Kellyville Seventh-day Adventist Church

Roughly 24 hours after leaving Kellyville we landed in Siem Reap airport to be greeted with the heat and humidity. Greg (one of ICC’s leaders in Cambodia who is staying with us at the village) met us at the airport and led us to our mini-bus for the drive to the Village. But first, we had a quick stop over in Siem Reap at “the Blue Pumpkin” to grab some food and have a quick break from all the travelling.

Two or three hours later we arrived at the ICC Children’s Village, “Light of Hope”, near Kompong Thom (roughly in the middle of the country). As we arrived some of the kids were waving the Australian flag. We quickly unloaded the bus and moved to the main hall/church building where we had our first meal (of many!) of rice, vegies and fruit. As we approached, two children carried flags on poles – one Australian, the other Cambodian – and placed them beside the entry to the church.

Our first afternoon was spent organising our sleeping arrangements and settling in. The girls have part of a house, with most of them sharing the floor of a large room (think StormCo style). The boys are in a couple of connected rooms at the end of one of the school blocks. We have ‘double’ size foam mattresses and some incredibly thick pillows (around 15 to 20cm thick) to sleep with. The boy’s room is fairly harmless, but the girls seem to have a resident of the house that keeps eating things in the middle of the night (they think it might be a rat or one of the very large geckos they have here).

The rest of our first evening saw us getting a handle on what ICC wanted us to do while here. We have been asked to teach English classes to year 1 to 9, as well as with the house parents. We also run PE and craft classes. Most of us have never really taught a class before, except for Gill and a few ‘teachers in training’ (Heidi & Bella), so we have been thrown in the deep end, but seem to be swimming okay so far! A game of Hangman was an instant hit with the English class for the years 4 to 6, and we even started to teach the kids how to play a kind of footy (but they are so used to playing soccor they don’t like to run with a ball in their hands!).

The village has a fairly large garden where the families grow their own food, including the home grown rice they are feeding us with. Each afternoon we help out with weeding and aerating the soil. Paul was so enthusiastic at using a hoe to break up the soil that he sent the metal head flying  behind him!

A group from Avondale High School called ‘Rocforce’ were here not long before us and brought about 20 laptops with them to set up a computer lab. Michelle, Paul and I have been doing a bit of work getting internet working (sort of!) and teaching the older kids how to use the computers.

We also have been asked to take worship every morning for the school, and evening worships for the village including a 2 hour service coming up on Sabbath – MJ has his work cut out for him! We have also been blessed by being invited into their homes for family worship. The families have really warmed to us and are incredibly friendly.

Tomorrow we are going on a trip to the surrounding villages to visit some of the children there who don’t go to school. ICC (with assistance from ADRA) are hoping to expand the school to help more of these children.

Life here has been great so far. A few of us are missing the creature comforts, others love not having them around. But all agree they are loving the experience. Thank you all for your prayers and your support in bringing us here.

God bless!

Andrew