Give Christmas Away - Part 2

My family has gone back to a simple Christmas this year and there’s nothing like it. I mean, really, is this what Jesus wants His birthday to be about? People so busy with parties and shopping and wrapping and baking that they don’t have time for happiness or, more importantly, Him? When did we decide that we “needed” that new toy for our child when half a world away, or sometimes just right down the street, children are just hungry for a real meal, or shivering because they don’t have a winter coat? It’s Jesus’ birthday. That’s what Christmas is. Without that, what would we be celebrating?

I know. I’m guilty of going about it all wrong, too. It hasn’t hit me until now just how wrong it all is. And, yeah, part of me kind of misses the shopping. I can’t believe I’m admitting that. I don’t even like shopping, and I usually do most of it online anyway, but this year is different. I’m in Cambodia, and the internet is so smart that it knows that when I try to buy things and most websites won’t let me purchase gifts online, and since I can’t mail anything out, I’m kind of stuck not being able to do much shopping.

But, really, don’t we go way overboard? A Consumer Reports study just a couple weeks ago reported that over 14 million people are still paying off credit card debt from last year’s Christmas expenses.

I wonder how much of the world doesn’t even know what a credit card is.

I pass by them every day.

I’m going back to a simple Christmas this year. I’ll teach my kids to think of others. I want to take them out and have them pick out something they’d like to give each other, something they put real thought into, if that is possible at age 3 and 5.

But then I want us to think of those who don’t have people thinking of them.

And they are all around me. You might be thinking that it’s different for you, you’re not in a Third World country with trash on the streets and homeless people living in it day and night. I disagree. There are so many around you and I, no matter where we live, that need us. That truly “need” things this year, unlike the way our children “need” those cool toys they see on TV commercials.

So how can we help? And how can we teach our children to “Give Christmas Away” and hopefully instill in them a lifelong desire to help others more than themselves this time of year?

I read a great news article about people, often anonymously, who are paying off people's layaway accounts at K-Mart.  That's amazing.  That's inspiring.  That's what giving is.

I want to go a step further and involve my kids in the giving.

I think back to my childhood. My mom and dad would give me the great big toy book to circle whatever I wanted. I think it was Sears or JC Penney catalogs back then. Now its Toys R Us and Target and even Best Buy where kids are circling what they want. What if we have the kids choose some things they really, really, really want, and then we tell them that they are going to go with us to choose and buy that themselves... and give it away? Wow. What a lesson that would teach, right? It’s not purposely choosing some silly toy that they don’t care about for some faceless poor person but instead making a real sacrifice for those in need.

I’d like to do that with my kids this year. Well, minus the catalog, of course. We’ll have to settle for the little toy stand at the market, I guess.

To make it even better, I want my kids to put that brand new toy directly into the hands of a child who will love it. Along with some clothes, shoes, food, and a brand new Bible. I think that both their family and ours would be greatly impacted by that action.

What if we all did that for a family in need this year?

Imagine if many people joined in and a generation of young boys and girls learned to bring Christ back to Christmas.

Maybe then someday people would be less excited about Santa and more excited about Jesus.

Will you join us? We would love to hear your stories.



'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'     "Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’     “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25: 35-40

Give Christmas Away - Part 1

As Christmas approaches and I keep wondering whether or not I should send Christmas cards and how I’ll do it and if I’ll ever get the perfect family photo in Cambodia, and... you know all that stuff, I can’t help but think how much has changed since last year.

Really though, could that much have changed in a year?

Yes.

Definitely.

Last year my whole world was different. The biggest difference I remember about Christmas itself was that my husband was in Afghanistan serving with the US Army. The rest was beginning to unfold in last year’s letter here.

But since I keep finding myself reflecting on that time of deployment and my years as a military wife, I think my “Give Christmas Away” theme (which I do plan to have another part to but may or may not actually do) should start with the military.

And this time, I’m not just talking about our soldiers.

See, I’ve been there. And it wasn’t so long ago at all. I miss the military life sometimes. I miss the fun, the friends, the Bunco nights, the book clubs, the wives clubs, all of the social stuff. Most of all I miss the “family” that grows out of every relocation, every move, every deployment. I miss the other moms and dads who grow to know my kids well enough to correct them when they need it and hug and kiss them when they need love. I always found that relationships grew deep quickly because they had to. People were always coming and going so we didn’t have time to waste with small talk. We got close, we got real, and we became family. I miss my family. But the good thing about family is they always love you. Now I have family all over the world.

I don’t miss the deployments, though. The deployments that any of my “family” goes through. Because we are all in it together. I didn’t like watching my husband have to see his kids wake up on Christmas morning to see what Santa brought via a broken Skype connection. I didn’t like having to send the Christmas presents a month early only to find out they made it late. It’s just not really fun at all to celebrate any holiday when half the family is away.

But it’s important, nonetheless. We all know freedom isn’t free. And this time of year, those of us who are not military families are likely to forget that we’re fighting a war over there. I mean, we get so busy shopping and attending parties, and taking exams for school that we don’t even remember Jesus, so of course we forget the soldiers. For the families, though, it’s pretty much all they think about.

I can sit here and see on my facebook page so many of my friends- my “family”- who have the greatest Christmas gift of all coming in on a plane this year. That brings me tears of joy. I can’t imagine that time of reunion coming at a better season. How can Santa Claus or a new iPad compete with Dad stepping off that plane? I pray they make it on time and safe and sound.

But then I see others who celebrated the holidays in October or November because they knew that by December their soldier would be long gone.

Let’s try to think about them a little this Christmas. Because even if they go visit family for the holiday, chances are they are coming home to a big empty house after Christmas, where only one parent will be cleaning up all the new toys, only one parent will be taking down the holiday decorations, and two people half a world away from each other will wake up each day with some sort of countdown to how many days are left until they see each other again.

How can we Give Christmas Away to these families?

Here are some ideas I’ve read online or thought of from my struggles in the past.

Invite a family into your home for a meal or party

Buy gifts and give anonymously to the children

Give money or gift cards to an enlisted family struggling to make ends meet

Offer to help decorate the house for Christmas, as many women will choose not to decorate because they don’t want to ask for help.

Babysit the children so Mom can go shopping for gifts or just have a break

If mom is travelling, pack a “travel kit” for the kids with books, games, toys, and snacks to make the trip easier for everyone.

Hire a cleaning service so the parent has to do less cleaning is family is coming to visit

Take digital family pictures for them to send to their soldier

Leave a bag of groceries on the doorstep anonymously

If the family doesn’t have a webcam, buy them one and teach them how to use skype so they can see their loved ones on Christmas

Make a movie of the family and help them send it to their loved one overseas


Pray. Always pray for these dear men, women, and children, who are living a life unique and special. A life we are all grateful to them for. Thank them and pray for them all.

My soldier and my son the day he left in 2010

Please use the comment form to add some more ideas on helping the families of deployed soldiers at Christmas and throughout the year.

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Church in Cambodia

I wrote a note for my church in North Carolina. It was supposed to be an update and a thank you letter for all their support, but you know me... once my thoughts started flowing, it turned into an outlet for so much more (and I decided NOT to share it as a newsletter and start that over later). I thought this might be a better outlet for it here:

This morning during church I thought about you all at Spout Springs Church. I thought about how different church is here. And then I realized that you probably have no idea how different it is for us so I should share a bit of that with you. Here’s what our Sunday morning looks like:

We get up and get dressed but instead of jumping in the car we walk outside our apartment into the busy street and grab a tuk tuk, which is basically a covered two seated fancy wagon that is pulled behind a moped. The driver takes us the 2-3 miles to our church, where we invite him to stay.

We invite him to stay because the service is in his language, not ours. Yes, that’s right. It’s a Cambodian church. So, as we enter, we stop at a desk and pick up a small FM radio with a headset for us to later listen to a translator while the sermon is preached. During the worship songs, words are projected on a screen, much like they are at Spout Springs, but they are written in both Khmer and English. Khmer is the Cambodian language and is made up of symbols and letters that look nothing like our phonetic alphabet. Everyone in the congregation sings the songs in whatever language they choose while the worship leaders sing in Khmer.

It’s neat because most of the songs are familiar to us... songs you would sing at Spout Springs and so they sound great in English. However, as anyone who’s ever learned a language knows, sometimes it takes far more or less words in one language to say the same thing in another language. That makes the songs confusing sometimes.

They have only one English speaking childcare class for kids age 4 to 12. That means our 3 year old son has to sit with us for the service. And it’s a 2 hour service. Any of you with kids know how fun that can be.

So needless to say, church isn’t easy. In fact, some days, it’s downright hard. Like today, when my headset wouldn’t work and it kept getting all staticky when the translator was talking. I couldn’t hear anything! I began praying and asking God why we can’t just find a church like Spout Springs where we can go, know our kids are in great hands, worship without changing up the wording, and have a “family” that understands us because we are all from similar backgrounds and cultures. And God answered me.

He told me it isn’t supposed to be easy.

It never has been easy for His followers. In fact, I even opened my Bible, hopelessly trying to figure out what passage we were in because the lady next to me was using a Khmer Bible and I couldn’t read it, and it opened to Matthew 10, where I found the passage where Jesus prepares the disciples for their future of persecution. He tells them “brother will betray brother to the death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (10:21-22)

Wow. I realized that they had it rough, but that is pretty much as bad as it gets. “All men will hate you” and “brother will betray brother to the death” sound pretty awful. I’m glad I never had to face that in my life.

Yet I was standing in a roomful of people who did.

See, in America we say accepting Christ is easy. After all, all you have to do is accept Him. Salvation is a free gift. Well, here, where families worship Buddha and the spirits of dead ancestors, choosing to accept that gift means choosing the One who is different than the one their family chooses. Often these men and women are not allowed to see their families anymore. Sometimes their salvation is accepted but sometimes these words, these red letters that we sometimes forget are words that our Savior spoke out loud, come true. “Brother will betray brother to the death, and a father his child.”

That little headset that was making static in my ear didn’t even count as a problem compared to that.

Church isn’t supposed to be easy.

Living for Jesus isn’t supposed to be easy.

After all, following Jesus means becoming more like Him every day, and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing easy about working to become perfect. Following Him is about losing our lives. “Whoever loses His life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 10:39

If it’s easy, maybe we aren’t doing it right.


That’s the end of the letter. Oops. I didn’t mean to end so abruptly. I mean, that’s kind of depressing, right! But really, when we are talking about eternity, as in: this life is but a blink of an eye and we have forever to live on after it eternity, isn’t it worth it? Isn’t every struggle on this earth such a miniscule thing compared to the thought of an eternity away from our Creator? Do we want to take the easy way out?

I don’t.

And I don’t want anyone else to have to, either.

Lord, help me be a blessing to everyone I meet today. Help everyone who reads this to pray that prayer with me today. Help us to live so that you may be glorified in all we do. Help us to be missionaries to the world wherever we are. Yes, Lord, I do pray you send another to Cambodia. Right now, Lord. And I pray that you send more to all ends of the earth. But I pray too, that the rest of us can be missionaries right where we are, in our workplaces, in our own neighborhoods, in our homes, Lord, where those who love us most are always watching. Help us be more like Jesus so others will want to know You. Help us BE the church. And not just on Sundays, Lord. You deserve so much more than that. Keep our minds focused on eternity and help us be a blessing to everyone we meet.

I didn't know

A year and a half ago there was so much I didn’t know.

I didn’t know there were real slaves left in the world.

I had no clue that there are more people, many of them children, held in slavery now than over the entire course of the of trans-Atlantic slave trade.

I didn’t realize millions of women and children were being forced to work in brothels against their will and raped over and over again every night by men of foreign cultures and their own cultures.

I had no clue that whole families with children - just like my family - were being forced to work in factories as slaves and not allowed to leave, living in terrible conditions, often dying of hunger or sickness that could have been prevented.

No one had ever told me how many women and children in Africa were left homeless after the man of the house died and perpetrators came in and raped them and took their land.

I honestly didn’t know.

I hadn’t heard of IJM.

I didn’t know what International Justice Mission was or anything about the lives that were being saved day by day because of those who worked for them.  

I definitely didn’t know my husband and my family would be next to join the fight.

Check out this IJM article  (No, not later, right now!)

It's about what Stephen is doing here in Cambodia.  It's definitely worth a read. 

I didn't know then. 

I know now. 

Cambodia is real to me now.  Real to me and oh, so dear to my heart. These statistics I read a year and a half ago are now real faces, real names, real people, real survivors.  Praise God for that!  

I am so grateful for the people at IJM who work tirelessly to rescue girls like these. Please pray with me for more stories like that above in the coming year.  

Here’s a link to how you can join the fight
by giving the gift of freedom this Christmas.






Did you know? How much do you know about injustice today? Comment below... I don't want anyone else to say "I didn't know" like I had to say. I want the world to know so we can make a difference together.

It's a boy!

Just kidding.  Seriously, I’m totally kidding!  I’m not having a baby!  And definitely not in Cambodia!  I mean, people do that, but the line above (the part about a BOY) kinda terrifies me.  I mean, I’ve got two super cute, sweet kids, but that’s only a fraction of the time.  The rest of the time...

Anyway... no, it was titled “Names” and that sounded boring so the title change was a last minute switch.  I’m laughing now as I picture my mom and dad speedreading as fast as they can to see what in the world I’m talking about. 

Let’s get to the real story:

I met this new tuk tuk driver outside my apartment about two weeks ago and that’s pretty strange. See, they have some sort of system that I think I’ve figured out parts of but still don’t quite understand. Two guys park in one place, the rest park up on top of the sidewalk in another, and as you take one, the others systematically move up in the line. They all seem to be friends and if one says he’ll pick me up at a certain time at a certain place, it’s not unusual at all for one of the others to show up instead. I guess that’s what they do. I don’t know. Well, after we went to Siem Reap for the holiday, we came home to find a couple new drivers out there in shiny new tuk tuks. One of them pulled up one day as I walked out, so the kids and I did what we always do and climbed in.

He was an okay driver. He spoke a little English and he got us to our destination with only minimal confusion, which is normal for most drivers, so I let him wait and bring us home, too. Before we walked back inside the apartment he gave me his phone number in case I wanted to call him for a ride again. This is also completely normal. I asked him what his name was and he said Nimnal. 

I’ve been riding in his tuk tuk for a couple weeks and calling him Nimnal. 

Today I found out that is not his name.  One of the other drivers was telling me a little more about their system and instructing me not to use the new guys because they are not their friends and I am a friend of all the other guys. That’s another story of tuk tuk politics.

What caught my attention was that he said the guy’s name is Nal.

Not Nimnal.  

Oops!

I guess he was saying Name, Nal.  And I’ve been calling him Nimnal!  I feel so silly!  I mean shouldn’t I have known that wasn’t a normal name... Nimnal?!?!   

Maybe not.  

Here are some names I’ve heard in Cambodia.  These are names of people I’ve actually met.  Some I do know how to spell correctly I will but others I’ll just spell phonetically for you.

Boys/Men:

Sok Jia

Visal

Somnang

Sol

Oon Dra

Sam Meut

Sareoun

Kittea

Borey

Sareoun

Vishna

Chea

Sok Heng

Chenda

Chailin

Vaessna

and my favorite – Kim (yes, it’s a boys name here)

Girls/Women:

Srey

Leung
Bopha

Simix

Sopheap

Socheat

Maryna

Seanghai

Sidan

Now, was I so crazy to think Nimnal was his name?

 

I’m sure he thinks so, but he’ll never tell me. 

I know his name now.  Nal.  All I have left to do is figure out how to play this game of tuk tuk politics!

Should be an adventure for sure!

Thanksgiving in Cambodia

It's Thursday here. Just Thursday. No sign of Thanksgiving at all. But lots of things to be thankful for. Too many to count, actually. And since I'm sure you've read blog after blog about what people are thankful for, I thought a better account might be what is different about celebrating Thanksgiving here in Cambodia.

First of all, it doesn't FEEL like Thanksgiving. It's still in the high 80's, sometimes low 90s. It's humid and sticky and there isn't a colored leaf in sight. I miss wearing sweaters and drinking cider and seeing pumpkins everywhere and knowing Christmas and snow are just around the corner.

But the bigger thing is no one knows what Thanksgiving is! I have to share a funny story with you from my Cambodian friend here. She told me that she heard about our holiday and here is how our conversation went, with a few comments from me inserted in italics for fun:

Her: "I heard about your American holiday when you celebrate how the Americans take land from the other people and you have a big party every year to be happy about that."
 Me: laughing "Well, that's not exactly right..." (I then explain a little more in the same way I explained it in our kindergarten  homeschool lesson this week)
Her: "I do not understand the difference.  And I understand why you celebrate that happy time." What?  She thinks taking someone's land is cause for celebration?
Me:  explain again, trying harder to explain the thankful part
Her: "but what does this have to do with the turkey and pie with pumpkin?"
Me:  Sigh.  Try again.

So funny trying to explain it to someone who doesn't understand the history or language!  Oh, my goodness!

And what's even funnier is they don't have a word for turkey in Khmer!  They call it a foreign chicken.  That cracks me up.  Especially because I have seen turkeys here in Cambodia.  For sure I've seen those foreign chickens on the road out in the provinces.  I know it.  Foreign chicken.  So hilarious!

Here's another challenge to Thanksgiving here in Cambodia...  you can't just buy a foreign chicken at the market to cook, and even if you could, you can't cook it in our teeny ovens, and even if you could, they don't sell roasting pans big enough to put one in. So many challenges to overcome. Well, since I'm not the only American here, these are challenges that have been overcome by entrepreneurs here in the city!

One local vendor... Dan's meats, sells a cooked turkey with stuffing, imported from New Zealand, I think, for a US Ben Franklin Bill and a few more bills... just over $100. It's not that big, either. An international hotel, Sofitel, here in Phnom Penh has a restaurant where you can get a 5-6kg turkey, which comes to just 11-13lbs, cooked with 6 sides and a pie for just $90, so that seemed like a better bargain. We're doing that tonight with the other IJM interns. I am excited because I don't have to cook anything. Don't get me wrong, I love to cook, but Saturday we are getting together with 3 other American families and we're all cooking some side dishes for the big event, where we also ordered a precooked turkey. I didn't want to cook twice in my tiny oven and make the apartment all hot and steamy.

When I ordered the meal from Sofitel, though, I was blessed with a conversation that once again brought me more laughter. Here you go:

Me: "Hi, I am calling to order the turkey dinner from your restaurant?"
*This was followed by repeated transfers to more and more people as they tried to figure out what in the world I was talking about.  I tried substituting turkey with Thanksgiving but no luck. Should have tried foreign chicken, I guess!  Finally I got someone who understood.
Him: "Yes, madam, I will take your order.  Please can you give your name and phone?"
Me: give that and say "What are the sides included with this package?"
Him: "Yes. Sides. There are 6."
Me:  "Oh yes, that is good. But what are they?"
Him: "I cannot tell you that."
Me: "Um, you cannot tell me?  Why?  What?"  laughing to keep from getting frustrated
Him: "It is what the chef makes. I cannot tell you them."
They had told my friend just a couple days before, I just forgot what they said!
Me: "I just want to know what some are so I know if my friends will like them."
Him: "I cannot tell you.  (long pause) They are American, madam, so you will be happy."
Me:  Sigh.  "Okay.  Thank you."
Him:  "If you do not like I am sorry."

Oh, boy. This should be exciting.

For Saturday I'm making a green bean casserole, but have to do the fried onions from scratch, a sweet potato casserole and almost had to make my own marshmallows but a friend found me some, and I had to order a pecan pie.  It was $21. Seriously, $21. I can't believe that. But, it's the holidays, right? They don't have karo syrup here or pecans, so I had to do it, and I guess that's why it costs so much for them, too.  My Cambodian baby sitter is making a pumpkin pie for me.  With real pumpkin.  I hope it's good.

Reminds me of when I first got married and tried to do just that.  Stephen told me that his mom always made pumpkin pie with real pumpkin and we were newlyweds, so I wanted to make him happy.  We carved a pumpkin, roasted the seeds, and I found a recipe for a pie with pumpkin.  I didn't know you had to use small pumpkins because the recipe just said pumpkin! I tried it with the big one we carved. I did everything it said and it was awful.  Terrible.  Disgusting.  I mean, I couldn't even eat it it was so stringy and gross. I was so sad I had ruined it and that Christmas I asked his mom how she made such good pumpkin pie and she said she just used the canned pumpkin and the recipe on the can! I laughed so hard.

Kind of like I've been laughing all day today.  So much to be thankful for!

Thanksgiving in Cambodia.
More adventure every day.



UPDATE:
Everyone keeps asking what the mystery sides were... Here you go:

Roasted pumpkin, mashed potatoes, gravy, butter & bread, broccoli, carrots, cranberry sauce with apples in it, and some mystery meat dish we think was the innards of the turkey. The turkey was wonderfully delicious and moist and the sides were good but not very big so I added a few from my kitchen, too. The pie was some sort of pumpkin we think but had yellow raisins in it.  It wasn't nearly as good as the one our babysitter made.  We had a great night!  Happy Thanksgiving all!

I hope you enjoyed your own adventures this Thanksgiving!

Bayon Temple

If you ask me which temple in Siem Reap was my favorite, my answer might vary depending on what photo I'm looking at or what mood I'm in.  See, they were all drastically different from each other, so it's kind of like comparing apples to oranges... or coconuts to rambutans if you will.  That sounds a bit more Cambodian!  Still, my favorite DAY might be the day we went to Bayon Temple.  And it may be my favorite temple, too.  Today that's my answer anyway!

We rode around it on top of an elephant.  It was so much fun!  And that platform on top was totally leaning before I got on it.  I promise I'm not heavier than my husband and son.  Seriously.  Oh, and here's my favorite picture... look at his face closely!  He was so scared!

It's my favorite photo because yes, he held on so tight his hands turned red and he was afraid the whole time but as soon as we got off he was asking if we could do it again.  So typical of a 5 year old!  Anyway, our elephant was named Sambo and was 45 years old.  We fed him (I think it was a him... didn't get a good look..) a couple bananas before we climbed on his back.  He gave us a good 20 minute ride or so around the temple before we climbed off to walk around inside.

This shows the temple is still an active religious center.  This reclining Buddha has flowers and incense around it that have recently been left by the local Cambodian people. 

Here are some of the carvings at Bayon:

 Aspara Dancers

 Faces

Bayon is actually famous for the faces carved all over pretty much every surface of the temple.  The faces are all different with varied expressions and the kids enjoyed looking at them and trying to copy the expressions.

They enjoyed playing at the temples, too.  It was like a giant maze and they let you climb on anything.  I kept thinking that if there were anything this old in the USA, no one would be allowed to climb on the ruins for sure! The kids had a blast!

And here are some more of my favorite shots from the day:

Beautiful place.  Yep, it was my favorite.  I'm pretty sure of it. And even if I change my mind in my next post, I hope you enjoyed the beauty as much as I did!