Cambodia Bible Education Centre

It amazes me to think that I have been in Cambodia for just over a month. There has been many changes over this time; Steve and Lynn have left for Australia, while and Mikki and Tamar have left for more travelling adventures in Vietnam and South Africa. It was a real blessing have them all living at the BEC when I arrived, as it made the transition into life and routine of the BEC so much easier for me. I have a very very poor grasp of even basic Khmer language (people have said to me ‘Jess why do you hate my language?’), and I speak too fast in English for many of the locals (I am attempting to remember to speak slower, but not always successfully), so to have a few native speakers for the first few weeks was very reassuring. (I have picked up a few Khmer basics, enough to know how to say hello, how are you, I am fine, thanks and to also know when Daniel or Saroun are telling each other or others they are bad workers, or they don’t like each other’s faces, which by all accounts is pre...

In other happy news we had the wonderful opportunity to witness the baptism of Bro. Rottana, and as it was the first baptism I had witnessed in Cambodia or outside of Australia for that matter, I was interested to see what local ‘flourishes’ there may be. I think that this was quiet an unusual circumstance, as it was two weeks before Khmer New Year (which goes for three days) and which many people go home to the provinces at least a week (if not two) before the event. Khmer New Year is celebrated with family and friends gatheri ng at someone’s house in the village and then proceeding with three days of Khmer dancing, eating and then more and more and more dancing. So this event coinciding along with the birthdays of two of the dormers and the baptism it was decided that a small celebratory event was in order. This consisted of a lovely dinner of fried rice, kebab skewers of various kinds of meat, and you guessed it Khmer dancing! There was karaoke earlier in the evening (but alas such ...

We (Mikki and I) eagerly flew to Phnom Penh for our month of preaching from holidaying in Thailand for 2 weeks, as part of our round the world trip. Seeing our names on a piece of paper at the airport held by Saruon, the first Khmer person we met was pretty exciting! She accompanied us on our first TukTuk ride to the BEC. I wasn’t sure what to expect at all but having so many familiar faces (Lynn and Steve, Dan and Kez) there made it easier to adjust and that much more enjoyable :) Our first week consisted of meeting everyone at the dorm, sitting in on lots of lessons, a lot of introductions (and subsequently a lot of name forgetting) and learning and writing down some simple Khmer phrases (hello, thank you and my name is). Everybody though was so lovely, welcoming and patient with us. It also took us about the first week to get used to the Cambodian roads – the amount of moto’s and TukTuk’s, driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, and the apparent lack of any road rules whatsoever! T...

Cambodia was never on the top of my list of places to go. It always seemed daunting, the thought of teaching people about the bible and English was a little bit scary, even though I had grown up on learning the Bible and believed it with all my heart, it just felt like something that I wouldn’t be able to do. I’m an accountant, not a teacher, so it was a bit of a jump. However, some of my dear friends had been here and only had great things to say, so when it came to doing a trip around the world, I thought, what the heck, may as well add it to the list. One Friday, Tamar, Steve, Lynne & I made the trip out to LCDI, which was a whole other experience. We were greeted by a whole bunch of boys on our arrival, which was slightly overwhelming as they made jokes that as an Aussie I didn’t really get, but they all laughed and had big smiles I couldn’t help to feel completely welcome from the get go. Tame & I just sat in on Lynne’s class with the girls to see what it was like and it r...