Before I leave

I've been helping the kids prepare for the big Christmas Concert that Elder and Sister James (pictured below) are facilitating. The wonderful thing about this concert, being the very first of its kind, is that it is centered on the reason for Christmas.  Preparing the kids for this concert has been absolutely delightful because we get to talk and tell stories and sing familiar songs.  It's a more interesting subject matter for my classes, and it's just fun.

Christmas is a huge part of our culture as Church members but it isn't the hubbub here that it is in the US and other parts of the world.
Pattica tells me that about 3% of Cambodia is Christian.   The Central Market does some Christmas decorating, and there are some Christmas candies at that supermarket, but it isn't widely celebrated here.  Yaya wanted me to teach the kids The Christmas Story in English.  My mother had emailed me a Christmas book: This is the Star by Joyce Dunbar and Gary Blythe.  It was great to read with the kids.  It is very similar to The Napping House-- you know-- the one that repeats the same phrases and only adds a new line every other page.  It was simple and repetitive, which gave the kids time to familiarize themselves with the words.  After we read the story, we set off to making a little nativity.  At the service project I'd found a lot of little bits of broken clay and oyster shells and sticks and well I figured we could make something.  So we did.
I know that I've come to know Christ infinitely better in working with ICHope and the kids at CICFO, and with that, I tried to make our games and class time geared toward the CHRIST part of Christmas rather than the Holly Jolly, Santa is coming, stockings and presents part of it.  It is easy to do that here in Cambodia; nobody celebrates it, so the culture of Christmas isn't squeezing you into Santa suits.
And you look at the kids here and they are beautiful, and they are smart, and they are kind, and they are important and I hope that they feel their Savior's love for them as well as my own.  And that's how we become ready for Christmas, we allow ourselves to feel His love regardless of our station and situation in life.  And that's all I wanted to do before I left, to sing and read and play and love them all I could.

Working hard

On Saturday the Vietnamese branch came to CICFO for a service project.  Most of the kids were still at government school during the service project, but a few of them made it back by the end.  We don't hold English classes on Saturdays, so I was there to help with the project: cleaning out the grassy area.
It was hot, and the missionaries were in their missionary attire, but we all worked quickly and happily.  Pulling weeds, throwing away trash, cutting grass, and moving logs.  Two of the younger kids came back and charmed the volunteers, and when all was said and done it looked very nice.

We're so blessed to be surrounded by people who are so willing to serve each other.  The Vietnamese members took time out of their day to do something that the kids, with their busy school schedules, can't easily do. 

Decorating

Sister James suggested that we make paper snowflakes with some of the paper that her son donated to CICFO.

So we did, and now the classroom is much more festive.

Stepping stones

Recently I discussed our challenge to create here in CICFO.  To work on it we’ve been re-telling familiar stories, the most recent of which is Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  Since ‘Goldilocks’ was doomed to cause unnecessary confusion, we just called her ‘the girl’.  Those words are much more widely applicable.  I have a set of storyboard punch-outs; the kids took turns two at a time, one telling part of the story and the other writing it on the whiteboard.  Some of the kids need to see and copy it, but everyone got to write down at least a short part of the story themselves.  I had my doubts, but the reason I’ve continued this is because the kids like it.  They think it’s fun and it gets them up in front of the class writing which allows the other kids to see that everyone forgets their periods, or capitalizes random letters, or forgets to add an ‘s’ when something is plural.  It lets the kids know that it’s okay when they make mistakes while reinforcing the corrections; at least, I think that’s what it is doing.  As usual, some kids are very good at this and some kids just really enjoy writing on the board.  It takes a couple classes to finish a story and on the last day of The Three Bears, Sarong came in and sat right in front of me and told me a ‘Once Upon a Time’ story featuring her friend Channy.  It was short and simple and a little bit ridiculous, but the most important part is that it was unprovoked.  I didn’t have to hold up cards and have her use one of them in a sentence, I didn’t ask her to tell me a story, I didn’t lead her by the hand and tell her how—none of that—she just did it.  

I asked her to write it down later.  It goes like this:

“Once upon a time the girl named Channy she like to play with the cat.  The cats named mickey mouse.  Channy goes to school by walking. “

It’s no epic, but she did it by herself.  I helped her a little bit on the spelling, but for the most part I exaggerated the phonemes and made her figure out the spelling on her own.  The other kids followed her lead and started making up bits about eachother.  I paired kids who had already done it with those who were struggling, absolutely thrilled with what they were doing