Thursday, November 11, 2010

She’s Scrappy...and Sassy


Yesterday we got back from a quick trip to visit Sue Singleton, a fellow missionary who lives in a city in central Cambodia called Kampong Thom (try to say that three times fast). Sue met up with us in Phnom Penh (while she was there for a different visit) to pick us up as we headed to Kampong Thom. The three and a half hour drive to KT seemed so much shorter as Sue shared with us some crazy, funny, and inspirational stories she’s experienced as a missionary in Cambodia for the last 18 years. If she didn’t keep us entertained by the stories, she kept us awake by her survival Cambodian driving. If you’ve been to Cambodia, you might imagine what that looks like. This awesome lady is scrappy and tough, and she makes her way without any hesitation. Her attitude with driving is much like her attitude with life. She’s not scared of anything or anyone. When talking about living in Cambodia alone, she told of us of a verse she clung onto long before God called her to Cambodia: 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” It wasn’t long after this conversation that Sue’s truck began puttering, doing a little shaky thing, and then died. Ironic. Here we were on the edge of the road in the middle of the Cambodian countryside….and laughing about it all. Even though after only a week, we have many memories here, but this one is definitely going down in the books (p.s. check out Tamara’s pictures of us with Sue and the truck. Haha.)

Our visit was a quick one of three nights, but we felt like we accomplished a lot. During the day, Tamara and I followed Sue around. First thing in the mornings we went to an international preschool that Sue has started in KT. We were able to observe the Cambodian preschoolers learning English. So cool…we were watching three and four year old Khmer native speakers speaking some impressive English – this is what we want to accomplish!! J Afterwards, we went to Shelter of Love (the orphanage) to hang out with some kids and to try some English teaching ourselves. Way fun. The kids were great, and we had a lot of fun playing games to teach them English. It was super fun for me the second day because I got to teach some of the older kids who knew some English already and wanted to work on grammar…I got to pull out the prepositions and direct objects – I was totally in my element. (Sorry, I’m a nerd…) It felt so good to be in a “classroom”/porch teaching again!

At night Sue teaches an English class below her house (it’s on stilts like most Cambodian houses) to a group of about 30 KT high school students. The kids love her, because she’s stinking hilarious...and sassy. I feel like we not only enjoyed her class, but also were able to gain a lot of insight to what our classes in Lveasar should look like.

Before we headed out Sue fed us an awesome breakfast of PANCAKES. Wonderful. Definitely a highlight of our trip! Haha. To get home, we took a bus from KT to PP (Phnom Penh). Even though the trip was almost four hours long, Tamara and I entertained ourselves with some Red Bull and peanuts that made my mouth numb. I think we were a little too happy for some of the people as we sat in the back, because I got a few dirty looks (sometimes I laugh kind of loud…oops.) For the most part, it was a nice trip back. Unfortunately, on our bus ride we did see a darker side of Cambodia that we would like to ignore and pretend is not an issue…..but I might wait to share that than spoil the description of an otherwise perfect trip.

After we arrived in PP, we found a few English books that looked appropriate for our kids. We’re doing some more research and looking around, but we feel ready and eager to start teaching….hopefully next week!! Please keep praying….for our Khmer….for Lveasar....for Cambodia as a whole. We love our Cambodia…..and we love our Jesus…..and we’d really like them to meet.

-Lauren

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