ACTSpedition Cambodia (GACI) 03-08 Dec 2011

I went on a ACTSpedition trip with Generation ACTS Club International from 3rd Dec to 8th Dec, first time as a participant of a Service Learning trip and also first time partnering a village church under the Assembly of God umbrella, managed by a local Cambodian pastor, Ps Moses.

Day 1 - 3rd Dec 2011

Reading: Galatians 1

Reflection:

I had not packed earlier, due to the surreal experience that I have actually agreed to the trip. I do have a heart to want to support such trips as both a service to the beneficiaries and also an outreach to the locals as we expand the influence of the global church, but I always believe that I will take the back seat, hence this trip is really a breakthrough for me. However, my main reflection was whether I am doing this to please Men or God? I really do not have an answer to that, but after the whole trip, I do conclude that I would not have went alone.

During my packing God also spoke to me through things that happened. I was planning to bring my cheaper lens for the trip out of a worrying attitude regarding my belongings, basically I was ready to give only the bare minimum. However, God caused me to test out my cheaper lens before I packed it, and it failed after 2 test shots. I wrestled with it for 2 hours, plowing through online forums to find a "cure" to it such that I can avoid bringing my expensive lens to the trip, but to no avail. God finally prompted my heart with this question, "Why are you not willing to give your best?". I struggled for a while and finally let go, also acknowledging that I have not been able to keep the lens in tip top condition by my own efforts anyway, and I shall just commit its protection to God.

On arrival, we went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Crime Museum. They had rooms of photos of the victims, and these faces represented people. There were also some which I found to be similar to some people I have met in my life and I wondered to myself, "How will I feel if these people were my family or friends?". I do not dare to think too much down that line, but the positive part about the whole history of Cambodia is its openness to foreign influence now as a growing nation and we play a part in molding it through this trip.

Day 2 - 4th Dec 2011

Reading: Romans 15-16

Reflection:

The main reflection from the passage was a challenge to go where no one has preached the gospel. This trip is building upon the good work started by Assembly of God church and also the few teams that have gone before us. We are also preparing the way for the teams after us, part of the bigger chain and scheme of things, The question for myself is "When will I start some new work in a place where the gospel has not been preached?"

We took the morning to travel down to Kampong Speu province and visited Ps Kala's church. She is the person overseeing the AOG churches in that region. Her church is also running English classes and a pre-school as part of its outreach to the locals. The village church we are working with is also providing affordable English lessons to the villagers. Found out a lot about the Cambodian education scene from her and felt really sad about the state of corruption, how the lowly paid teachers have to resort to tuition with high charges where they leak exam questions. It is something that I really cannot accept for people of this noble profession, but yet I can understand how their needs influenced their decisions and actions.

We finally made our way down to the village church and started work on the roof of the shed as Ps Moses had already did up the supporting frame. The air was filled with the aroma of cow dung and I stepped on some of them and dust clouds were kicked up whenever a vehicle passes by. The rear door of the van which brought us around became a dust cloud booby trap when you close it down. In just one afternoon, we put up all the supporting bamboo for the roof and completed tying 20% of the leave flaps onto the roof and the sisters complete one out of two pieces of wall cover. We were very much ahead of time by God's grace.

Day 3 - 5th Dec 2011

Reading: Nehemiah 1-3

Reflection:

Morning devotion reading reminded me of the favour God has showered on the team through providing for us financially. Joy's VP at work helped her garnered a total of S$1200 in donations, which is our original target, so we had a lot more than what we had planned for. I was also touched by the way the brothers worked hand in hand over all the hard physical labour, standing next to each other and building the roof together. I was also thankful for the beautiful sunrise I managed to catch as I woke up earlier than the time for morning devotion.

We went on to finish the roof by lunch time and hence we proposed to actually cement the foundation of the shed since we had 2 more days and also quite a bit of budget left. This was a whole cycle of interesting unfolding. We were first informed that the materials will arrive in the afternoon and we could possibly complete it by the end of the day, however there was no sight of them for the day. We went back for dinner and had a good time of learning about work culture in Cambodia.

Day 4 - 6th Dec 2011

Reading: Nehemiah 4-6

Reflection:

This morning was a continuation of the cycle of interesting thing, our Facilitator had to break the news to us that we cannot go ahead with the cementing as the land we are building on does not belong to Ps Moses. This is a new discovery that actually in Cambodia, only females owned land and the land we were building on belonged to his sister. The reading for morning devotion encouraged me to pray for God to strengthen our hands which are sore and tired and also for the stability of the shed without the cement foundation.

We went over to the village for another surprise. We reached the place seeing the walls of the shed removed, 3 extended beams were put up and a group of about 10 over villagers gathered. At first sight I guessed the intention but was hoping I was wrong, we were going to move the whole shed. It had turned out that over the night, Ps Moses had spoken to his sister and they had agreed to move the location of the shed to the back as his sister plans to build her house on the current location of the shed. It was really an iconic and once-in-a-lifetime experience for us all.

We succeeded in moving the shed, but had to break the news to Ps Moses about us being unable to go ahead with the cementing even though the materials have arrived. We had to level the ground around the new location of the shed and the original location, which became quite a lot of work for us. Thus we had to pay for 2 workers to help dig soil in order to fill the ground inside the shed. We also had to clear some cow dung dump pile in the process. That kept us busy for the whole day.

Day 5 - 7th Dec 2011

Reading: Nehemiah 7-9

Reflection:

The reading reminded me of the different roles we play and also convicted my heart of the sin of my frustration and complaints about how a sister interfered with my work and caused it to be less effective and more tiring. I repented and allowed God to work my heart to accept the differences we have. This was also the last and most challenging day of our project.

We had to organise 2 parties for the kids and the brothers now need to be involved in the interaction. We had been working on the physical shed so far and have had little interaction with the kids and nearly zero knowledge of Khmer, the Cambodian language. The morning party went well and things turned out fine. After which we worked on the bottled light solution for the shed.

The afternoon party was a nightmare as the sisters had to assess the English standard of the older kids and hence 4 men were left with about 10 plus 2-4 year old toddlers. It was like babysitting 101. We were really glad when the first group of older kids came to join us as we could start doing songs and dance with them. But the whole assessment process was so long that we could not hold their attention any more and chaos ensued. However it all ended in the way we planned and had an extended meeting with Ps Kala and Ps Moses to round up our whole project.

Day 6-8 - 8th-10th Dec 2011

Reading: Nehemiah 10-13

Reflection:

Day 6 was travel back to Phnom Penh where we met GuanRui's team who will be continuing our work. This is followed by our Cultural Roadblock where we had three tasks not to be disclosed. The first and third tasks were easy with the help of Google, but the second task took us around Central Market for about 20 mins. We finally had to eat some local snack which was rather unsettling. We rounded up our programme with GACI and started out our R&R after lunch. Which was basically shopping.

Day 7 was a day of rest, late breakfast followed by Neck, Shoulder and Back massage which left some bruises on my back. We spent the rest of the day simply shopping as much as we can and ended the day with our last devotion. I was reminded of how our project is but one of the many that the place will go through and how the city of Jerusalem was built from strength to strength from David, to Solomon and finally rebuilt by Nehemiah. I pray that the small shed we helped with will eventually be built into a school for the village.

Day 8 was simply breakfast and travel back to Singapore for a well-deserved rest. However there was a little episode about our spending at DFS, we were told that we could redeem the Angry Bird plush toy at Terminal 3, but turned out otherwise. A little disappointment but nonetheless, glad to be back in sunny and technologically advanced Singapore.