On Friday, Michael and I set off to teach Bible lessons at LCDI. Michael rode with Holy (vice-director of LCDI) and Brother Vanny took me, and we moto-ed the 20-or-so-km trip out from Phnom Penh.
Arriving at LCDI, there were a team of Koreans hard at work. They had built a new mezzanine floor into the boy's dorm to increase the accomodation there, and now were at work planting banana trees.
Each Friday afternoon, we have a class of around 12-15 students for Bible lessons. This time, I took the first lesson, crawling verse-by-verse through the record of creation from Genesis 1. After the better part of two hours of teaching, we reached the Sabbath rest. But before we knew it, the students were back, ready to launch into the next lesson, this time Michael explaining the creation of Adam and the nature of human existence. The group are always enthusiastic, keen to read, to learn, and to ask questions. One boy in particular was adept at firing more philosoophical questions relating to the lesson... "who made God?" "If one man kills another man, he sins. If God kills a man, is he committing sin?" and so on.
As we neared the end of the lesson, thunder began to rumble in the distance. It was our reliable old friend, Friday-afternoon-storm, turning up for work, if a little late. As we left to return home, the sky was darkening. A headwind began to kick dust up into our faces. Nearing Phnom Penh, the lightning crashed around us and the first heavy drops began to fall. Unbeknown to us at the time, old Friday-afternoon-storm had been hard at work in Phnom Penh for an hour or more, dumping water all over the city. Coming over the bridge into Phnom Penh we saw the first flooding, ankle deep water spilling across the road around the fifty-or-so moto riders huddled under the flyover, sheltering from the rain. Moving on into the city, the flooding became deeper and more widespread, until finally it reached nearly knee-deep. That mightn't sound all that deep, but I can assure you that it's deep enough that every wheel moving through it - whether it belonged to a bicycle, a moto, or a car - would throw a bow-wave like that of a speedboat. Such were the bow-waves that there were young boys out surfing the streets/canals on body boards/cardboard boxes. Brother Vanny navigated us through the back streets, at each interesection choosing whichever direction had a lesser depth of water.
Dan, meanwhile, was walking home from teaching the evening class at the dorms, having abandoned his tuktuk when it couldn't make it through the floodwaters. He arrived after an hour or so of trudging through the stormwater/sewage that the drainage system couldn't handle.
Arriving at LCDI, there were a team of Koreans hard at work. They had built a new mezzanine floor into the boy's dorm to increase the accomodation there, and now were at work planting banana trees.
Each Friday afternoon, we have a class of around 12-15 students for Bible lessons. This time, I took the first lesson, crawling verse-by-verse through the record of creation from Genesis 1. After the better part of two hours of teaching, we reached the Sabbath rest. But before we knew it, the students were back, ready to launch into the next lesson, this time Michael explaining the creation of Adam and the nature of human existence. The group are always enthusiastic, keen to read, to learn, and to ask questions. One boy in particular was adept at firing more philosoophical questions relating to the lesson... "who made God?" "If one man kills another man, he sins. If God kills a man, is he committing sin?" and so on.
As we neared the end of the lesson, thunder began to rumble in the distance. It was our reliable old friend, Friday-afternoon-storm, turning up for work, if a little late. As we left to return home, the sky was darkening. A headwind began to kick dust up into our faces. Nearing Phnom Penh, the lightning crashed around us and the first heavy drops began to fall. Unbeknown to us at the time, old Friday-afternoon-storm had been hard at work in Phnom Penh for an hour or more, dumping water all over the city. Coming over the bridge into Phnom Penh we saw the first flooding, ankle deep water spilling across the road around the fifty-or-so moto riders huddled under the flyover, sheltering from the rain. Moving on into the city, the flooding became deeper and more widespread, until finally it reached nearly knee-deep. That mightn't sound all that deep, but I can assure you that it's deep enough that every wheel moving through it - whether it belonged to a bicycle, a moto, or a car - would throw a bow-wave like that of a speedboat. Such were the bow-waves that there were young boys out surfing the streets/canals on body boards/cardboard boxes. Brother Vanny navigated us through the back streets, at each interesection choosing whichever direction had a lesser depth of water.
Dan, meanwhile, was walking home from teaching the evening class at the dorms, having abandoned his tuktuk when it couldn't make it through the floodwaters. He arrived after an hour or so of trudging through the stormwater/sewage that the drainage system couldn't handle.
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Jonno