the last run

Schools done. It finished two weeks ago. It's weird to think about. When I said goodbye to students for the last time, I smiled because I still feel like this is just a break and then after the holiday school will start again. I'm going to miss them all so much. I'm gonna miss arguing with the 10th graders about the amount of homework, and Sophea saying hi every morning as he is the first one to class, and talking to my kids after school about what it means to be a Christian and what life should be like and what it is like. I'm gonna miss having kids always around even in the afternoon after school. I'm gonna miss all the expats and the stories and the advice they have to give. I'm gonna miss it all, the crazy traffic, the smelly market, school stuff seller, all of it: good and bad.

Graduation was fun. It was so personal. It was three days full worth of ceremonies. Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, and Sunday morning. I played pomp and circumstance in all with Mark on the trumpet. My favorite parts were on Friday night BJ spoke and he spoke for a solid hour and then some, but the crazy thing was that it was not boring. It was sooooo goood! He made the kids cry. It was a sermon, story, lesson, connection to chemistry all in one. I'll remember it always. We are suppose to go through a nuclear change! :D On Saturday it was a I would call it a "thank you " night, were the kids got up one by one and said thank you. It was cute to see all the kids saying thank you to all their parents and teachers. At the end a student gave me a rose and said thank you. I would have never expected a thank you from him, but he sure did give me a smile, for it. Thank night made me cry. Even though I have only seen one year of their lives, I felt like I was seeing my own kids graduate. It's a weird feeling, like they use to be young but now they're grown. Oh boy it's gonna be weird being a student again.

A week later Kristie and I took a 24 hour bus to Vientiane in Laos. We spent two days there with Jack and Kong, two Lao student of ours, and they showed us around. We were able to go to bible study at their church. I love seeing how people worship. They are so hospitable. It encourages me and shows me what a church should be like. I learn more from them then they from us.

Then we took a 10 hour bus trip to Luang Prabang were I am at now. It is in the mountains. It is soooooOOOSOOOOooosoosoOOOO beautiful. Tomorrow I am speaking at a village church so please pray for me. Then in the afternoon we will see a village and at night head back home. 34 + hours of sitting on a bus. Sounds like fun....
It is crazy to think that apparently we are only a days drive away from China. So close! but yet so far... someday I'll get there.

I think I'm ready to go home. I want to see everyone and I am excited to talk to everyone, but I think I feel the call to serve as a missionary again. I hope that God calls me anyways :D Maybe i'm just making up the feeling... idk... I have always felt more at home traveling, we'll see.

Prayer list for this blog.

Pray for Laos. The church is small here, but the members are passionate. It is a communist government so it is not supportive of the church. Many members face persecution from their family and friends for becoming a christian, more so than Cambodia. They need continuing prayers.

Please continue praying for CAS. They are a powerful witness in Cambodia and it is easy for faculty and staff to forget that. Just like at home it is easy to forget that our daily lives is a witness. Pray that the holy spirit is continually being poured out on the school.

Pray for the students,especially those graduating or leaving the school. It's easy to forget about God once they are no longer in an environment that supports Christianity.

Thank you for all your prayers!

love
amy

fail

Last day for seniors today. I was numb. I was more sad about it at the beginning of the week. I can't believe it is actually over.

Do you know what it is like to have students fail your class and because of it cannot graduate. I do. It hurts to see the kids that I have come to love bawling cause they failed my class. It hurts.

oh time went by quickly.

wow! another blog a week later! :D

Updates on events.

Drama went decent. Could have been better, but they did much better than expected and it drew some of the non-christian parents to church, so I am praying that they were impacted by it :D. Afterwards they all came over for lunch and we had made daal and beans for them with Sumairah's help. They were very respectful and we did not have to kick anyone out. Actually a surprise but a very good surprise. I'm happy with the day. I have not sweated so much in my life. but a good day.

Science fair went very well! The kids did a pretty good job and it actually looked like a science fair. A lot of people were impressed. Next year it will only get better. I'm glad that we started one, cause now the kids actually have an idea of what one should kinda look like. And the kid that won was the one that I talked about in the previous blog about how he failed but now he is trying. :D I have the biggest smile about that.

so just wanted to let you know that prayers are being answered. Now for making final exams....

amy

Photos updated:

Beach: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=168732&id=735963980&l=66437459fa

Vietnam: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=168724&id=735963980&l=0437cd7ba5

Parents: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163202&id=735963980&l=88a1dbf217

Randoms: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=168738&id=735963980&l=84973899fc



If you have facebook please look up Cambodia Adventist School

also the school website is www.cas.edu.kh

UPDATE!!!!!!

I alot has happened in the past few months... I don't even know where to start. So this blog may be a little random as I try to remember the highlights. :D

April:
- My parents came!!!! Yeah!!!! I was able to show them around Phnom Penh so if you see them ask them how it went. :D I think they had a good time. Phnom Penh was stark empty because it was Khmer New Year so all the people leave the city to go to their provinces. I know NO ONE from Phnom Penh originally. Everyone has a "homeland" that they go to.
- The next weekend for holiday I went with the other SM's to the beach Kom Pong Som. We had a blast and we went snorkeling at an amazing island where there was basically no one there except us and the locals. The beach was white and empty. Gorgeous. God has created some amazing things. We saw lots of fish and sea creature thingys... haha... that I have no clue what they are.

May:
- My birthday! I had a blast. It was 3 days of fun :D On friday I had a surprise party with Tim, Fay, Gary, Sharon, Kristie, BJ, and Whit. On Saturday it was Sabbath and I had a fun time at Game time. Finally at the end of the day the boys let me win rook. When ever i play with them, they always bid rediculouly high and so I never can get points but finally they let me bid :D Then on Sunday some of my students led by Rosa threw me a little surprise get together. Now that was a surprise... I love them all dearly :D :D :D :D
- This weekend Kristie, Sumaira, and I went to vietnam and we did all our souvenir shopping. Apparently all things touristy is made in Vietnam so all the tourist things that you can get here and are made in Vietnam are a lot cheaper to just buy in Vietnam... :D Plus I got to eat Pho where Bill Clinton ate. And I got to see the tunnels were the North Vietnamese fought... and I saw the Reunification Palace where South Vietnam surrendered. Pretty cool stuff. It's fun to see that history is real. :D


So those are the major events. Now for some news....

-I only have one more month of school left. Not even. I think I am im panic mode. Already some of the Loas kids went home and I wasn't able to say goodbye!!!! I don't know what I am going to do. Breathing literally gets hard when I think I will be saying good bye soon. I'm gonna cry majorly. I'm going to warn all my students.

-The first science fair ever for CAS is this coming Sunday... we'll see how it goes...

- On Saturday Drama presents for church. PRAY FOR US PLEASE.... I am in panic mode. The kids are not. They are SLOW!!!!!! It doesn't help we have only had one class all quarter cause of all the holidays. Please pray that I am not pessimistic... but seriously I am WORRIED! I am praying that it will go well. On the plus side, because we are doing a program for church I have been doing worship with them every morning for the past month to prepare them for the program so they understand the message they are trying to get across and it is cool to see so many of the students interesting in Christs story.. I don't know what they have been learning so far but some of the kids didn't even know Jesus felt pain for them. Interesting conversations going on there. Pray that they all continue searching.

- 8 students may not graduate. Pray that they get there study boots on and get serious!

- Good news! I had a student who had given up on life... last straw was failing my class and so he was thinking about commiting suicide. BJ found out and so he talk to the principle and I talked to this student and made a deal that if he made up the work he would pass with a 60% (which is barely passing) and he had to prove he would try harder. Now he is one of the better students in my class, trying really hard, taking baptismal classes and he says it is because 2 teachers never gave up on him, and have shown him patience and so now life is worth living. I love happy stories!!! Pray that his interest in Jesus is not just temporary and that he continues searching. He is asking to be baptized. :D YEAHH!!! PRAISE GOD!!!!! (p.s. I have other student who failed were given the opportunity to make up the work and are now trying harder as well... pray for them, and pray for those who do not take up the gift of mercy... now I know how Jesus feels....)

- Please just pray for Cambodia... lots of exciting things can happen, but only we the Holy Spirits help.

Well gotta grade... as always.

Love ya all!!!!!!

snapshots

Two days ago it was so hot that when I took a shower I couldn't get it cold enough. I enjoyed getting out of the shower into A/C. Then yesterday is rained. The rain that starts at 2am and goes to 5 pm. Pouring. Now today I took a shower. I couldn't get it warm enough. oh the irony of life.

This morning I forced Kristie to get up and look at the clouds. There were actually nice fluffy clouds. Usually we either have a dark curtain of clouds meaning it's raining or no clouds. Since January we have had basically no clouds. It's suppose to be dry season.

Last week was the week or prayer at school and this week it is the week of prayer at church. School week of prayer went well. It was student run, so I was proud at how much the kids worked to make it special. It was a little unorganized here and there, but overall it was a success. We had many kids wanting prayer or more bible studies at the end of the week.

What I love most about being here is relationships. What stinks is I am becoming closer to the students so classes are a little more difficult to handle, but now I have so many kids coming up to me and telling me there secret problems and asking me for advice or prayer. It makes my days. I'm afraid that when i leave it's gonna be like when I left the U.S no communication really anymore. Made me cry yesterday when a student told me that. Although he is a person who can get up move to a different place make new friends and can move on. Very independent.



My English is going down the tubes. I starting to speak like the students. Lots of incomplete sentences, forgetting vocabulary. You think I had a difficult enough time saying my thoughts when I was in America, you should hear me now. All the SM's can speak some Spanish so we try to speak to each other in it. It's gets really funny cause we starts saying stuff like this... "Ate, tengo mien.." Which is No( in Khmer) I have (Spanish) have (Khmer. Whitaker is the worst cause he knows the most Spanish and Khmer so he really gets the words mixed up. At the beginning of the year we had the opposite problem. I would go to the market and I would think Spanish words. Now we try to speak Spanish and instead say Khmer words.

Happy Pi Day!

Today I went to S-21 Prison. It is one of the prisons that Pol Pot opened in Cambodia. During his reign people who were thought to be against the regime were charged and brought to this prison to see if they were traitors. Basically, one had to confess or be killed. Or not confess and be killed. It more depended on how much torture one could survive through. Most of those who were sentenced to go to prison were educated people. Pol Pot wanted to create a state that was all one class—labor workers. Phnom Penh was basically evacuated and either forced to work at labor camps or killed if they were of higher class. It is so horrific what the human race is willing to do. It is also sad how it seem the world continued on without realizing what occurred to Cambodia. What is also truly horrifying is that the U.S helped put the Khmer Rouge in power. In Cambodia they have excavated around 20,000 MASS graves. not 20,000 normal graves of people during this time, but 20,000 MASS graves. The time period that this occurred in was around 3 years long, maybe 1976-‘79. They had a list of some of the graves that they have excavated. Each grave had any where around 100-30,000 people in each grave.
It was a place that was just hauntingly silent. The rooms were plain, not much in it except the bed that the prisoners lied in when being tortured along with a box that they used as their toilet, but it was just inexpressible seeing the pictures and reading about what was done in this building. What is remarkable is the prison was a high school before being turned into a prison. So in the rooms there are still chalkboards and little sayings etched in the wall about teamwork and good communication. Two very opposite uses of a building that contrasted greatly.
In the pictures of those that were killed and tortured some looked to be just 5-7 years old. Those who did the torturing were anywhere’s from 16-30 years old looking. Pol Pot trained a very young army. Boys who were only waist high carried guns. There is a pastor here who tells that when he was forced to carry a gun it would drag on the ground because it was bigger than he.

Anyways… to more happier thoughts.
Today the ninth grades did a fundraiser as well and so I did face painting at it. I had fun. I let Chea face paint my face for 5,000 reil. It looked quite interesting. He tried to turn me into a guy with a mustache and beard along with some random other designs all over my face. I then turned him into a tiger… or what was supposed to be a tiger :P haha
On Friday I celebrated Pi day with my 12 graders. I made apple pie, banana cream pie, and mango cake for them. (Yeah our oven works now! ) What surprised me is that they actually ate all of that. I thought I would have left over’s. They enjoyed it. 10th graders on Friday had to do their skits. Decent but still needs more work. I am having difficulties motivating that class to go beyond expectations or to at least make expectations. It’s a slow process. Elementary did very well. I think that it helped that I let them speak Khmer… then I felt bad though, because then I was promoting it is okay to speak Khmer in school. It’s hard. I want chapel to be something the kids can learn from and so if they are going to get something out of it, I feel like it should be in the language that they can understand, but yet they are at our school to learn English and the only way they are going to learn is to be exposed to it all the time. Next time I think I will do it in English though. Give it a try.

Yesterday I did scripture reading for Church. Pisith recommended to the Pastor that I read it … I was confused why until I found out that I was reading the genealogy of Christ. I think he was secretly laughing to himself as I tried to pronounce all the names…. actually not, but yet I wonder…

I lost and found my bible this week. I NEED my bible and I was seriously lost without it. But Kristie found it :D Yeah for a good roommate!
I was told this week by a student that she is trying to be like me… What a scary thought. I told her to only see the good things, but it made me realize how much the students are watching me. I need to be extra cautious about what I say and do so it reflects how God wants me to be.

I have been having lots of interesting talks with people about the trinity. It is something that I forgot that I do not truly understand. I’m not sure if I should except that it is something that we as humans cannot understand, or as humans, are we making it more difficult than it really is? Something I’m trying to figure out.

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