Stepping Out of the Shadow

Imagine..

Imagine you're just a young kid and imagine that your parents struggle to pay the monthly rent. Imagine that you don't speak the local language. Imagine that you're sent out from sunrise to sunset in scorching heat to comb the streets looking for other peoples' rubbish to sell to help your mum & dad make ends meet. Imagine that if only you could, you'd actually like to go to school.

Got a picture in your mind? Well, these are the Vietnamese 'ep-chai' kids of Cambodia. More about them later.

In my last entry, I outlined the origins of the Vietnamese people in Cambodia and some of their struggles living in this country. Last Sunday, I visited the floating village of Kampong Khlong with Kim the Vietnamese lady who runs the ministry. It took about an hour to get there, by jeep and then by boat and on the way we stopped off for a breakfast of sticky rice cooked in bamboo; it was actually delicious and very cheap too.

We went to the Vietnamese church service on a floating barge and I taught English, funnily enough, mid-way through the service! It was an eye-opener seeing how these people live and the economic difficulties they undergo and as they struggle to maintain their floating wooden homes on an ever-changing tide.

Back in Siemreap, most days I'm teaching five classes: four at the Vietnamese school and one at the Siemreap Church. The Khmer students at the church are intermediate-level so there's quite a contrast between the two schools. On Tuesday evening, I taught them for the first time and even though we're at the end of the monsoon season, didn't it ever bucket it down! We were in the church building due to the mozzie-fest taking place outside but the rain was battering the tin roof so much we couldn't hear ourselves speak!

It is with the Vietnamese though that I am currently mostly utilised. It's hard teaching 26 Vietnamese children most under the age of ten when they are complete beginners at English and when you consider that I'm an utter novice at Vietnamese, it makes for interesting times.

The kids come to lessons with their young siblings and are then back out on the streets; some have battered cycles but many are on foot, trawling the dusty pavements and forecourts for anything that has been discarded. They then take what they've collected back to their village where a recycling centre exists. Not like your council-run drive-in dump-off and drive out - this is just a guy on the entrance to the village who pays the kids a small amount for whatever they may have. It's hard for these kids as they don't speak Khmer and are truly on the edge of society.

Teaching them this week has been an experience: during one lesson, I was filmed by a Canadian cable TV company who are aiming to raise the profile of Christian projects in Asia. These lessons are in themselves quite extraordinary because the classroom is always packed to capacity with the children and there is even a mother with a young daughter who comes to every morning class but follows the lesson by looking in through the open-grilled window, babe and schoolbook in arms.

That morning there was a full class, and outside there were two adults and another child peering in through the window plus a person filming me from various angles! Add to that the relentless heat - no pressure or anything.. oh and even the Vietnamese Maths and Khmer language teacher attends my afternoon class with all the kids and is a very enthusiastic student!

Admittedly, it was hard teaching these kids at first; they knew no English whatsoever but they're improving and I just love the look on their faces when I discipline them with my scant Vietnamese.

Despite their circumstances, their hotchpotch uniforms, toothless grins and dirty fingernails these kids are the most adorable kids imaginable. Children in the UK really don't know how blessed they are. This school ministry is a lifeline for these children; run by two Vietnamese teachers who are committed Christians whose heart is to give these kids a chance, to give them something other than walking the streets picking rubbish. To give them the chance of discovering their destiny in Christ.

So the plan's unfolding just as expected.

"But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee." Psalms 5:11

Indeed, trust in Him.