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| Youth choir, with Voleak and Net singing in the front row |
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| Net, Voleak,and Hana. Hana made her sweater herself. |
To quote one of my favorite children’s books (Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes), “'Wow.’ That’s just about all she could say.” This has been a week like that. The kids at camp were amazing. When we spent most of one morning listening to the girls tell their stories, it was a thing of beauty. Those girls have lived through a lot and come out on the other side strong and beautiful. I love each one deeply. Camp ended yesterday, but today was special because we got to see four of our six girls in church. Two, Net (pronounced Nate) and Voleak, sat with Marti and me. Net was our interpreter, helping us find the bible verses and filling us in a bit on what was going on up front. I love the music in this church. Every Sunday, every people group gets up and performs. First the little children sang. They were amazingly cute. Then the men’s choir, then the women’s choir, then they had special music by a small group, and finally the youth choir sang. Wow! All sounded rich and full, and the little kids sang two songs with actions and recited a Bible verse. Simply beautiful! And this Sunday, we knew three of the young ladies up there singing with the youth, which made the whole thing extra special. After the service we said our final goodbyes to our girls and headed upstairs one last time for our lunch. I have loved being connected to this church and this beautiful building with its amazing views of Phnom Penh. I will miss it.
We ate our delicious meal (curry soup with bread) and then went into our final meeting together as a team. It was good to take a few moments to reflect on the week. Our yellow team rocks. Bill presented us with a scenario. He said, “You’re going to get home, and people will say, ‘How was your trip?’ You will have about thirty seconds, about two sentences, until they stop listening. (They were only asking because they knew you had been gone.) What will you say?” How can I sum this week up in two sentences? I still have more time in Cambodia, but the man has a point. I keep thinking about the question. Cambodia is so much more than I expected, and I had pretty high expectations. It has more beauty, more poverty, more joy, more heartache, more love and more pain. And I can’t wait to see more!!
On a completely trivial note, I had an interesting afternoon back at the guest house. We had no scheduled activity, so I thought this would be a great chance to take a Sunday afternoon nap. I was just going to organize the crayons and coloring books I brought from Rochester before I got to that nap. (I have a whole suitcase of them, from my preschoolers, to bring to Place of Rescue Orphanage when Marti and I visit there tomorrow.) For the first time since we arrived in Cambodia, I unzipped the suitcase which held them all. I have a thing or two to learn about packing. Both of the 96 crayon boxes were completely empty, as was one 64 crayon box and one 24 crayon box. If you do the math (and I did), that makes 280 crayons, loose in my suitcase. Oh, Laura! I needed you! I tried my best to sort them according to color, but in the poor light it was difficult to differentiate the subtle differences between “carnation pink” and “cotton candy.” And these old eyes don’t read the fine print on those crayons very well, either. I did get them all lined up, pretty much, and filled the 24 crayon box. However, at that point I gave up and found a big zipper bag in my suitcase. The crayons are going to live happily ever after in there, and the boxes are now but a distant memory, out of sight in our garbage can. No nap for this girl this afternoon!
Tomorrow we will say goodbye to most of the others who have done English Camp with us in Phnom Penh. Change is hard, but we have definitely felt the love of Christ in our midst this week, and it is a week none of us will soon forget. Each person will arrive home changed. How we use those changes is up to us. I pray that we will all be obedient to God’s calling in our lives.
On a completely trivial note, I had an interesting afternoon back at the guest house. We had no scheduled activity, so I thought this would be a great chance to take a Sunday afternoon nap. I was just going to organize the crayons and coloring books I brought from Rochester before I got to that nap. (I have a whole suitcase of them, from my preschoolers, to bring to Place of Rescue Orphanage when Marti and I visit there tomorrow.) For the first time since we arrived in Cambodia, I unzipped the suitcase which held them all. I have a thing or two to learn about packing. Both of the 96 crayon boxes were completely empty, as was one 64 crayon box and one 24 crayon box. If you do the math (and I did), that makes 280 crayons, loose in my suitcase. Oh, Laura! I needed you! I tried my best to sort them according to color, but in the poor light it was difficult to differentiate the subtle differences between “carnation pink” and “cotton candy.” And these old eyes don’t read the fine print on those crayons very well, either. I did get them all lined up, pretty much, and filled the 24 crayon box. However, at that point I gave up and found a big zipper bag in my suitcase. The crayons are going to live happily ever after in there, and the boxes are now but a distant memory, out of sight in our garbage can. No nap for this girl this afternoon!
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