“On the first day, I really wanted to cry and go back home…”
We took the grade 11s and 12s to a new camp this year. Our 9s and 10s returned to a
leadership development/ropes course camp where Logos has gone for years. But since we’ve outgrown their facilities, we
branched out this year. It seemed
perfect: run by a UK organization, it’s eco-friendly, affordable for our
budget, and lets students participate short-term in long-term community
development projects. We booked it and
told students about its great reputation with school teams from all over the
world.
Students washed their hands with water from a traditional large basin (left). All the buildings were either sod or thatch.
Our expectations were met, but our students’ were not. It took a few days for the truth to come out
that when they heard “UK” and “international,” they interpreted it as
“luxurious,” which the old camp was not. The rumors spread like wildfire before
arriving: Brick buildings! Fans! Running water! Instead, they were greeted with a compost
toilet, painful red ants all over the cabins, no fans, and no trees for shade…the other camp's forest location made it cool.
They knew we’d be working every day, but they hoped for lots of free
time in which to hang out, and many were unprepared for the tough manual labor
Tuesday through Thursday.
Local students, rapt as their school's shutters are repainted
On Tuesday, it was depressingly difficult to see
progress. My group sanded a school’s
wall for three hours, using 3” by 2” squares of sandpaper already worn
ragged. After lunch, everyone moved dirt
for a future community center at the Buddhist pagoda near camp. Students couldn’t understand: as a Christian
school, why were we streaming sweat and forming blisters on behalf of
Buddhism? We had some good talks about
which would reveal Christ more powerfully: to proclaim our beliefs to the camp
directors and abstain from helping, or to do the work cheerfully, knowing the
center would benefit the whole community.
(To my knowledge, the village is 100% Buddhist.) We developed an assembly line, all 50 of us
working for two hours in heat and full sun to carry dirt about 1/3 mile from a
mound to a giant hole that needed to be filled.
The hole seemed no smaller when we left.
The next two days also involved plenty of hard work – mixing concrete, tilling
soil for gardens, carrying water – and many had never experienced work of that
intensity. We were sweaty and smelly by
8:30 AM, and stayed that way until 4:30 or 5 after returning. For middle- to upper-class Asian kids,
academic excellence is essential, but chores are not: they’re left for moms or
house helpers. Some students didn’t know
how to hold a broom until they got a work detention at Logos, let alone a hoe
or a pickaxe. But besides the physical labor,
our students also have a deep aversion to sweat, dirt, and sun. They’re a necessary evil for many Cambodians,
but I don’t think any social class embraces them. Food vendors trudge the streets all day, but
they wear long sleeves and hats, and pause often in the shade. Laborers prefer to be crammed into a truck
bed with 40 others rather than to walk to their job site. Showering is likewise a high priority for most. So it wasn’t 100% “rich kid” prissiness, but
they sure were awfully excited about showering every evening, even from a bucket.
This guy pulled out his "Little Bo Peep" hat while gardening - better than to risk tanning
“I really tried hard to see God’s work being done at the
work site as the teachers told me, but I still struggled to find it…" My first real sign of hope came Tuesday evening, during
devotions. My small group and others
were really open and thoughtful during our discussion. Yes, our students were disappointed with the
facilities and less than excited about the side effects of hard work. But on the other hand, they were soaking up
our theme that service reveals God to us in unique and transformative
ways. As we talked about the widow who
bakes her last bit of bread for Elijah, the boy who shares his loaves and fish
with the crowd, Abraham surrendering Isaac, and a Cambodian general who stayed
in Khmer Rouge Cambodia to advance the Gospel, they saw more and more purpose
to their seemingly fruitless tasks.
"Pajama mamas," glad to be clean again...I couldn't believe one girl packed both these pairs for our 4 nights there.
It also helped to see Cambodians working hard all around us. Much of our work was at an elementary school,
where the school provides breakfast.
Even the youngest ones had chores watering their vegetable gardens and
washing dishes with water from the nearly dried-up pond. We learned from them how to use a stick to
lower a bucket 20 feet down to the water’s edge, then bring it up full. One of our tasks was to expand the gardens so
they don’t need to buy any vegetables, and it was gratifying to see the
progress we’d made and imagine the kids harvesting them in a few months. At the pagoda were several orphan kids, whom
the monks have been raising. Both they
and the monks were busy with physical labor alongside us: moving dirt with us
or wrestling a giant vat of pond water onto a truck for showering, cooking, and
drinking. In the province, and often in
Phnom Penh, work happens the hard way and the old-fashioned way. One student wrote, “As a Cambodian…I was able
to reflect on how this is actually what my family used to grow up in. The more my friends complained about it, the
more I was thankful. I was able to
experience some of the hard work that the local people had to do.”
Making coconut milk by hand for yummy banana dessert
Maybe that’s why many Cambodian parents – even rich non-Christian
families- seemed to appreciate the purpose more than many Korean families, even missionaries. One girl, who in 9th grade was forbidden to
attend the other camp because her parents were so protective, said her family was glad to hear about the work she did
this year. (Even if they also were horrified
that she’d gotten one tiny pimple.) On
the other hand, Korean parents responded, “You look like an Indian!” “Sounds like the military.” “Maybe next year you can break your leg right
before.” I’m hoping others affirmed
their children’s work more, but I didn’t hear of any that did. It makes me more grateful for all the
students who, despite their culture’s disdain, embraced the hard work as they
saw God’s presence saturate it.
Here’s some feedback from students:
“On the first day, I
really wanted to cry and go back home.
However, [on Wednesday] I realized nobody wanted to work, but they did
not complain. From then on, I tried to
work eagerly. I started to like working
really hard.”
“The work led to good conversations and it made me really
question why I was doing this and what my heart was behind this. It wasn’t only for school or because we were
getting to benefit from it, or even to get a ‘thanks.’ This week was all for God’s glory. God used my hands to serve him this
week.”
“God doesn’t always put you in places you want or like to
serve. It is actually up to God…Just
because you are in a bad place doesn’t mean that we should be all grumpy and
complaining about it. If you change your
perspective on things, everything won’t turn out that negative.”
“Camp made me think
about those people who dig dirt for a living, and how easy my life is. I have things easy, but yet I still
complained. I should try to be more
considerate and grateful for what I have.”
"I would
like someone to appreciate my work and honor/respect me for doing that. But as we could see in the Bible, there was
no verse or chapter that said anything about rewarding the kid [who shared his
fish and bread]. I thought he could be one
of the heroes that day with Jesus for providing his food for all those people,
but he didn’t do that. He just stayed
quiet and let Jesus get the fame and honor.
This boy really inspired me.”
“I can’t just shovel
dirt for a week and that takes care of all my service. Service needs to be a lifestyle. Wherever I go as a Christian I want to leave
and people say, “She was a servant.”
Camp was good because it really pushed my focus outward while still
making me think about all the parts of me that God is working on.”
