November 20, 2003

How do you explain “God” in a country where every aspect of God’s creation is called “god": god-sun, god-wind, god-moon, and god- water. The Cambodian people are so used to this concept that they may not see the sun as a god anymore. Tiffany Dahlman and I have been teaching the ladies how to teach children. We have also been doing a ladies’ Bible study. How do you put the creation story in Khmer words? “On the fourth day God created god-sun and god-moon and the stars.” Somehow it doesn’t sound right, especially teaching those little ears!

On Thursday from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. we are the teachers, but boy, we are learning a lot, too! Each week is a new adventure and a new challenge. We are more and more aware of the culture, the language, and the different perspective of the Cambodian people. This Sunday two of our ladies taught Children’s Bible class for the first time. We had children from one year to five and a half years old together with two teenage girls (ages thirteen and fourteen) as helpers. They all did a great job, considering that little John (two years old) is in what we call the “terrible twos” and his little sister (one year old), only started to walk a week ago and is not potty trained. The Cambodians toilet train children by not putting any diapers on them, so of course, we had a little incident in that area. One little boy didn’t make it all the way through the hour. His big tears and sobbing were hard to stop, so we gave him back to mommy. Our ladies (Nawoui and Sophip, each twenty-three years old) created a beautiful song in Khmer, drew their flip-chart free hand, and taught the kids the days of creation! Bravo!

Partners In Progress