More pictures!

Strangely enough, even though we are in a bigger city than before, our internet connection has been shotty at best, but until we get more stuff up and running, here are some more pictures of some of our adventures in Siem Reap!

Gabriel with kids at Wat Preah Yesu.

Miss Lisa handing out bread to the kids.

A scupture of mines and bombs at the Landmine Museum.

Miss Lisa handing out even more bread at WPY.

Fun in the van with Michelle.

The Land Mine Museum (Sunday)

Vivien working hard.

Angel painting away.

Kevin and friend

Jessica and Angel doing the details.

Painting houses at WPY.

Our kids' awesome idea to play hangman.

Hangman + making letters out of Play-doh.

Miss Rachel

Mr. Cody

Alix + Friend

Just chilling with the kids.

Michelle doing what she does best.

Relaxing after a hard day of work.

Our group before departing Siem Reap.

Exhaustion and a reward.

Daily Report for Sunday, April 5th (Group B)

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. We actually will present two reports of today, being that the group that visited Wat Preah Yesu split into two groups: one that primarily focused on teaching and entertaining kids in classes, and another that focused on painting a few houses on the campus. This report, from Kotomi, is about the painters.

Today we separated into two groups to paint the second and third house. These rooms were really dirty. Several parts of the wall came off. We spent long time to paint whole walls of the houses. Some girls screamed at bugs and spiders which stuck on the wall. Everyone had fun to clean a lot although paint smelled horribly bad and had chemical and made us dizzy.

In the school we worked on we did a lot of activities with kids. They are really pure and can feel happy from small things. Every kid ran to us to play or asked for candy. I think kids who I saw in Taiwan and Japan used to get candy when they want and know a lot of activities because of high education. Staffs in Mission Trip are funny, friendly, and energetic. They gave us and the kids in the school new games. For example, today Mr.Webb suggested one game for getting closer with kids. First Mr. Webb says the number and we need to make groups which have same numbers of people he said. However, we cannot make groups including only guys, girls, or TAPA & TAAS students. All groups should have least one from these three groups.

I learned a lot of things from kids and our staffs. They gave me chances to have conversation and help kids every time when I got there. Also I appreciated teachers and kids giving chance to worship. From this trip I learned help and love kids, teachers, and God.

Daily Report for Sunday, April 5th (Group A)

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. We actually will present two reports of today, being that the group that visited Wat Preah Yesu split into two groups: one that primarily focused on teaching and entertaining kids in classes, and another that focused on painting a few houses on the campus. This report, from Jane, is about the teachers.

I started today with the sixth grade, it was our first class to teach. They were smart but clever. We first sang songs to them, they were go with motions. We had trouble with the games at first, but later on we found that we just need to make it fun and easy to understand.

Next, was the fifth grade, This is one of my favorite age of this trip. They were interacting with us, and we had fun playing the games. Their math teacher taught us a new game which is called two plus one. It's so fun and tired but I am so going share this with my friends back. They sometimes cheated on the game but most of them were very fair with the games. I love them so much.

We even went to library to stayed with the kids, they don't have that many of books but they love it. I was reading to a boy at first, but then I realized that he could read on his own. He doesn't understand the meaning of the word but he could pronounces the words. Very hard working of them. Now I feel like I should study more; I have all the resources and the educations that are given.

Last, I just want to say something for this one day of teaching. They don't have much of games or things like computer or Ipod, but they are much happier than we are. For their face when they are playing the games, the face of enjoying and and thankful. Now I wonder do we need that much for our life? This fits in our topic for the worship today: "Remember... early things will fail/disappoint, but God is forever." For them families, friends, school, and God are they have. However, they are thankful and faithful to these.

Playing with the kids at Wat Preah Yesu

Heading back to the orphanage in a few minutes, but before we go, I wanted you all to see the Chapel/Assembly worship service we did with 109 students (according to Lisa's check) yesterday morning. Pretty fun!

Daily Report for Sunday, April 4th (Group B)

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. We actually will present two reports of today, being that the group that visited Wat Preah Yesu split into two groups: one that primarily focused on teaching and entertaining kids in classes, and another that focused on painting a few houses on the campus. This report, from Linda, is about the teachers.

Today is the first day to serve the kids. We split into two big groups, painting group and teaching group. Our group is the teaching group and we split into to small groups in order to teach different classes. Our first class is the 5th grade kids. Because they loved singing, we basically sang half of the class and used rest of the class to teach. We played simple games using easy words to teach them such as Pictionary, Hang man or spelling games.

At first, they did not seem very interesting in the game, but as we took out candies as gift, they became so excited. We taught three classes in the morning and during the break, we gave the kids some candies. However, as we took out the candy bags, all the kids ran to us and grabbed our hands. Although we told that they could only get one at one time, they just hid their hands with candies behind their back and asked more. I felt they were really cute, but at the same time I also felt so sad for them as we can eat candies everyday.

In the afternoon, Kotomi, Enoch and I chose to teach math together. At first we felt so excited; however, all the students are so shy that they did not even say anything in the whole class. The only sounds they made was laughing. We really felt strange standing there and speaking by ourselves. Later on, we taught the little kids in a bigger room. They are really cute and sweet. Although today is a hard day for everyone, we still enjoy our trips.

Daily Report for Sunday, April 4th (Group A)

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. We actually will present two reports of today, being that the group that visited Wat Preah Yesu split into two groups: one that primarily focused on teaching and entertaining kids in classes, and another that focused on painting a few houses on the campus. This report, from Gabriel, is about the painters.

Today we had an earlier morning call of 6:15. By 7:00, we were on the way to the school/orphanage. Once we got there, we found out that we would be leading the school morning program. The teachers quickly threw their heads together and came up with a plan of songs and skits for the children done by the children. My team, which included me, Vivian, Sky, Alix, and James, ended up with 28 kids from grades 1 to 3 and had to teach them to act out the story of David and Goliath.

45 minutes later, the team for painting was getting ready to give a house a new coat. The whole house needed 5 rooms to be painted; the kitchen, main room, parents room, boys room, and girls room. We taped masking tape along the edge to keep paint from accidentally getting on to certain parts. Once everyone on the paint team started to paint, we soon had 3 three more volunteers. Each of the drivers decided that they wanted to help out and started to pick up paint brushes. We finished most of one house and had started to tape the second house by the time lunch came around. We moved to the cafeteria and were greeted by large platters of rice, curry, and fruits.

Our afternoon lasted only a few hours but we still painted what we could. By the end of the day, one house was officially finished and the other house two-thirds of the way finished. We used water pumped from a well and powdered soap to remove the paint from our bodies. The kids who had finished their school for the day, came around and watched us as we finished. We left the place around 4:00 and went back to our hotel for showers and rest. At 6:00, we went into town and got to spend $8.00 on food. The area we eat at is filled with an overflowing amount of shops, food, and souvenirs.

From 6:30 to 8:30 we got to eat and shop. We came back to the hotel and gathered for songs and worship. We finished that just 15 minutes ago and then I started to write this journal. By 10:30 I should be in my bed asleep, and blissfully unaware of the fact that I need to wake up at 6:00 tomorrow.

One of the coolest museums ever: Cambodia's Land Mine Museum

Enoch wrote last night about his experience at the Land Mine Museum, and I have to echo his praises. It was one of the absolute most interesting (and sobering) places one could ever go to. There we a lot of pretty sad lessons you could learn as you wandered about. The one that stuck out the most to me? That the USA is one of the very few countries in the world that has not outlawed landmines. Yup, right up there with other great, progressive nations like Libya, Syria, Iran, and North Korea. (Seriously.) Very sad stuff, but again, a cool place to learn a lot.

The man who runs the museum is a former Khymer Rouge soldier who actually is responsible for laying many of the mines himself. However, with all the work he's done to remove them from Cambodia, he's actually gained quite an international reputation for being a good guy, earning him a 2010 CNN Heroes Top 10 nomination. Pretty cool stuff!

Can you see the landmines in the picture to the right? How about if you were running through a dimly-lit jungle with bullets whizzing past your head? Probably not. Scary stuff.

Daily Report for Sunday, April 3rd

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's article was written by Enoch. He's talking about the two main activities we did today: visiting a Landmine museum and a Cultural Center.

It takes 5 kg to press down the trigger, push away the metal block, release the a little bar with a spring, and trigger the explosion. Land mines are build to create severe damage.

We walked through concrete floors to see the next sign and land mine. On the sign was the story of the founder of this museum: He was a Khmer Rouge when he was ten, and had to handle an AK-47 that was as big as him. One day, he was in a jungle, the two armies were firing at each other. He sees his uncle, but didn't had the courage to shoot his uncle. His uncle didn't recognize him and started to fire at him. He fired around his uncles head to scare him away. "Why did you miss?", his friends asked him. "I had a headache and couldn't aim.", he replied. Many years later he met his uncle and tell him the story, They laughed about it. The next sign was about the structure of land mines. I started to feel my leg tinkle, I started to watch my steps, nothing exploded.

The cultural village was a big area, with many sections for different peoples in Cambodia.

There was even cages and local animals. I continued to think about the founder of the landline museum. He use to set land mines because he was taught that way, his life had always being full with war. Now he works with organizations to save people from injury. The monkey in the cage is climbing on the fence, it had a funny face. The park in the "village" is full with weird statue of faces. They were bold and their face squished by their expressions. I got tired of the swings and went in to a ghost house. It was stupid.

In the hotel room, I watched TV and waited for the sun to set. The air out side was too hot for dinner. When we are on the bus, heading toward to the restaurant, the air had become tolerable. The food street was filled with people, as usual. I had soup and pizza, it's very nice to chat with my fellow classmate and have fun like that.

Tomorrow we are going to teach kids. I think I'll go to sleep, 8 hours and 37 minutes until 6: 45.

More of Angkor Wat

While we run around today touring more sites, here are some more photographs of the Angkor Wat facilities, brought to you by a pretty cool iPod app, Hipstamatic! Take a look!

Cambodia Mission Trip—Kevin's Pictures

Earlier, we posted some pictures of Kevin's at Wat Preah Yesu. We actually followed up and grabbed even more pictures from the guy and put them into a quick little slideshow. Take a peek at it!

Sabbath Pictures!

Brought to you by the great Kevin, here are pictures of our experience at Wat Preah Yesu on Sabbath, entertaining and playing with the school's over 200 orphans.