We woke up a little after 5am to eat breakfast and get ready for the long day ahead. Once we had eaten, my mission team (International) went over to the International school to have chapel time and a phonics lesson with the kids. For chapel time we had a Bible story and sang quite a few songs with the kids.

Setting up was pretty easy and involved only putting up a portable speaker. We had time to practice a little before going out to wait for the kids.

The kids here are very respectful towards older people and teachers. To show their respect when greeting people, they put their hands together and bow, with their hands at different places with respect to their head depending on the status of the other person relative to themselves.

They came into chapel time in order by grade. First the preschoolers and kindergartners entered and sat in a row at the far end of the room, and then the first graders entered. All the classes enter and exit rooms in a single file line. If the kids are noisy after they sit down, all you need to do is shout, "Are you ready?", to the kids before they all touch their heads, shoulders, and waists while screaming, "YES WE ARE!".

After chapel time, we went and taught the different grades (pre-kindergarten to first) phonics. I’m working with the first graders. The phonics lesson was lasted half and hour, after which our team went and join the rest of the mission team for our daily meeting and devotion time.

In the afternoon after lunch we climbed into a school bus and went to a village to do evangelism with the families of the Life University children and other people in the village. After a short drive we were walking down the streets of a nearby village. My partner Tony and I had a chance to speak to two families before it started raining and we had to go. Seeing the poverty of the people there really made me appreciate everything I’ve been given in life, and also reminded me of the urgency at which people need to hear the good news.

The second person we talked to during the trip was a woman who attends the Life University church. She invited us to her home, which was basically a single small wooden room (under an old, broken down wooden house) about the size of a walk-in closet. There was a wooden bed without a mattress taking up half the room on which she and three other family member slept. While walking to the house, we were trying to make small-talk with her son, who looked to be about eight years old. One of the things we said was, “You need to eat a lot to grow tall okay?” Later, our translator explained to us that the boy hadn’t eaten yet because his mother didn’t have enough rice to make him a meal.

After returning to Life University, I helped Jay out in teaching his extracurricular music class on drums. In the evening, we had fellowship time with the Life University college students before wrapping up for the day. We played a pretty interesting game of human bingo, and also had a section for "stupid human tricks". Putting your name down for sections like fastest reaction time, best balance, best singer, best rapper, and other things earned you a chance to compete with the people other groups put down in weird competitions. There was a competition for best animal imitation, and also two interesting korean games that involved knocking one another down while hopping on one foot, and playing rock paper scissors with the goal of hitting your opponent on the head with a water bottle if you win.

The breakfast we had was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Here's the daily update that was sent to church members back home:

Cambodia Team 1 Update - Day 2