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GBM Cambodia Mission Trip, 1st -6th June 2005 |
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Team members:
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Any GB officer
interested in joining the GBM Mission Trip to Cambodia in 2006?
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1st June 2005 MH754 from Kuala Lumpur to Phnom Penh arrived on time and we were met by Shirley Chong, from VillageWorks and Toh Wei Hong, from Canaan Technical School, who had chartered a van to receive the six of us. Straightaway we went on a sight-seeing tour around the centre of the capital and later checked into Asia Hotel after which we had lunch nearby. At 2.00 pm we went to VillageWorks SongKhem which displays and sells the works of the women at SongKhem, Baray, set up with GB Singapore. Chiew Yoong and Michelle went to Tuo Sheng Genocide Museum opposite whilst the rest of us browsed around the shop with its lovely handicrafts and woven cotton bags, etc. Then off to the Russian Market we went to pick up jeans, etc before it closed. Evelyn (our hot-stuff) had to cool down in some air-cond café while the rest of us desperately sweated it out over bargains. Then back to the hotel to rest and get ready for dinner. That was at Heng Lay restaurant across the river in a posh restaurant frequented by locals and foreigners and which had live singers and dancers. Enjoyed to omelette-like rice popiah-like salad, prawn fritters with almond coating. Ended the evening with reflection and prayer – recap the day’s events and planned for the next day. tcn 2nd June 2005 We woke up at 6am (sky is already bright) to rush down for breakfast so that we can walk to Central Market for some shopping before we set off for Baray (where VillageWorks is- a GB Singapore project in Cambodia). We started to squeeze ourselves (8 of us) plus our bags and gifts and the raw materials for Village Work Factory into an old van, without air-conditioned too! Praise the Lord, it was not as bad as we imagined. We all survived the 2.5 hour journey! There stood before us a 2 storey wooden house with a nice garden! Some of the workers rushed down to welcome us while others looked down from the top floor with smiling faces. We unloaded our bags and a few of the workers started to sort their raw materials and brought in to the store. Shirley brought us around starting from the Threading Department, Setting Department, Combing Department, Weaving Department and lastly the Sewing Department. The first 4 departments are actually situated at the ground floor of the bungalow and sewing department on 1st floor. There are altogether about 50 workers in Songkhem Village Work (Songkhem means Hope in Khmer Language) under the leadership of Sokka, a local girl who is getting engaged tomorrow! We had an early lunch prepared by a mother of the worker in
Village Work and some cool coconut drink. Thereafter, we were
free until our next session with the youth in Village Work and
also their friends at 3pm. Most of us felt a bit uneasy having
nothing to do (like not productive at all) as we all were so
used to the busy life of the city…. Praise the Lord for the rain in the evening to cool the
weather down (it was really HOT in Cambodia) and stopped right
on time for us to go out for our local village style of
steamboat. We had great experience getting ourselves up the
‘motor-tuk’ and figure where and how to sit! Great fellowship
over the dinner table and also enjoyed singing all the way back
in the dark with millions of stars up in the sky! (There is no
electricity at all in Baray, villagers use candles or generator
to generate electricity). 3rd June 2005 Praise God for the new morning and good rest at Baray village. The sky began to brighten at 5.30 am. Enjoyed the morning breeze and beautiful scenery of sunrise over cows ploughing in the rice fields. We had chicken porridge for breakfast followed by Devotions together with all the workers. Chiew Yoong taught the song “Ho-ho-ho-hosanna” and “Dalam Nama Yesus HatiKu Girang” with action and dances which was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. Sharing by Choon Neo on Psalm 1 encouraged us to be right with God, to grow in His Word and bear fruit for Him and life will be rich and prosperous. |
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At 8.30 am, we all were transported by Pastor Piza (sounds like that) on the motorduk to attend Sokha (supervisor in charge at Baray VillageWorks) and Kheam’s (a carpenter at the same place) engagement ceremony. When we reached the house, the ceremony conducted by Pastor Saven was over. We met Kheam’s parents and Sokha’s mother and relatives. We were treated to fresh palm fruit which was specially plucked by a boy for 500 riel. The fruit which was like coconut had delicious flesh. We noticed that every home had a deep well for water to cook and bath. At 10.30 am, we travelled again to visit a village school. Some of the kids had gone home but those who were there were given the pencils and sweets we had brought along. The school uniform consisted of a white blouse and blue skirt for the girls and most had no shoes. The people live such a simple life in the village but God cares for them too. There was a temple with young monks in the village also. Lunch at Songkhem was curry chicken and rice with a green vegetable. We all thoroughly enjoyed the delicious food cooked by the local people. At 1.00 pm, we went to visit the Cambodia Methodist Centre sponsored by Damansara Utama Methodist Church, PJ. Esther Ding has been the missionary there for 11 years, planting churches, training pastors and providing work for the youth such as painting and printing tea towels, potholders, letter holders, etc. to be sold at Khmer Life Shop in Phnom Penh to support the ministry at the villages. After the visit, we journeyed back to Phnom Penh by van on a very hot, burning afternoon. We stopped halfway to buy jagong corn to eat, not as sweet as our sweetcorn, too starchy. We reached our hotel at 4 pm. We all had enjoyed the short visit to thee village with its friendly and simple-minded folks. It’s unfortunate that we can’t communicate with them as we can’t speak Khmer and they can’t speak English. Dinner was a Christian restaurant which gave us 10% discount as Christians. At the counter, there were two lines in Chinese which said “God’s blessing and peace in Christ”. The night ended with ice cream in a coconut. Sharing and praying the room concluded the very eventful day. Comments: Proposal: 4th June 2005 Our fourth day in
Cambodia started as usual with breakfast at our hotel. There was
an impending sadness in us as Choon Neo’s departure was coming
nearer. She was so much a part of us that we were missing here
already. Wei Hong came for us at 7.15 am and after saying
goodbye Choon Neo, we went on the motor “tut-tut” to the GBTCS
to share with the girls from the “Life plus” club (which was the
name of the GB organisation in Phnom Penh, Cambodia). After lunch, we
had our first experience of motorcycle “tut-tut” which is a
motorcycle taxi which carried 2 passengers as pillion riders. It
was exciting and scary especially when we weave throught the
traffic and ride across bumpy roads. The motor tut-tut took us
to SongKhem were we bought a few more bags. We also visited
Esther’s shop Khmer Life and bought some tea-towels and cushion
covers. After shopping, we visited Shirley’s home which was
within walking distance. Although we had planned to go to the
Russian Market to do some shopping, everybody decided not to go,
instead we went back to shower and rest at the hotel and plan
for the night’s meeting with the university students at Pastor
Chai’s youth hostel. True enough, all
the streets were dark with a few shops lighted by generators.
Pastor Chai’s place was equally dark when we arrived there. We
were there early because Pastor Chai had wanted to show us
around but because there were no lights, we sat down instead to
chit chat with him. We started our programme with Michelle and Chiew Yoong leading songs. About 40 youths attended the meeting which was around 1/3 of the youths there. Miss Tnay shared about the GB work and Evelyn shared a short message about the heart being full of hurts and disappointments which was just waiting for God to come and heal. Mee Lin distributed the pens and sweets. We were all very touched by the work Pastor Chai was doing so we donated USD50.00 to him for the use of the youth hostel. The lights came on just as Evelyn was about to share and we praised the Lord for His grace because we lighted up the whole place with candles. After the meeting we went round the hostle. It was so packed. Every available place was filled with double decker beds. We were having problems moving around the place. After exploring, we said our goodbyes to Pastor Chai and the youths and went back to our hotel. 5th June 2005 We started the day with two of the members not feeling too good. Both Evelyn and Mee Lin were throwing out started from 4am. Thus, we decided that they stayed in the hotel and rest while the three of us will go to ICA Church (International Christian Assembly) in World Vision Building in Phnom Penh. It was a wonderful place with modern facilities and interior design (hardly see this in Phnom Penh). The church was well attended by people coming from all over the world – USA, Ireland, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Philippine and etc. We had lunch together with Shirley and headed back to Asia Hotel. Evelyn and Mee Lin were feeling a bit better except that they were quite weak. We decided that they should rest well and not joined us for the other programme in the afternoon and evening. Three of us
(President, Chiew Yoong and myself) spent some time preparing
for the afternoon visit to Cambodia Methodist Church (Pastor Lun
Sophie’s church) and waited for pastor to bring us to the church
at 3pm. It was a nice church with another block of classrooms at
the back of the church. There were about 30 youths attending the
Youth Fellowship in the Church. They first started with worship
then sharing of testimony followed by a short message by Pastor
Lun. The whole session was conducted in Khmer Language; though
it was in different language, but we are all in the same family
of God! It started to drizzle when we left Cambodia Methodist Church and Shirley mentioned that it would not be a good trip to slum area if it rained, as the whole are will be very muddy and it will be difficult to walk in. We each prayed quietly in our heart hoping the rain will stop in time. God is good all the time, even a small mistake made by the driver (bringing us to a wrong place) turned out to be a blessing to us because the rain stopped about 5 minutes before we reached the place. God even gave us a beautiful present in the sky – the beautiful Rainbow!!! We finally reached the place, it was filled with hills of rubbish and we can see children, men and women were gathered together in groups to search and sort out their ‘things’ from the rubbish into different bags. Some were resting while some were eating in the food stalls which were situated in the midst of the rubbish. We took a short 5 minute walk and took some photographs with the children upon their request and headed back to hotel. We were just hoping to clean our shoes of mud and our bodies as soon as possible because we did not smell good at all. We had dinner together with Chan (Village Work worker), Shirley, Joanna and thank God that Evelyn and Mee Lin were feeling better to join us for the dinner at Riverside (one of the tourists favourite spot in Phnom Penh). We had a great time together and both Chiew Yong and myself went for a drink with Wei Hong, Joanna, Shirley and Chan while Evelyn, Mee Lin and Ms. Tnay headed back to hotel. We had a great time of sharing together of what we had experienced in the past 5 days before we went to bed. Note from me:Michelle Ong It had been a
wonderful trip for me. I had no idea at all what mission trip is
about until I experienced it. I experience the grace of God once
again. He opened my eyes and my heart to see and feel for the
people of Cambodia. As I spend time with the Lord at my quiet
time, He came so close to me, I know that He is with me, I could
feel peace like river and the overflowing love and grace of God.
He touched my heart in marvelous ways that words cannot be
described. The best verse to describe probably is from Psalm
23:1-3 6th June 2005 On the last day
everyone was up early and ready for breakfast at 7 a.m. by 7.45
we were walking the nearby Central Market in high spirit for our
last minute shopping spree. |
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