The electricity:
We have been four days and four nights (and counting) without a power outage!
For most of the past month, the power has been reliably unreliable, going off every day except Sunday (we assume that's because there's no one in the office on Sundays to muck around with the switches), and we have often had the good fortune of two or three electricity-free sessions of up to three or four hours each in a single day. Which, as you might calculate, doesn't leave the power on for long between outages. Most annoyingly, it has successfully relieved us of a good portion of our productivity, leaving classes sitting in darkness and stuffiness, and staff sitting facing computers with blank screens. The latest reprieve has made the past few days more productive and enjoyable than we have been in a long while.
Students:
As expected, January brought us an end-of-semester lull in activity, with many of our students being flat out studying for exams, followed, in many cases, by a short break back home in the provinces. But February has seen things picking up again, and our normal teaching programme is keeping us all busy again. Of particular note are the number of students actively preparing for baptism - at least a dozen at present, with several more who have expressed an intention to follow Christ, but waiting for an opportunity to begin studying. As a sign of progress it is good to note that more than half of those being instructed for baptism are being taught by Khmer brothers and sisters. God willing, Muoy, who lives around the corner from the BEC, will be baptised before the seminar this coming Saturday. We praise God for every new life that he brings into his family.
New classes:
A few weeks back Vitou placed an advertisement on a Cambodian recruitment website offering English classes. We have had a flood of response, with nearly 50 students registered to study. Unfortunately, many of those who registered have failed to show, but, between Anna and I, we are teaching four new classes, each with a few good students, studying a combination of Bible teaching and English language. Meanwhile, starting this week, Veasna has been coming into the BEC every day to teach a formal English class, which has had a good attendance so far (we even had to buy a couple of new tables to accomodate all the students).
Staff:
Dy is now employed full time at the BEC. He had been working here part-time last year covering for Saruon while she was away on holiday in New Zealand and Australia, but with a scarcity of foreign fieldworkers scheduled to be here in coming months, we thought it would be helpful to bolster the local staff. Dy has been helping with oral translation in lessons, translating course material, and being our very own fik-it, fikking all manner of things around the BEC. His smelliest job so far has been the horrendous task of coating the wooden bedframes, tables, and chairs with a most obnoxious smelling liquid intended to deter a few of our resident borer population from being quite such greedy hogs and messy eaters. In addition, in the past few weeks we have had Channa here for a few hours most days, as he and Saruon have been working on preparing a new edition of the song book for publication. They have been busy typing out a range of new Khmer songs for inclusion in the book.
Outreach:
This coming weekend we have the next installment of our monthly outreach programme. This weekend's topic is Following Jesus. We will be teaching about what it means to be a christian - a disciple of Christ: believing the gospel, conquering sin, living a new life, and becoming a member of God's family. So far we expecting to have ten or so students coming for the weekend.
We have been four days and four nights (and counting) without a power outage!
For most of the past month, the power has been reliably unreliable, going off every day except Sunday (we assume that's because there's no one in the office on Sundays to muck around with the switches), and we have often had the good fortune of two or three electricity-free sessions of up to three or four hours each in a single day. Which, as you might calculate, doesn't leave the power on for long between outages. Most annoyingly, it has successfully relieved us of a good portion of our productivity, leaving classes sitting in darkness and stuffiness, and staff sitting facing computers with blank screens. The latest reprieve has made the past few days more productive and enjoyable than we have been in a long while.
Students:
As expected, January brought us an end-of-semester lull in activity, with many of our students being flat out studying for exams, followed, in many cases, by a short break back home in the provinces. But February has seen things picking up again, and our normal teaching programme is keeping us all busy again. Of particular note are the number of students actively preparing for baptism - at least a dozen at present, with several more who have expressed an intention to follow Christ, but waiting for an opportunity to begin studying. As a sign of progress it is good to note that more than half of those being instructed for baptism are being taught by Khmer brothers and sisters. God willing, Muoy, who lives around the corner from the BEC, will be baptised before the seminar this coming Saturday. We praise God for every new life that he brings into his family.
New classes:
A few weeks back Vitou placed an advertisement on a Cambodian recruitment website offering English classes. We have had a flood of response, with nearly 50 students registered to study. Unfortunately, many of those who registered have failed to show, but, between Anna and I, we are teaching four new classes, each with a few good students, studying a combination of Bible teaching and English language. Meanwhile, starting this week, Veasna has been coming into the BEC every day to teach a formal English class, which has had a good attendance so far (we even had to buy a couple of new tables to accomodate all the students).
Staff:
Dy is now employed full time at the BEC. He had been working here part-time last year covering for Saruon while she was away on holiday in New Zealand and Australia, but with a scarcity of foreign fieldworkers scheduled to be here in coming months, we thought it would be helpful to bolster the local staff. Dy has been helping with oral translation in lessons, translating course material, and being our very own fik-it, fikking all manner of things around the BEC. His smelliest job so far has been the horrendous task of coating the wooden bedframes, tables, and chairs with a most obnoxious smelling liquid intended to deter a few of our resident borer population from being quite such greedy hogs and messy eaters. In addition, in the past few weeks we have had Channa here for a few hours most days, as he and Saruon have been working on preparing a new edition of the song book for publication. They have been busy typing out a range of new Khmer songs for inclusion in the book.
Outreach:
This coming weekend we have the next installment of our monthly outreach programme. This weekend's topic is Following Jesus. We will be teaching about what it means to be a christian - a disciple of Christ: believing the gospel, conquering sin, living a new life, and becoming a member of God's family. So far we expecting to have ten or so students coming for the weekend.
Comments