It is working week! We've begun to get seriously involved in the daily work of CHO. Today, we have been doing a variety of things, so the blog is, even more than usual, a set of group stories.
School on the Mat - Yvonne, Karen, Fiona and Rosanne were in the clearing in the trees. We were told "what do you want to do? It's just you!" We started with an action song in which the children copied the actions and sang the song back with us, mainly the "Hello". Then we introduced ourselves and showed them Scotland on Yvonne's inflatable globe, together with some postcards of Edinburgh and a highland cow! One little boy was scared by the hairy cow, and they learned that thistles were jaggy. As they gathered round the globe Fiona showed them where they were and where we come from! Karen told the story of Jesus calming the storm as the teacher translated it for them. Then the parachute came out! We played at waves - spot the link! The children took to the parachute with enormous joy; it went down a treat - and up and down and up again! We had to stop when one little boy was being lifted and dropped by his friends in a dangerous way! We gave out smiley-faced stickers to say "well done"! The lesson finished with the teacher doing a piece on snake awareness. We went in the truck with the American group who were observing.
Safe Haven school - Eric, Sandra and Jeanette went to teach tower-building as part of a science lesson. We introduced ourselves; they were fascinated by Jeanette's Edinburgh t-shirt. Alison (a student from Edinburgh university) had 3 piles of drinking straws with the challenge to build a tower 1 metre high that could support a plastic bottle with a little water in it. There were only 2 rolls of sellotape and 2 small pairs of scissors amongst 40 children so there was plenty of to-ing and fro-ing. The towers rose higher and higher as did the excitement! They were given 15 minutes in which to complete the task in groups of 5. End result - some interesting shaped towers, some that could stand and some that fell down. The winning team was led by Jeanette but it was the kids who did the work; they were brilliant.
Safe Haven painting - most of the team spent the morning painting a bedroom in one of the new houses at Safe Haven. The white undercoat is now on and Tia says the second coat will be red. It was extremely hot and extremely sweaty but great fun! Fiona tried to climb the scaffolding but Tia's Health and Safety concern made her come down again. The singing of "How great thou art" was a substitute for the radio, a bit like singing in the shower and almost as moist. Lots more to be done tomorrow, 2 more bedrooms to go.
The pastors' conference occupied Jim and Martin all day. It was amazing to see so many pastors, some who had travelled 6 or 7 hours to get here. Jim and Mao formed a formidable double act, Jim's excellent teaching with Mao's excellent translation. They are working through Ephesians, equipping the pastors to take it to their churches. When Jim asked them to describe their churches, it became obvious that most of the churches are very young both time-wise and spiritually. When asked about their hopes for the future, most pastors replied that they wanted leaders who are better-equipped to handle God's word, which hopefully this conference will begin to help to address. It was encouraging to see such a great appetite for learning, a great fillip to CHO as it prepares to set up a Bible School in the next 2 years. We had sessions in which Jim covered Ephesians 1 and 2; the target is to get to the end of chapter 6 by the end of Wednesday. One highlight which everyone else missed was Jim sitting on the kitchen floor having a Cambodian lunch with some of the pastors and CHO leaders. There was also a power cut towards the end of the morning session: it lasted about an hour and the heat soared amazingly quickly; an early adjournment was called for!
If you want to see more photographs of today's business, go to facebook and the Juniper Green in Cambodia group.
