Changes

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I sit here on NIBI’s campus at the end of the semester, final reviews and exams behind me and some grading ahead of me. On Friday, I plan to say goodbye to all the dear students and teachers here and return to Phnom Penh, where I will be teaching English skills in the Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia (EFC) Women’s Department. I’m so sad to leave my friends here, but also excited to see what God has in store for me next.

I’m sorry I haven’t written in such a long time; the past few months have been extremely busy, but also very wonderful. At the end of December, my boyfriend came to visit me for nine days over Christmas, and we had some great adventures seeing the temples of Angkor, biking around Phnom Penh, visiting Plong Village, and hanging out with many of the people I’ve met and come to love here.

In the second week of January, students and professors from Calvin College were here in Siem Reap for the Transforming Cambodia interim, the same class that drew me to Cambodia in the first place. It was wonderful to see a dear friend from Calvin, catch up with my professors, and meet many other earnest and curious students. The NIBI students and I also got to attend an excellent conference on development that the Calvin students led, along with law school students from a Christian university in Korea and Cambodian students from several universities in Phnom Penh.

The day after the conference ended, I left for Chiang Mai, Thailand, where I was blessed to attend a Christian Reformed World Missions (CRWM) retreat for missionaries in South East Asia.  It was truly amazing to meet and spend even a few days with such faithful, courageous people and their families. Hearing about the great diversity of things they do – from translating the Bible into new languages to teaching in seminaries to running social enterprises – has planted all sorts of new ideas in the part of my brain formerly containing only the word “mission work.”

Finally, my parents visited during the second and third weeks of February, and we took a similar – though far from identical – tour of Cambodia as my boyfriend and I had taken. Please pray for my mother’s swift return to health, however. She arrived in Cambodia with a bad head cold, and we all got bad cases of Montezuma’s revenge during the last few days of the trip. Now back in the states, my mother is still recovering from the cold. Overall, though, it has been so good to see many of my beloved ones from the US in the flesh these past few months!

Besides the business of visits and travels, there have also been some significant changes since I last wrote.

Two NIBI students, James and Ratanak, have been accepted into universities in Korea. This is a mixed blessing for NIBI – while we’re proud to have produced students who are capable enough to study in Korea, they will be dearly missed here. James has left already, and Ratanak will leave during the coming months of vacation. Please pray for them, as they will have so many challenges there!

Both have fairly good English, but they don’t speak much Korean at all. Ratanak is going with her sister, who was also accepted, but James is all by himself. They have never even been to other South East Asian countries for short trips before, so moving to Korea for four years of study is an unbelievably big change.  And while they have been somewhat exposed to Korean culture through the missionaries here, Korean and Khmer culture are extremely different, so they will be facing a lot of culture shock. Please also pray that they remain true to God’s calling on their lives. There are Cambodians who go abroad to study intending to return, catch the materialism bug, and never come back to serve their country with their new knowledge and skills.

The total count of NIBI students for next semester has now dropped to five, and we’ve been unsuccessful becoming certified as an Institute that can award bachelor’s degrees. So the school has decided to make some major changes to their strategy. They have discovered that they can be certified to award associate degrees, so they’ve decided to shrink their program from five years to two. They’re also very seriously recruiting for this next semester, and have already found two students from Burma who will attend next semester.

This is a lot of change and will certainly be a difficult transition. The three remaining third- and fourth- year students will be allowed to stay and work at NIBI’s social enterprise, or they can apply for another university in Cambodia or Korea. Either will be a big change from what they had been expecting, and it’s certainly disappointing that they will only be able to receive associate degrees from NIBI after so many years of study. Having students from Burma attend the school is a great opportunity, but will also introduce new cultural and communication barriers, as the languages here are English, Khmer, and Korean. Hopefully, the Burmese students already know a fair amount of English. Furthermore, NIBI does not yet have an English teacher for next semester. Please pray for NIBI as they make this huge transition.

A big change for me is that I’ve decided to apply to Calvin Seminary for a Master's of Arts in Worship. This hasn’t been a light decision for me, but one made with fear and trembling, prayer, tears, and counsel. I had planned when I returned from Cambodia to start a master’s program in urban education in Memphis. My plan sounded great: I have loved teaching here in Cambodia, my boyfriend is also in Memphis for four years, and there would be a stipend to live on.  But after many prayers to release my plans to God, His Spirit called me in a different direction.

He brought up my deep longing to worship Him through music, study His Word, and lead others in responding to His Word through worship. He brought up the gifts He’d given me in singing and harmonizing, leading and songwriting, and confirmations from others. He brought up the deep need that I’ve seen in Cambodian churches for new songs written by Khmer Christians in Khmer, as well as needs in US churches for theologically sound worship that can speak across cultures and generations.

I don’t know where God will lead after seminary, but for now, I’m trusting that God will sustain me as I follow Him. I thank you for your prayers in all of this. I will turn in the application tomorrow, which is rather late. I’m supposed to be accepted into Calvin Seminary by March 1 to be considered for scholarships, so please pray for a fast review process for my application!

Love from Cambodia,

Amanda

Dear Friends, Family, and Partners:

I’m writing to you from NIBI (New International Bethany Institute)’s campus in Siem Reap, where I’ve been teaching English to seven college-aged Khmer students for the past two months. NIBI is currently in the process of applying to be a certified institution with the Cambodian government, so please pray that they will succeed.

Teaching is going well. Midterms were the last week of December, and overall, it was exciting to see how much my students had learned. The first-year students especially have improved so much since the beginning of the semester – I’m so proud of them J My boyfriend was able to visit me over Christmas, and a class from Calvin College (the same one that introduced me to Cambodia two years ago) is currently visiting.

I was recently asked to answer some good questions about my internship here, which I thought might interest you:

 What has been a challenge - work-wise? What has been a joy?

Challenges:

Heat. Right now, it’s the coolest part of the year. This means that it dips down all the way to 70F at night and doesn’t usually go above 90F during the day. It was a good deal hotter when I first arrived, and will be hotter still (with 70-80% humidity) in April and May before I leave. So far, none of the places I’ve lived or worked have been air-conditioned, which can make it harder to concentrate during the early afternoon and tiring overall.

Language. I have enjoyed learning Khmer, but it was difficult to constantly be in an environment at GCT where I understood only about 5% of what was going on between staff members. While I certainly got used to it, it was still a constant source of culture stress.

Culture. There’s no doubt: I’ve really enjoyed learning about Khmer – and Korean – culture and food. I am fairly easy-going and adventurous person, and encountering new things is a fun challenge for me. However, there are certainly some days when constant immersion in one or both makes me long to return home where I don’t have to think about any of it.

Missing People. This is by far the most significant, even with the wonders of Skype and email. I am simply in awe of missionaries in the past, who communicated through letters… or not at all. Being really far away – about as far away as is possible while remaining on the surface of the planet – from family, dear friends, and my boyfriend for almost a year is (especially after this year) simply not something I would do without feeling a strong calling from God. Although it is difficult, I have been learning to agree the Lord that He Himself is my Friend and my Portion – more than enough for me. His love is evident through his Word and Spirit, as well as though people he’s placed in my life here.

Joys:

Meeting Khmer Christians. So far, one of my greatest joy has been meeting and getting to know my students and coworkers. They are amazingly faithful, even in difficult circumstances. Although they are poor by American standards, they are pouring out their lives in faith to God and in service to others.

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Teaching.  I have never taught full-time before, and I am loving nurturing people and watching them grow.

Community. I love living at NIBI – it reminds me of college. All the students plus me and two other teachers live on campus together. We wake up early in the morning to meditate on scripture. We eat our meals together, work together, and play together. Although I am a foreigner, the students have welcomed me into their community here.

Learning. In my first year out of school, I’ve been delighted to find that what many people have told me is true: we can continue learning our whole lives. I’m constantly learning more through my work, reading, conversations with others, and my relationship with God.

What is something about life in Cambodia that you hadn't expected to encounter in Cambodia?

There were many things that were not very surprising to me for two reasons: 1) I had come to Cambodia two years before for a month and 2) I tried to come without my own expectations, just accepting whatever experience God wanted me to have here. But one thing definitely surprised me. This also fits under joys and first-time experiences: constantly meeting and interacting with people from the International community.

Before coming to Cambodia, I had mainly imagined interactions with Khmer people here, but as it turns out, there is a vibrant international community as well. Through the international church in Phnom Penh I’ve met and become friends with many believers from Canada, the UK and Australia, as well as Germany, Poland, Mexico, the Congo, and many other places. At NIBI, I live, work, and socialize with Korean missionaries.

It really gives me a totally different perspective on the world than I had before. When living in the US, spending my time primarily with other Americans, it was so easy to completely focus on the US and forget about the rest of the world. It was also easy to buy into the “America is the best country in the world” propaganda, because having little experience outside the US, other countries seemed less real. Here, having met so many people from outside the US, it’s much easier to remember that the US is just one country (albeit a powerful one) out of so many countries in the world, and that many people – including fellow members of Christ’s body – live in all of these countries as well.

What does it mean to you to serve God by serving in Cambodia through this internship?

This internship has really helped me to see every part of my life as belonging to God. My supervisor from World Missions keeps me accountable in every area of my life: spiritual, physical, emotional, social, mental; work and recreation.  Every part of my life matters to God – not only my time at work, but also the way I treat my friends, housemates, and acquaintances here – and my friends, family, and supporters at home. Keeping a healthy spiritual life is just as (if not more) important as doing my “job,” and taking care of my physical health is important, too.

What would you say to someone who is considering an internship overseas?

At least for me, it’s been hard, but it’s been worth it. As far as I know, there are no other ways to gain such perspective and experiences. Try either to work at one place or to work at each place for three or four months minimum. It takes at least three months to figure out the very basics of what is going on in an organization.

Especially for those coming right out of college (like me), don’t forget not to expect everything to be laid out for you as a professor lays out the class in his syllabus. For me, especially the process of setting up this internship was rather tricky (I didn’t realize when certain things had to be done by until it was a bit late), and there have been some logistically challenging points while I’ve been here, as well. Life is complicated – and moreso when you’re going overseas – just be aware, think things through well, and don’t feel too shy to ask “stupid” questions.

Learn the language! Even if you can easily get around with English, put in significant efforts to learn the language. People will respect you and be much more open to you, and it will help you to understand the culture. Read some books about cross-cultural communication and about development; I suggest When Helping Hurts.

Be humble. People are just as smart as you, even if their education level is lower than yours. When you come across systemic problems in the country or organization you work in, keep in mind that any quick and easy solutions you come up with probably either don’t work or have already been tried.

Make sure that you feel a strong calling from God before you go, because He is the one who will sustain you during the hard times – which will come.

Keep in mind that you’ll go through phases. First you may really be in love with the country and not feel homesick at all. Soon you may feel terribly homesick. Then you may make some good friends and feel much better… life always has its ups and its downs, but you may feel them a bit more strongly when you’re going through culture shock. When you’re in a high, don’t get down on others who are having a hard time – and don’t expect your ease to last forever. When you’re in a low, lean on God more and remember that it won’t be this hard forever, either. (I speak to myself!)

Love from Cambodia,

Amanda