Cambodia Bible Education Centre

It is now one month that fieldworkers from the Phnom Penh BEC have been back teaching at LCDI (Leadership Character Development Institute).  Located about 45 minutes moto ride from the BEC, LCDI is a non-government education project that offers free English lessons, and leadership development (hence the name) classes to its resident students. These students come from poor families and for a lot if not all of them this has meant they haven’t had the chance to properly go through the schooling system. Fieldworkers to Cambodia from yesteryear would be familiar with LCDI and a quick google search reveals a blog Michael Hewitt ran during involvement there in 2010. Our first trip back there saw Vitou, Dany, little Jessica, Ratana and all of us fieldworkers take a van out there.  The road out of Phnom Penh that leads to LCDI is currently undergoing significant roadworks and as such the going was slow and bumpy at times. Once we arrived we were greeted by about 25 enthusiastic stu...

It's amazing that you can go to a new country only knowing the one person you're travelling with and then within days feel totally and completely at home in a building you've never been in before and with people you've never met before.  But that's the Cambodia BEC experience! It's life changing, it's hilariously fun and it brings a whole new meaning to 'brothers and sisters in Christ'. I came to Cambodia with my big brother, Tim and I was scared, overwhelmed and had a terrible sleep the first night or two because I lay awake wondering how I was suppose to teach English and the Bible to people whose first language wasn't English.  I even cried to  myself quietly hoping my roomies couldn't hear me, but some advice I received before I left Australia for Cambodia was  'pray always' (thanks to Ben Topham for that Facebook comment on my mum's photo of me and Tim ready to go) and so I prayed to God who blessed me with the oppo...