area.
At the camp we try to scare the students about the malaria, tigers, cobras and other poisonous snakes in the area but it is more to keep them close to the camp rather than any real danger. Everyone had a great time going through many of the challenging small and large group activities and also taking part in the learning sessions each morning and evening. This year’s camp theme was “Service and Sacrifice” and was based out of the Bible’s Mark 10:43-45.
“But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:43-45 (New Living Translation)

From bible camp

I think what I really liked about this year’s camp is the opportunity to place the above scripture into action by sending out a group of students and teachers each morning into some of the poorest areas of Cambodia. Each morning a group of students built 5 latrines and as a school we completed 15 latrines for families in the area. For many of the students this was an opportunity to serve and sacrifice for those less fortunate in a very real, practical and physically exhausting way. One of our Cambodian staff members, Mr. Sokcha, was amazed at how poor some families in Cambodia live and he estimated that these families live on approximately $100 USD annually. Yet even with such poverty, these families are so appreciative of our help that they offer to climb up their trees to give us fresh coconut milk from their trees. I really appreciated and needed the coconut milk myself because my water bottle had some bad water in it and I couldn’t drink all morning- so I was hot and very thirsty and very ready to drink what I could.

From bible camp

A new thing that was added to the camp this year was a compass walk. This was a bit of an orienteering aspect to the scheduled activities at the camp. I really liked it but it meant going through some of the thinned out jungle area. The premise of the walk is to navigate to a number of key points and once locating the particular marker that has a certain picture on it, draw the picture on a sheet of paper before moving to the next point. The first team to complete the walk in the fastest time wins the event. It was great. There was one point in the walk when one of the markers was to be located in a bomb crater! After really thinking about that, there were many bomb craters around that area. As I was walking I was also thinking things like “I sure hope there are no landmines in the area” and thoughts like, “I sure don’t want me or anyone else to lose their legs today”. Not really valid positive thoughts, but it made for an interesting compass walk.
At the end of the camp and during our last teaching session, the staff challenged the students to live a life that serves others and to be a living sacrifice to the Lord. And more importantly, to do this service with a heart of Love, just as Christ loved us and sacrificed His life for us out of a heart of love.

Jim and Carrie come to visit

I returned on Friday and the next day Jim Williams and his lovely new bride Carrie came to visit us for a few days on the last leg of their holidays. It was great to talk and have visitors with us – we really enjoyed their company. Wish they could have stayed longer but they were off to the Cambodian beach for a couple of days and then back to China. Les and I did have a chance to show the two of them around the new school. They were both surprised at the quality of the new school and called it an “Oasis in the Desert”. I thought that the comment seemed very appropriate for the setting. Well the visit was short and sweet and they took off on Thursday morning.
During this past week we have been preparing for the school fund raiser, “Jog-a-thon” that ran this past Friday. This is a chance for our school to raise funds to help get our playground in a bit better shape. However, the real immediate need is that our school does not have enough electricity and so we need to buy a transformer. (Something we did not anticipate). We have been told that the price is $40,000 and heading into the hot season with no power will be very difficult. The school raised $12,000 with most of the money coming from North American sources. This is a good help but we still need some help getting that transformer.



The jog-a-thon ran well and we had the older kids ran outside around the community while the young kids ran inside the school grounds. We ran the whole thing first thing in the morning before it gets too hot for everyone. As part of the fun we also agreed to give all the students in the school free hot dogs. Well for some reason I agreed to get the hotdog wieners at one of the expat type stores. What I really didn’t think about was the fact that, in my mind, I thought I was getting a few hotdog wieners like I did for the carnival (around 200), but in actuality, I was buying almost 700 wieners for the whole school! This enlightenment didn’t really hit me until I got to the closest thing we have to a grocery store and started to pile in all the wieners in a cart.

From Maya Running Hard at Jog-a-thon

What made this whole idea challenging was that I had purchased them all and now realized that I had to somehow bring them back to the school (some 6 km away)- on my moto- through busy traffic! Well, I thought I was up for the challenge. (I have seen all sorts of Cambodians take absurd things on a moto, [3 large pigs, 50 live chickens, 6 people] so I thought I could do a few wieners.) After taking nearly 10 minutes to figure out how to pack these packages of wieners in every possible place; I had wieners under my motoseat, hanging off my mirrors, in my bag, pockets. However, I had most of them secured against my left leg piled in front of my lap. I was ready and I set off for Logos. Needless to say, I was getting some stares from some people. Some large white guy with a whole lot of bags piled everywhere is not a sight you see every day here.

From Grade winners for Jog-a-thon Race

I got about 1 km away when I suddenly realized I forgot my Helmet. The idea of going back almost made me say I should forget about it and I could buy another helmet. However, if I continued on towards the school, the likelihood that I would get stopped by one of the many cops along the route made me quickly reconsider. So I slowly meandered back to my starting point. My helmet was on a guard’s side table waiting for me. The Cambodian guard chuckled at the sight of me with those wieners everywhere. He gave me my helmet and I quickly left the mocking area.
So off I tried again, I got about half way through all the hot busy traffic when I suddenly felt one of the bags resting on my left leg was slipping. I quickly went to the side of the road to try and pull up the bag. When I stopped, I looked down and noticed the bag upside down. I quickly grabbed the bag and noticed only one package of wieners in the grocery bag. I had a bad feeling as I notice the top of the grocery bag had ripped. I looked back into traffic to see if maybe I had lost some of the wieners and sure enough, saw two packages (20 wieners each) laying in the traffic. One package was already squished and wieners were everywhere. As I watched the other package still intact, I was trying to figure out how I could turn around to save them. As I was trying to maneuver the moto around against the raging traffic, a car ran over the package and wieners went everywhere. In the mad scramble and chaos, Cambodians were trying to go into traffic and pick up some of the squished wieners. I left the area in utter disappointment.

From Jog-a-thon2010

I drove slowly to school and was exhausted, hot, and disappointed. I got to the school and one of the Khmer teacher assistants, who saw all the stuff hanging from my moto, said “wow, you are as good as a Cambodian woman!” She was referring to my ability to get all that stuff packed on my moto. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I lost 2 packages- something a Cambodian woman would never have let happen.
Take care and I hope you are having as much fun as we are!
Dean

P.S. Just to let you all know I had a spill on my moto this past week too. While Dan and I were running around trying to figure out the route for the middle and high school jog-a-thon I ended up hitting a patch of soft road. Well with Dan Hein on the back of my moto, I took a tumble off the moto and onto the road. Don’t worry, Dan and the moto landed on me – so they were all safe. Thankfully we were not going very fast, so outside of some road rash and bruises I am OK. Dan had a bit of skin loss too but seemed OK. Actually, my pride was hurt more than anything else.
When we got back to the school one of the guards saw me all dusted up, bloody and with ripped pants and shirt. His eyes were big with questions and I tried to tell him I got hit by a cow on my moto. It seemed like a good answer at the time and certainly a better reason than hitting a depression of soft dirt. He seemed to really like my answer and his reaction was very accepting- like “getting hit by cows on motos” happens every day. I only let that answer stay for a moment and then I told him the truth- he looked at me with disappointment. Like I said, my pride hurt more than anything else. Sorry no pics of that. Below is a list of lots of different pics from the events I talked about.

Jog-a-thon2010

bible camp

carnival2010

pieinface

jogathon2010-our family pics

Carnival2010-our pics

Scylla and Charybdis

HI all. Well, I'm going to get all "heady" on you. I had to look up the title of this blog on google, as I had no idea what it meant, but wanted to use it. Here's what I found out, they are the names of Sea Monsters from greek mythology:

"The myth has Charybdis, lying on one side of a blue, narrow channel of water. On the other side of the strait was Scylla, another sea-monster. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other, so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis will pass too close to Scylla and vice versa. The phrase "between Scylla and Charybdis" has come to mean being in a state where one is between two dangers and moving away from one will cause you to come closer to the other. "Between Scylla and Charybdis" is the origin of the phrase "between the rock and the whirlpool" (the rock upon which Scylla dwelt and the whirlpool of Charybdis) and may also be the genesis of the phrase "between a rock and a hard place."

All that just to quote Elisabeth Elliot from a book of hers that I read recently, that I could NOT put down, "The Savage, My Kinsman," where she tells the story of going into the jungle, her and her 3 year old daughter, to live alongside the Auca people, the very same who murdered her husband and 4 other men, 3 years prior. Just a fasciniting read, I recommend it.

However, in her epilogue, she comments on the writing of the book, and of telling her missionary (or any) missionary story:

"We must recognize the treacherous Scylla and Charybdis of missionary reporting--not telling enough of the story, and telling altogether too much. The first temptation is to minimize what is great. The second is to magnify what is trivial."

Hmm.

I haven't written for a little while, and when I read that I thought, maybe I haven't written because there's been nothing trivial to magnify? Things have been just going along lately, without anything too sensational to write about! I certainly have been guilty of that error on this blog at times. Or, perhaps, I am simply minimizing the astonishing greatness of our Father, by not writing enough about who He is and what I see of Him here! When I think of it, It's a tough situation to be in really. So, I apologize for the extremes. When I write, I know there are trivial things I want to say, but I hope I can tell enough of the story, that God gets the Glory.

If you want trivial details, there are certainly many to share. We have been well. Dean is sick right now with a nice bout of laringitis, but he's feeling Ok. As nice as that may sound for US, that he doesn't have his voice, (haha) he still continues to try to whisper and communicate with actions, so it's actually worse than when he's talking too much!

Dean and many other staff members and all the high school students are headed off to camp this week, so he needs to get better quick. Dean went as a supervisor last year, and it's an adventure camp, so they have alot of fun, great teaching times, and I know he's looking forward to it.

That leaves Monday to Friday as "girls" week for the rest of us. (Who am I kidding--it's always "girls week" around here! haha) Anyways, we'll try to get to school on time without him, which should be interesting.

Steph's had alot of homework and was pretty choked about things earlier this week. When it slowed down a bit, that helped, but it sort of feels like nothing has been "fun" lately at school--just getting down to the nitty gritty of class after class, assignment after test, and although this is normal for this time of year, it can get wearisome for a kid who cares and wants to do well at things.

So, we solved the lack of "fun" problem this Saturday, as it was the Logos Carnival, where the school puts on a fun fair, complete with food, games, tickets, prizes, tables with sales, face painting--did I mentions food?--hot dogs, drinks, Korean food, indian food. and all the grades put on games where kids can win prizes. Alot of school and non-Logos kids show up for this and it was really a fun day for everyone. Maya's arms are covered in transfer tattoos, Julia got soaked in the "Throw a water balloon at your favorite Gr. 6er" game, and Steph hung out with friends, put a few people in "jail" (that was one of the games--a highlight, as you apy to get someone "Arrested" then they have to get bailed out! Quite a hoot.) and Steph also watched Ally Hein a bit, for some babysitting. All in all, a really fun day. What made it even more enjoyable, is that when all was said and done (it went from 10-2 Saturday) we took our swim suits and jumped into the pool and cooled off. Lovely.

Yes, the Logos pool is really lovely, pretty much exclusively designed by Dean, so he's pleased as punch with it. It's a full size, 25m laps pool, saltwater, so it's really, really nice. There is a small kid pool for little ones, that you can see easily from the main pool. So, I now have found probably my perfect exercise regime for cambodia! Getting up at 5 am to run when it's not hot and still have people staring at you was difficult. Running any other time of the day, and where--was always an issue. Walking is ok, but there's no park close by to do so and still people stare (I could just get over that, but when you're trying to get some exercise, it's a good excuse to avoid going out!) So now, After a long, hot day at school, when most of the kids are gone home, I can jump into the pool, do a few laps, let Maya and any of the other kids swim too, (I can watch Maya in the small pool WHILE exercising, now that's a miracle) AND it's lovely, refreshing, the water is a perfectly warm enough temp that I'm never cold, and my goodness, doesn't that sound nice for those of you who are freezing cold in Canada right now? I'm sorry, not bragging, but boy am I enjoying the swimming, and making the most of a win win situation. It is good and I'm thankful.

I guess we did have a little fun also the Friday before carnival, as it was High school/middle school chapel, and the Gr. 12's did a pie in the face ufndraiser. Dean was of course, on the list, along with a number of other favorite teachers, and he paid his dues. Unfortunately for me, another staff member grabbed our camera while Dean was covered in whip cream, and Dean planted a big ol' kiss on my face, so I had whipping cream up my nose for the rest of the day! Gross. However, the kids enjoyed the bidding, and boy, if Julia only had remembered to bring money!!! She was so into it. Too bad there's not alot of forethought in all that enthusiasm!

Weekends lately have been filled with trying to rest. Been so tired, it seems. The power coming into the school building is still not enough for half of the classrooms to run even one aircon for part of the day, so we are always blowing the system, and shutting off breakers. What this means is that while we are technically still in "cool" season (I prefer to call it "Not roasting hot season,") we are teaching in some very warm classrooms, and it is a fair amount tougher than I thought it would be. You just eventually overheat, and it tires you out.

Last Sunday, on the invite of Bill Lobezoo our neighbor and CMA missionary, we went to church at David and Patti's TNT, Khmer church on the other side of the city. Any gals from my old missions team, you were there, and maybe some of you SOAers know that they are currently building a new building on the same property, and we wanted to see how it was going. In a word, unbelievable! It is HUGE, gorgeous, and really like David said, Taj Mahal--ish! Really, we took pictures and hopefully they will be up for you to see. What a blessing for this community. Alot of the money has been fundraised from the West (which is a good and bad thing, because dependency on the rich West is such a struggle Cambodia in general out here) but it is really a nice space and the people are very happy.

Name dropping time. We heard from Ange Booy in an e-mail last week, that she was in and out of town within about 12 hours total, coming from Siem Riep and on to India, where she will be doing the rest of her YWAM. I think she comes back for a few days in March, then home, so we will see her then. But, this is the culmination of her time out here, to head to India, so be praying for her. And the big news is that she has done something to her back, and was on complete bedrest for like 3 weeks in Siem Riep. She was hoping to get some medical attention on that short stay here, and has been very immobile. Not able to do stuff with her team, and it's been good and bad in many ways. Making her spend time with God. So, I dont' know how much we're going to get to hear from her while in india, but that's the scoop on her. Please pray!

Next, we're going to host Jim Williams next weekend, while he's doing some touring of SE Asia on his school break. He'll be here with his significant other (I'm sorry, I've forgotten her name) and they'll stay with us a few days over valentines day.) looking very much forward to some COMPANY! Stew and Sue McKercher with Ratanak (some of you know them) are out again, and we've invited them to see our new school. (We're always trying to give tours!) Hopefully that will take place next week. And finally, the MEI missions team, headed by Henry Zukowski and Maryanne Quiring will be showing up on our doorstep for supper March 8th, around there, as they get in that weekend. (Due to the Olympics, everyone has different spring break schedules in BC? IS this true?? Sounds interesting.) So, we hope to spend some time with their ministry on the Tuesday at New Life school, and then we can sup together and they can tour our new school. Looking forward to all of this.

So, Olympic news?? We hear none of it. Someone fill us in. All I've heard is from a few e-mails about the snow transfers, the bills running up--anyone with insider info can write us and let us know how things are turning. We're very interested, but this side of the world doesn't know anything about winter or olympics, so we're not getting much!

Well, that's the "trivial" list. The "great" list? God is always good. We had a student run away from home a few weeks ago and he was prayed for so much by the school. He has returned safely and I cannot comment on his current home life, but sure hope and keep praying that things will improve. Our staff continues to meet each morning for devotions, and you know, I look forward to these mornings all the time. It's sometimes a challenge to get there early enough, but each morning, we hear God's word together, pray for our students and whatever needs arise. It is good to be part of a staff like this, very good. Comforting when you're the one who is down and need the prayer, and to have people cover you like that.

The House of Smiles kids were able to come to Carnival! We gave them everything free, and I think they had a great time--what a jolt out of their quiet reality, of day after day, in their house, having school and the basic structure that they have, to getting such a noisy, unusual outing! They seemed to enjoy themselves, and the workers did, so that was nice.

And, it's staffing, recruiting and hiring time for Logos. Teachers have to decide (if their contracts are finished) if they're staying or going. Dan spends alot of time answering e-mails, phone calls and other inquiries about working at Logos. There are usually alot of unanswered questions beginning at this time of year, but in every year, Dan will really attest to how God has filled the gaps, brought the right people out for the jobs, and it's been really an amazing testament to his Will for this school, to watch how things have fallen into place over the years. However, there is still much footwork to be done, and now is the time of year when it starts to get busy.

Our own thankfully great news. We were waiting to hear back from Action, that they would agree to extend our 2 year short term missionary status to 3 years, and they did! We heard that this past week, and are very excited about officially planning to come back to Logos for a third year. Unfortunately, that news came back to back with hearing news of difficult health issues with some of our close relatives. It's so tough, some of these situations. I just keep praying...

Thank you for your continued following of our blog, despite the trivialization of the important, or the magnification of the mundane! Thanks and blessing to those of you who support us in the ways you can, prayer, funding, love, reading the blog. We appreciate you.

God Bless. I shall leave you with one last comment/story just cuz if I write about it, it gives me some clarity on what to do. Hope to hear from some of you soon.

A comment about the dogs, then I go. Julia loves dogs. All the girls love dogs! The dogs out here are quite frankly, gross. Dogs are not taken care of here, they are treated very low and frankly, when so many people are poor and hungry in this nation, why does anyone have a dog and have to feed it? Oh, no one really buys dog food, they just feed them scraps, or they scavenge on their own for food, but really, they are awful looking creatures, they are loaded with ticks, worms, scabies, no one cleans them. Regardless, Julia loves the dogs, especially our landlord's dogs Lilly and Rosy. Lilly has always been Julia's favorite, however, Lilly is not a smart dog, and with no training, she's learned some horrible habits. She tears at Rosy, the younger (and nicer and smarter)when they are fed, and fights for her food too. She barks and chases at motos when she's let out of the gate. Currenly, our landlords are building another home somewhere out of town, so they are RARELY home, which means if it wasn't for us (well, Julia) taking care of these poor creatures, they'd almost never get fed. It's so annoying. Anyways, long story short, Lilly's been really nipping at Julia, she seems to have crossed some play boundary to a point where I don't feel it's safe for Julia to have interaction with her. I really want her to back off with her contact with this dog, but it lives in our yard and it's really hard to do cuz Julia's so attached. This is all quite hard for Jubes, and I hope things can be resolved soon. The landlords keep talking about taking Lilly out to this "farm" (their new house) and leaving her there, and I sure wish they would, cuz I can't stand having this animal around much longer. She licks us non stop the second we get out the door, they try to get into our house, I keep kicking her to stop her from coming close and again, I'm concerned about this biting issue. Anyways, I'll let you know what comes of this, but it's quite an irritating situation right now. Poor Jubes, all she wants is a nice dog for a pet. Maybe one day.