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<3 Saturday, March 21, 2009

HELLO EVERYONE! I'm back from my mission trip in CAMBODIA!! Cambodia's a great place and it definitely was a good break from my busy schedules in Singapore. I've made so many friends there I was so reluctant to leave Cambodia. It's my prayer that hopefully, I can be back there again. I have been so very blessed. Thank God I went for this trip! :) Actually it would definitely be more fun if the entire REAL team was there. My REAL friends, I really, really really..... (times 10 to the power of infinity!) want you guys to 'see' every marvelous work that God has done during this mission trip........AND SO......a full-blown and very detailed account of what happened:

Day 1:

I arrived at the airport at Cambodia, still doubting whether I made the right choice to go with a team of strangers I barely knew. The team had 8 people, out of which, 3 are youths. The other two, Cristabel and Sarah went with their mums. SO..... it meant that.... I was the only orphaned youth! :( Well, since I am innately a phleg(S), going with strangers wasn't fun. I was constantly in a self-dug hole, coming out only during meal times. Hahaha okay, enough about my plight! :)

Went to visit the different ministries supported by New Life Church (The church Grace partnered with in Cambodia). I was certainly overwhelmed! They had healthcare ministries, youth minitries for the provinces, children at risk misnistries, healing ministries, education ministris, dormitories for youths, media and sound ministries, 'CAMY', Joy Clubs, Women and family ministries, business ministries... and MANY MORE! PLUS.... they have producing albums way way way earlier than us.... AND their 'CAMY' team is comprised of youths who have not studied the basics of music(The 'do re me fa so part). I was like...WOW WOW WOW! Haha shall tell you more when I see you all!

DAY 2
Samrong Yong church is this small curch out in the province. It's about an hour's drive to the church. Can I please tell you all that the youths there are SO SO SO SO on fire for God!! We actually went there preparing a training for adult leaders to equip them further in their children ministries, but GUESS WHO WE SAW! YOUTHS! The age ranged from FOURTEEN to 22. I was like 'er.....haha 14 years old ah?!' See.. This is when God proved me wrong. these people are ever so hungry for God and so very willing to be vessels to be used to impact the lives of the children.

When I saw how Srieng and Naint (My two great friends there!) led worship with a guitar for 40 over leaders, I was so encouraged by God's marvelous works in this provincial church. Naint the guitarist, is too powerful! He led worship without knowing certain chords, and yet, he played as the Spirit led him. Srieng's voice was overpowered by the 40 other people all on fire for God. Powerful, powerful, powerful worship they have.

The training went really really well. We taught them how to use action songs, drama and dance to engage the children into God's word. Well haha I was put into dance. It suited me perfectly fine until I had to do a solo. BUT, that wasn't the surprise that God sprang on me! I am definitely NOT NOT NOT NOT (times 10 to power of infinity!) a SINGER! Yet, for some reason, I had to sing ALL the children songs because they coudn't use the GUITAR to play those songs! I should have picked up guitar last year so that this year I could save myself from this! I was frantically asking Naint and Caiet to ''play and let the Holy Spirit lead''! Hahaha

DAY 3
We taught them crafts and games that could be related to the bible for teaching purpose. Nothing much to add because it was just as exciting.... except for the part when my craft was so screwed up my friends could do it much better than me!

To cut my VERY EXCITING STORY SHORT... the next two days were the same, but at a different province :)

My FRIENDS!

JESUS LOVES YOU (IN KHMER)

DAY 6

The genocide museum was HORRIFYING. I was breaking down periodically. Shall not post pictures for this one...and the killing field.

DAY 7

Went to the dump slump. It was BAD. literally. The smell was so foul a 3 seconds unwinding of the window equals one minute of breath-holding excercise. What was even more dreadful wasn't the physical condition of the place, but rather, the poor little children walking around, bare-footed to see if there are any leftovers that can find to eat, or to sell. It was heart-wrenching, and it still is even when I'm reflecting now. To see them walking through these heap of hot dump is like a ripping off a portion of my heart! I really wanted to get out of the van and buy them something to eat or do whatever I can to help them:( I really wish I could and I would, but the dump is so smelly I don't know whether I even have the courage to step out of the van.

Our next stop was the slump. It was not as smelly, but the living conditions were equally bad. Walking into the slump is like walking through a very very very narrow 'pasa malam' on a wet and muddy day, with black mud that smells foul sticking to the sole of your shoe as your trudge through. Every step I took was welcomed by the horde of flies on all the rubbish that are littered on the mud. The children again were without shoe, and some were without clothes. Even if they had clothes on, their clothes smelt of urine. I wanted to back out halfway and not bathe them. All the adults, even the mums did not want to bathe them. Well, these kid deserve a good bath, so I told God "Here I am, you can send me to do it!" At the end of the bath, I smelt really bad, but the kids smelt awfully good, and I'm glad I didn't back out, or these children would have to go without bath for another week. It's also very satisfying to watch them bathe, because they really really really enjoy being splashed all over with clean water. I guess their smiles and laughter would sustain me through any tough job:)

There was one issue at the slumps and provinces that I am really concerned about. The children are not healthy! :( :( So many of them are malnutritioned, so many. Their tummmies are bloated up and it's so devasting to look at them, even more so when they smile despite their condition. Some of them have really bad infections too.

There's this young boy that I bathed at the slump, he had this very severe infection of the eye that caused severe swelling and pus accumulated around his eye. He was hurting so badly yet he wanted to have a bath. When the water splashed on him, I could tell he was really trying to hard to control his pain. It's so painful for me to watch. How i wish I could do something to alleviate his pain! There's another boy who has infection on his ear. He came to me for a bath in spite of his infection, which I know it certainly would sting when i wash his hair. It was very devastating to watch. Very.

I do hope you would continue to pray with me in this area for the children at Cambodia. Our intercessory prayers would definitely be heard.

By the way, this is the crusade we conducted on friday night for a few hundred children!

9:07 PM
BeautifulIllusions

<3 Sunday, March 1, 2009

Yay! My brother has decided to bless me by teaching me the BASICS of GUITAR! Guess my prayer worked! God spoke to him! :) Praise God! Well, I'm having my OFFICIAL guitar lesson in a while's time, so meanwhile.... I'll update about FRIDAY!

Friday was indeed a BLAST! My last day was spent, drenched in pespiration, playing BASKETBALL with my Dunearn girls!!! Well, want to know who they are? :) SECRET! Tell you if you ask me! :) Basketball isn't as easy as it looks! Especially more so when you are playing with a bunch of LIVELY, SPORTY and SKILLFUL girls who have way way way way.... MORE energy than me! I really enjoyed my time playing basketball. It's just so.... WOW! No other superlatives can describe how I felt than while playing. AND, I REALLY DO want to play with them again! If they want to play with some NEWBIE like me, that is :) :) :)

Well, the guys were equally fun to play with! At crossroad, the guys would ALWAYS be the LOUDEST! Oh, by the way, did I mentioned that Xuan Hao and Leroy did some dramatic acting stunt while we were closing crossroad? Super Cool! :)

So yup, that concluded my VERY EXCITING friday!

Today actually marked the end of our REAL program, but as pastor Ronald said, the REAL starts today! Quite true, considering that it would be really a test on our part to be committed to grow spiritually ourselves, even after the end of this programme. So... my REAL resolution is to stay FOCUSED and HUNGRY for the word of GOD :)

So... What's probably going to happen in march? Well, I would go for my cambodia mission trip, but apart from that, I would want to use my time to do the things I couldn't do for the past few dreadful exam-driven years. I am going to go back into PIANO, DANCE, and I'm going to pick up GUITAR lessons! By the way, did I mention that I might want to go back into skating and also to pick up some photography skills from Caleb and to LEARN how to play tennis? Okay, but these aren't my pressing priority. I'll still do it, but I'll take it slowly. No stress! :)

10:06 PM
BeautifulIllusions