Many of my English II students have decided to join us on this trip to Cambodia, even though they are missing 3 days of classes and a 2-3 page essay on Autism. In exchange for skipping that assignment, I decided to offer my students write daily blog reports on what kind of things we were doing in Cambodia. Today, we split up, with groups heading in 2 directions: to an Adventist academy (similar to TAPA and TAAS) called Cambodia Adventist School (CAS), and a Vietnamese Illegal Aliens school. One of my students, Curtis, decided to focus his article on his experience at the Vietnamese School.
The first day we arrived Siem Reap, Mrs. Webb told us this trip will change our lives. Honestly, I didn't believe her, because I've heard the same thing when I was in the China Mission Trip and I didn't think our lives can be changed more than once. She tells us that God has a purpose for each and every one of us here in Cambodia. I didn't believe God had any purpose for me.
There is one thing you can always depend on finding in the two Vietnamese schools, and that is smile on everyone of their faces. It's hard to imagine how poor their families are when they are laughing and cheering with the brightest smile a person can ever have. It was fun to talk to them and play with them.
I have a new Vietnamese friend today and he tried to communicate with me using hand motions, but then I asked a translator to tell me what he was trying to say, she told me the kid wants to drink water!!!, and then another time he was trying to ask me to count numbers in Chinese and so I count the numbers using his fingers and then his friend sitting next to him at that time counted numbers in English. For some reasons, he pulled each one of my fingers and I did the same to him and when his friend next to him was trying to touch my hand, he shouted something in Vietnamese and then his friend backed off, that was a funny incident.
Even though sometimes they can have no idea what we are speaking in English and we need a Vietnamese translator to communicate with them, we still had fun singing, playing games(like telephone sherades) with them and finished the program successfully.
In Taiwan, I was depress for my broken relationship with my friends and some other important people who were once meaningful to me in my life and also my failing grades for my depress feelings. I thought my life was worthless and that no one loved and cared about me. I didn't look around me and appreciate the things I have,not the things I lost and I didn't notice those people in my life who actually cared about me. These couple of days when I see those kids having poor living conditions, poor health care, poor education system, their smiles tell me that even when my life is in the worst place, there are always things in my life, like the friendships I have left, the joy of living in a country with good health care and a house with everything I ever needed, that can make me smile and praise God for everything I have.
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