My Arctic Blast Party

Sometimes, your heart finds itself craving snow, even the fake kind.

You'd think by hot season #8, I'd be used to this. It's certainly getting more predictable: lows in the 80's, highs in the upper 90's, high humidity, extreme UV index, RealFeel consistently 15 degrees above the actual temps. I've improved at navigating my fatigue, mood swings, and lagging motivation, and given up on trying to sleep without air conditioning. 

But when I first arrived, another expat described Cambodia as "never boring," and my adopted homeland has made a valiant effort to live up to this slogan. This hot season is breaking heat records, and a drought means the hydroelectric power plants can't keep up, leading to frequent power cuts nationwide. Last time I faced this many power cuts was my very first hot season in 2010, likewise a doozy, when my school moved to an under-powered neighborhood. We lost power daily, but other areas were fine.

This year the government announced that they'd flip-flop everyone's cuts between mornings and afternoons, 6 days a week for 3 months (through May), until the rains replenish the dams. That's been pretty accurate at my house so far, but others throughout town have experienced many nighttime outages as well as water shortages. At least it's somewhat predictable, and plenty of nearby cafés have generators if I really need Internet or a break from the heat. Many people have it far worse than I do: farmers, small business owners, babies with incessant heat rash, even Logos teachers trying to keep their students alert and learning.

Lately, whenever the power has gone out and I've sat sticky with sweat, trying to work, my mind has drifted to the outlandish plans I used to make with my Logos teacher roommates. "Let's take our mattresses and go sledding down the stairs!" "We're gonna dump shredded coconut all over the floor and make snow angels!" But hot season during my Logos days always found us in end-of-year survival mode, juggling extra events like banquet in addition to finals and report cards. Just ask my poor roommate with a May birthday - parties rarely made the cut. I think the closest we ever came to a winter party was in 2012, watching "March of the Penguins," and even that was in late May after school got out. 

I have vivid memories of that movie. I watched it two weeks after a dear friend left the country suddenly due to a life-threatening illness, the week my first roommate and closest friend was moving away, and the week that one of my students was killed in a moto crash. My roommates and I collapsed in emotional and physical exhaustion, trying to collect ourselves before flying out to see our families. Between fits of sobbing, I sank into the couch and stared desperately at the whimsical creatures navigating a perilous bright-white landscape to give their children a chance at life. I wanted so very badly for those baby penguins to survive, to thrive, to know the joys of sliding across the ice and diving into the deep.

This hot season has been less busy and much less traumatic than that one. At the same time, the heat's been fraying everyone's nerves. So after the Khmer New Year break, I decided - why not really do it? Why not throw a party? My roommate was out of town (hosting's not her favorite), and I had no plans, so last weekend seemed like as good a time as any. In the US, if I started announcing a party 2 days in advance, I'm not sure anyone would come. Here, it's no problem. I ended up having 15 people representing 9 nationalities at my party! But to my amazement, we had no parking issues in the tiny alley downstairs where my neighbors and I cram our motos. And there were just enough chairs for everyone, scattered at tables across the balcony as well as squeezed into my small kitchen. 

I called it an Arctic Blast Party. Here's my description: 

Is this hot weather giving you cold feet about your commitment to Cambodia? Are power outages melting your smile into a frown? Do you find yourself with a sudden burden for the people of Iceland? Come join the cool kids and party like a polar bear! Rekindle your love for the Kingdom of Wonder with frozen snacks, frost-themed games, and a frigid movie. 

My plan was to vote on a movie, but we didn't even get that far. However, we did a Penguin Relay with ice-filled socks between our legs to represent penguin eggs. We competed on polar trivia and bobbed for apples and various tropical fruits in icy-cold water. I decided to skip the snow sculpture competition, but the 4 kids who came played with the fake snow (I used recipe #2). Several adults joined in the kids' paper snowball fight, and we all gorged ourselves on sundaes. 

The "challenge" fruit-bobbing items got the most points...
and multiple people managed to snag them!

This was the first party I've pulled off alone, and a pretty ambitious one at that. Some things didn't go as well as they could have, while others got left out entirely. I gave up keeping score after a while, took no photos (there could have been some great ones), and never declared a winning team or handed out the prizes. Other things like dinner went well only because people pitched in unasked to set up, clean up, or manage the kids. But one sweet moment stood out. For all my endeavors to have fans and ice available to maintain the wintry theme, we ended up outside, away from all of that. Clustered around the sundae bar on the balcony, we chatted and sang to my neighbor's guitar, punctuated with children's laughter. The irony of sweating at my Arctic Blast Party did not escape me, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. It gave me joy to see my friends making friends with each other.

A guest, Keo Mey, took this photo :)

Because sometimes, what overheated hearts need even more than snow is the sweaty hug of human connection.

Thmey Runners and my double life

Good thing I believe in rewriting, because the first draft of this post was vying for World's Most Boring. 

“I’m in a running group. Our group is called Thmey Runners because we run in Phnom Penh Thmey. We go running in a group. Running in a group is more fun than running alone. The runners in my group are nice. We take selfies after our runs. Here are some of them. The end.”

OK, not quite that bad, but you get the idea.

The dirt road loop

And then I started thinking… I’ve been in this group for well over a year. I’m often hunting for blog topics. Why haven’t I blogged about this before? And I had to do a bit of soul-searching.

The truth is, it’s not just because I thought it would be boring.

It’s also because I was afraid of being judged. Because I was disappointing myself.

All those years that I worked at Logos School in my “expat bubble,” I told myself, This is temporary. When I become a ‘real’ missionary, I’ll spend most of my time with Cambodians.

And now I have, and I don’t. Even after the equivalent of 2 years of full-time language study. Even after 7.5 years in country. But I don't always talk about that to the outside world.

Most of my time is probably spent alone, actually, often on my computer, reading and writing in English. Second to that is time spent speaking English with other expats and occasionally Cambodians. A distant third is hanging out in Khmer with Cambodians who don’t speak English. Compare that to Logos, where even if I wasn't using Khmer most days, I was spending hours each day with my Cambodian students.

Part of that is my ministry focus: a big chunk of my job right now is helping other World Teamers to learn Khmer, a task done entirely in English. I'm hoping that proportion will shift over time.

Part of that is convenience and choice – the people I’ve clicked with, the people who invite me. Like these runners, who join me many Tuesdays and Thursdays, who are mostly English-speaking expats, who have become my friends since I returned to Cambodia in 2017, often through language school. I knew I’d still have expat friends through my Logos connections … but I didn’t realize how many expat friends I’d make entirely outside of Logos. Phnom Penh has a LOT of expats, even far from downtown.

Special workouts for Thanksgiving and Christmas

I realized my hesitation about writing this post when trying to describe the group makeup. “We’ve tried to recruit some Cambodians, but running isn’t very popular here. Only a couple have come more than twice, so most of us are expats.” It’s true to some extent. When one friend said she might join us sometime, I told her we generally ran 3k (2 miles) on Tuesdays. She gasped. “3k! And you run the whole way?!” I decided not to tell her that Thursdays are more like 5-6k. One of my neighbors has told me at least twice that I should be careful not to exercise too much, even though I work out less than the US guidelines recommend. In this culture, toned is NOT a good look for women, I think because it makes you look like a farmer or a manual laborer.

However, we usually pass a few Khmer runners on our route, and plenty of Khmer students are in the running club at Logos. So that can’t be the whole story. Several of the Cambodians who came were motivated to try and just didn’t have the stamina. We tried to accommodate them, with the group split into “short loop” and “long loop.” One built up his endurance and is now able to keep up the whole way. Others didn’t return, hopefully not because we embarrassed them or made them feel unwelcome, but I do wonder occasionally. If I were better at meeting them in the middle, would they be more inclined to come? What would it look like to join existing groups of Cambodians instead of trying to include a couple brave souls in with all these English speakers? Khmer aerobics classes are a pretty tame workout, and I'm not much of a team sports person, though I played soccer a couple times in Preah Vihear. 

A Thmey Runner organized this hiking/camping trip last month

The truth is, I run every week with mostly expats, and I enjoy it. I enjoy our chats. I enjoy the motivation to get out of bed, to keep going, to reach our target distance. I enjoy feeling tired at the end of the workout, though I could do with being a bit less sweaty and flushed. I even enjoy running on the street, with the dust and fumes and dogs, compared to a sterile, stationary treadmill. I enjoy doing something that I would do back home, with people who understand certain aspects of my life back home.

A teammate asked me last month, “How do you manage to spend so much time with Cambodians? On Facebook it looks like you hang out with them all the time!”

“I don’t really,” I answered. “It’s just always documented when I do.”

So there you have it, my dirty little secret. Even when my blog and social media seem filled with Cambodians, even when I have the same power cuts and the same juicy-sweet mangoes and even the same little “duckling” moto as many Cambodians, I am spending hefty chunks of time in a parallel expat-bubble universe. And despite our weekly selfie tradition, that reality doesn't always show up in the highlights reel.

I really do generally enjoy spending time with Cambodians. And I will keep looking for ways to broaden and deepen my relationships with them. But for the foreseeable future, part of my life will be in my “comfort zone” with English speakers and expats.

I think I'm OK with that.

Side note: In America there can be an "English-only" attitude: "Why do people come here if they're not going to learn the language and start living like we do?" Let me tell you, that is SO much harder than you'd think if you've never tried it. Even for those who, like myself, have the time and energy and money to learn. Also, I'm not sure which nationality is the best at adapting and integrating to a new culture and language, but I don't think it's Americans. So please go high-five your nearest non-native English speaker and thank them for the hard work they've done to bridge the gap between their culture of origin and yours. OK, rant over.

Planning lessons using "I do, We do, You do"

The text below is my script for a recent event with the Cambodia Teacher Community on lesson planning. I've enjoyed volunteering with these events every other month since last October, but this month was extra special, getting to co-speak with a teacher named Rumny!

Nakru (Teacher) Rumny just shared about the Khmer format for lesson planning. Now, I want to build on that by helping you plan lessons that connect your objectives to your activities and assessment. This will make your lesson plan flow smoothly and help your students grow so they can reach the objectives. My objective is that you can recognize and use the steps in the teaching technique called “I do, we do, you do.”

One difference from Khmer schools is that in American schools, there is not just one format for lesson plans. It depends on the state, school, and level. But every American lesson plan includes many of the same components or parts that we saw in Nakru Rumny’s presentation just now, including objectives, activities, and assessments.

Today, I want to share with you a teaching strategy recommended by American education specialists. Research shows evidence that it works in many different subject areas, with many different age groups. This strategy is also easy to use outside of a classroom. Actually, all of you have learned before using this strategy.

Raise your hand if you know how to wash the dishes. Do you remember how you learned?

Let’s think about the girl in this picture. We’ll call her Pich ("Diamond").

At the beginning, Pich’s family wanted her to help wash the dishes. So their objective was, “Pich will be able to wash the dishes.” 

How do you think they taught her? Did she read a book about it? Did she memorize 10 steps for scrubbing a pot? Did she take a multiple-choice test about it? Probably not.

Here’s how I think she learned. There are 3 steps:

• First, she watched other people wash the dishes. 
• Then, other people worked with her to wash the dishes. Maybe they helped her put on the gloves, guided her hand while she scrubbed, and told her to move the bowl around under the water so the whole bowl would be rinsed off. 
• Then she did it on her own while they watched. 

Maybe she’s still not ready to wash dishes without them watching. Maybe they still check to see if she uses too little soap, or if she left a dirty spot on a spoon, or if she puts a glass where it could fall and break. That way they can correct her until she’s able to succeed all by herself at this objective of washing the dishes.

There is a name for this teaching strategy. It’s called, “I do, We Do, You Do.” I is the teacher. We is the teacher and students together. You is the students.

During “I do,” the teacher shows a skill or procedure or explains information, while the students watch. During “We do,” the teacher helps the students practice. During “You do,” students practice while the teacher watches and gives feedback. Notice that in “I do,” the students are passive, but in “We do” and “You do,” they are active. Being active helps them understand and remember it long-term.

Planning “I do, we do, you do” starts by thinking about the objective. What will be difficult for students about this objective? What do they need from the teacher? This helps us organize the first step: "I do." During “I do,” the teacher does or says something while the students watch. Maybe the teacher shows how to use a water pump. Maybe she reads a story or lesson. Maybe the teacher demonstrates a math problem, or shows an example of a project that students will do.

“I do” is important so that students will understand the objective. But if we stop at “I do,” the students will not do the objective, and we will not know if they are able to do it. They need to actively practice the objective. But probably they are not yet ready to do the objective by themselves. So next step is “We do.”

To plan “We do,” the teacher thinks about the support that students need so they can do the objective. Often, we need to break the objective into smaller steps so students can do a little bit at a time. Maybe for math, the teacher has students use blocks to practice addition, or asks a student to come to the board to solve a problem. Maybe for English, she asks students to unscramble some words on the board to make a question. Maybe for geography, she has the students read the textbook about Laos and list some important facts on the board.

The last step? “You do.” To plan “You do,” the teacher looks for ways to let the students practice the objective on their own. Maybe the students work in groups to create a poster about different provinces. Maybe the students do a worksheet. Maybe they practice reading out loud. While the students practice, the teacher observes and is ready to give feedback: either praise or gentle correction. If many students are making mistakes and not succeeding, maybe the teacher goes back to re-teach using “I do” or “We do” until the students are ready to try again by themselves. Homework is another part of “You do” because students are trying a skill when the teacher is not there to help or correct them right away.

The teacher uses “I do, we do, you do” so students will learn to do the objective correctly without any help. Sometimes the students will succeed after just one class. For other objectives like washing dishes or reading a book, maybe they have to practice “We do” for many days before they can move to “I do.” Maybe some students will be ready sooner than other students. But the teacher is always thinking about how much support students need so that they can move toward completing the objective independently.

"I do, we do, you do" is not only useful in a classroom, but also in real life. As a Christian, I found it fascinating to realize that even Jesus used this teaching method. First, he demonstrated love as he honored low-status people, healed suffering people, and washed the disciples' feet. Then he had the disciples join him in demonstrating love to others. Finally, just before he went to the cross, he commanded them to continue loving others the way he had loved: 

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35)

After “You do,” the goal is that students can do this without any help or feedback from the teacher. I think many of you already use this technique sometimes when you teach. But I hope that after today, you can identify these steps in your lessons and you can use these steps more often to help you plan effective lessons. Thank you!

Next, I did a brief sample lesson teaching the German names for red, yellow, and blue, and then participants explained how they saw each step of "I do, We do, You do" in my lesson. Then they worked in their table groups to design a lesson on subtraction using all three steps. It's hard to do those activities as an individual blog reader, but instead you can test yourself with these review questions, which I ran out of time for at our event:

Today in my entire lesson, my objective was to teach you about the three steps of a good lesson. Tell me again, what are they? “I do, we do, you do.” Great! But did I use all those steps when I taught you about this technique?

How did I use “I do” to teach you about this technique? 

What about "We do" and "You do?" 

When you're ready, read on for how I tried to include them all:

"I do" - I described an example of this technique to teach a child how to wash the dishes. I also demonstrated a lesson on colors.

“We do” - I had everyone participate in a lesson on colors, and then they identified the steps in my lesson.

“You do” - Everyone worked in table groups to plan a lesson using this technique. Then one table shared their ideas with the whole group and we gave feedback.

Record turnout - exciting to see these events growing!

*None of these photos are mine except the last two. 

Hierarchy

I knew before moving here that American culture generally values equality, while Cambodian culture values hierarchy. I also knew I didn't like the sound of hierarchy. But what does hierarchy mean in practice? After 7+ years here, I'm still learning what it is and how to find my place within it! In this post, I'll explore 6 ways that I've experienced it in Asia.

1. Titles of respect

My former principal at Logos School, who's Canadian, went by Dan. Just Dan. This wasn't that weird for the North Americans on staff, but it was unthinkable for our Cambodian colleagues, who insisted on calling him "Mr. Hein" since English doesn't use many titles. I was confused when I first arrived because Dan always referred to an older Khmer woman on staff as "Nakru (Teacher) Chantorn." She was one of the only Logos employees who was not a teacher: she ran the school office. But I learned that it was simply a term of respect reflecting her age, status, and longevity at our school.

It starts young. Parents make their younger children add "Bong" (Older Sibling) to the names of their older children. But it doesn't stop with kids. Anytime you ask about desirable traits in a spouse, respect for elders/superiors always comes up. And it's rare to call someone, even a non-relative, by their first name if they're more than a few months older: there are dozens of titles ranging from the basic "Bong" to some much more specific ones. This is deeper than just words; at a training last month, a Cambodian told my American colleague, "People here want to hear from you because they respect your white hair."

In fact, Khmer rarely uses the words "I" or "you." Rather, people define themselves in relation to the other speaker. So I could call myself "oun" (younger sibling) or "khmuy" (niece/nephew) when speaking to someone older, but "bong" or "ming" or something else when speaking to someone younger. I'm still bad at this, but I'm trying to reciprocate it more when I hear others use these terms with me.

2. Gestures and positions

The classic Cambodian gesture when saying hello or goodbye is the sampeah, palms pressed together while bowing slightly. But there's more than one way to sampeah, as this picture illustrates. The height of your hands literally reflects the other person's status, often in relation to yours. This gesture is linked with similar ones in Thai, Indian, and Indonesian culture, to name a few.

That's not the only time that height corresponds to status. Another American told me yesterday that she was recently sitting on the floor during a Khmer lesson, while her tutor sat in a chair. The tutor interrupted the lesson to say, "I'm sorry, I know you don't care, but this is too weird for me. I can't sit higher than you. You're older and my employer."

3. Standardized lesson plans

Even America's name is decentralized: United States. And every American has heard that any power not explicitly assigned to the central government belongs to the states. In cases like education, local government, school boards, and individuals all bear influence on a given student's education. Some people push for standardization to ensure equal quality for all students, but many others advocate differentiation to give a voice to local stakeholders closer to the situation of each school or classroom.

In Cambodia, there are no elective courses, just two tracks (math/science vs. humanities) that somewhat affect high schoolers' schedules and 12th grade exit exam. There are no school district calendars because the whole nation is on the same calendar, (At least in theory... I've heard that rural schools sometimes unofficially extend the holidays, telling students, "Eh, let's take another week.") And every teacher learns the exact same format for lesson plans, which includes a heading with the lesson title and subtitle, among other things, and allots 2 minutes at the beginning for taking attendance. These may not be used daily, but anytime they have to submit a lesson plan, it must follow this format exactly.

This standardization made for an interesting conversation with my co-speaker, Rumny, when we planned our talk on Khmer vs. US lesson plans for earlier this month. I told her there was no such thing as a "US lesson plan" per se, but lots of different tips and templates that various American teachers used. Rumny was baffled. "You mean everyone just makes up their own design?" In response, I googled "American lesson plan template" to make sure I wasn't missing something. I found only 3 results, none of which was relevant.

4. Flash card placement

Many countries have centralized education systems: France and Austria come to mind. But in Southeast Asia, teachers' deference to authorities can be extra pronounced. I recently heard a talk by an American teacher trainer, Tom, working in a country neighboring Cambodia. Tom described once giving a seminar on teaching English using flash cards, where at the end a local teacher raised her hand.

"You told us to hold the flash cards over our heads, but we learned in teachers' college to hold them to the right of our faces. Which one should we do?"

"Great question," Tom responded. "We have some authorities in the room - let's ask them." The school principal, district education leader, and provincial education leader proceeded to debate among themselves for 30 minutes regarding the optimal position. Three levels of government wanted to weigh in about where to hold the flash cards – no wonder change is slow! Finally they stuck to the official stance: next to the teacher's face.

Meanwhile, Tom - like all the teacher participants, sitting at the students' desks and listening - could see the problem. In the crowded classroom, many students had an obstructed view of the teacher's face and could only see the flash card if it was over her head! Tom pointed out to me and the other conference participants that as the highest authority in their classrooms, it could appear shameful for teachers to raise a flashcard over their heads. However, when teachers had students hold flashcards during their lessons, Tom noticed that the students all knew what to do. They raised them high above their heads without hesitation! I don't know if Cambodian teachers have a "proper" placement for flash cards, but it wouldn't surprise me.

5. Patron-client relationships

This is a complex issue that I can't fully address here. But patron-client relationships are a bond that goes deeper than just a cut-and-dried transaction. They could be between:

• employer and employee
• government official and residents
• a wealthy person and their poorer relatives

There's a set of obligations that each must fulfill: the patron protects the client, while the client shows respect and loyalty to the patron, a bit like parents care for their kids, who must obey their rules. Cambodians who see themselves as clients will be careful not to challenge or contradict their patron, and might hope to receive a job, medical care, or a scholarship for their child through the patron. Connections are essential here for getting things done! Anyone perceived to have power or money is fair game as a potential patron, which means foreigners need to tread carefully and be aware of cultural dynamics and expectations. 

Patron-client relationships aren't inherently good or bad; it's how people use them. As you can imagine, it can spiral into oppression or unhealthy dependency, but it can also be a mutually caring relationship. As Cambodian culture modernizes and many people leave the countryside for the city, the web of patron-client relationships is becoming more interwoven and more fluid than it used to be.

6. Prayer

This point ties in with #1, titles of respect. Khmer doesn't conjugate verbs according to person or tense (I go, she goes, we went, they will go) but it does have levels of formality to its verbs, which I suppose is a bit similar. Royalty/divinity, monks, elders, equals, and children/animals all have completely separate words for actions like eating. (The fact that royalty and divinity are lumped into the same category, while children and animals are together in a different category, also tells you something.) The respect attached to titles and verbs made it really fun for Bible translators, since Hebrew and Greek aren't organized by hierarchy in this way.

When Christians pray, they always use royal/divine language, just like Buddhists would use for Buddha. So not only the titles and verbs, but also the body parts, are completely unrelated to the words used to describe ordinary people. Jesus (Preah Yesu) doesn't have regular hands (dai), he has divine hands (preah hoah). He doesn't speak (niyay), he has a divine word (mien preah bantoul). This makes prayer a mouthful and scary for me to do out loud in front of a group. But it also reminds me of God's glory and power. He is not like us. He is far greater.

Last week, in an online meeting, I listened to a French teammate pray aloud. I was struck by how French prayer uses the familiar tu form for "you," just as English used to use "thou," which now sounds old and stodgy but used to be the familiar form you'd use with close friends and family. His prayer made God sound so near and tender.

My teammate's prayer was a great reminder for me that both are true. God is the pinnacle of every hierarchy - and He's the humble servant who was born in a manger and washed the disciples' feet. He reigns over all the universe - with the compassionate presence of a mother. At Christ's feet every knee will bow - the feet that were pierced in the most humiliating of executions. He commanded Christians to honor our human authorities - and He befriended the lepers, the prostitutes, those with no power or status.

God doesn't pick sides in the fight between hierarchical and egalitarian cultures. He fulfills them both perfectly and transcends them. At their best and most beautiful, both echo His glory and goodness.

A New Year's prayer, one year later

Yesterday, I stood and worshiped in the same church where I'd stood and worshiped 364 days ago on New Year's Eve. We sang, "Blessed be your name in the land that is plentiful... and blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place..." and I remembered this Sunday last year. 

That day, I sat with my teammates, Carole and Victor. Before the first song, they whispered to me the news they'd just learned: their entire ministry, a Cambodian teacher training program, had to stop immediately following an unexpected new government decree. ("Private institutions may not train teachers.") It wasn't aimed at the school where they taught, or even at foreigners/Christians/nonprofits in general, but they were still collateral damage. And I thought to myself, What in the world does the coming year hold? 

I thought I knew what I came back to Cambodia to do. Suddenly I hadn't a clue. 

Earlier that day, I'd written this prayer:

Throughout 2018, would You please produce in me...

• More concern about how well I'm loving others, and less concern about how well they're loving me
• More reliance on the Holy Spirit who indwells me, and less reliance on my to-do list
• More stable joy, and less pursuit of fleeting happiness
• More awe of Your image in others, and less comparison of myself to them
• More time in the Good Book, and less time on Facebook
• More generous hospitality, and less fear of man
• More fervent intercession, and less fruitless worry
• More diligence in language practice, and less arrogance about the undeserved gift You've given me
• More liberty, and less license or legalism
• More godliness with contentment (which is great gain), and less striving for meaningless gain
• More wholehearted worship, and less adulterous idolatry
• More words of encouragement, and fewer words of advice

Jesus, you promise that whatever I ask in Your Name according to Your will, the Father will give me. When I bear much fruit, I'm revealed as Your disciple, and the Father is glorified (John 15:8). That's what You want for my life, and that's what I want too. 

It felt like too many things, but I wasn't sure which ones to take out, so I just left them all in. I taped the prayer above my bed. I wish I could say I'd read it and prayed through it weekly, or that I'd had a concrete action plan to help me form new habits. But I did occasionally revisit it, and it always reoriented me toward truth.

And you know what? These are some of the key areas I've been growing in this year. This prayer trickled into a lot of other prayers on my balcony and on my moto, in my kitchen and in the classroom. One means of growth came within hours, as I digested the whispered news from Carole and Victor. Others came through new friendships that went from surface-y to glimpses of someone's inner heart. Others came through friends and loved ones carrying much heavier burdens than mine, where I was powerless to do anything but cry out to God with them. Still others came through seemingly unchanging situations that changed me over time.

For some points on the list, I think, "Oof! Did I grow at all?" For others, I'm not where I used to be, but I'm still so far from where I could be. It's OK. I can celebrate my progress even while longing for more. On December 31, 2018, I'm not who I was on December 31, 2017. I can see God's faithfulness so clearly in the way He's provided opportunities and challenges to abandon my plans and embrace His, to scoff at my broken cisterns (like self-importance and people-pleasing) and take deep gulps of His springs of living water (Jeremiah 2:13). 

Pastor Daren preached last New Year's Eve, and I wrote down one of his comments. "One of the greatest temptations that will face us in 2018 is discontentment - an affront to God's goodness and sovereignty." Hmm, maybe that was the key to understanding my vanishing ministry plans and a couple other situations that I was less than thrilled about. Maybe the battle was less about finding the right thing to do, and more about embracing a right heart attitude. Inspired by that comment, I went home and started singing the Oh Hellos' "Exeunt," addressing it to self-pity and grumbling.

Now, I am not the fool I was when I was younger

Crocodile eyes, I have seen how you hunger

Fluttering your lashes, like ashes and embers

Warm and bright as fire devouring timber

No, I cannot trust what you say when you're grieving

So, my love, I'm sorry, but still: I am leaving

Even when you hunt me with ire, relentless

Batter down my door when you find me defenseless

I will not abide all your raging and reaving

I have set my mind and my will: I am leaving

I wouldn't say I've left grumbling behind yet. But as a language nerd, I like that the song ends with the present continuous tense: I am leaving. It's ongoing.

For 2019, I don't have a new list. I think I'll keep going with this one. But in reflecting yesterday, I was reminded of a post by special needs mom and gifted writer Kara Dedert that I read last year shortly after writing this prayer, a post I liked so much that I saved it to revisit now:

I don't have a list of resolutions for the new year to better myself or my life. I've tried that, maybe made a few small changes, but the real change comes from someone else - Jesus. So I want my focus to be all wrapped up in Him. 

I want my feet to walk on purposely thru dark nights when faith seems pointless. 
My hands to reach out to those around me, carrying each other along the way and inviting others to walk the way of the cross with us. 
My eyes quick to see the weight of glory that is coming. 
Whether I'm enjoying art, writing or music - may it whisper His name. 
When investing in friendships - may it lead to eternal bonds in Christ. 
When I read, fellowship, pray and worship - may it be water to a living faith that is growing in Christ. 
When I clean my home and spend oodles of time with my kids - may it be the setting where Christ is rooted in their hearts and His grace trumps my very imperfect mothering. 
When I care for Calvin's needs and feel angry and helpless when he suffers, may I remember Christ became broken to overcome ours and is making all things new. 

I'm broken and very flawed, but walking the way of the cross heals me and breathes life into every aspect of my life. My plan is to keep breathing in that life in 2018.

A few sentences are specific to her life, and I can tailor them to fit mine. But she's named my top goal for 2019: to breathe Christ's life into every arena of my own life. 

Loving Cambodia 101

Here's a guest post from my mom, Jan Cooper, about her recent visit. My love of writing is from her... enjoy this glimpse of Cambodia through her eyes!

I visited Chelsea this month, my second time to Cambodia. A fun and adventuresome travel companion from Davisville Church came with me, Holly Ferguson. We spent time both in Phnom Penh and up north with Chelsea's amazing, lovely fellow World Teamers. There we helped lead a two day children's ministries training with children's volunteers who work in the local villages. Then Chelsea and I traveled down south to the shore for a mini vacation. My trip gave me only 8 days in country, but it was a rich and varied time, memorable on many levels.

A typical response when I tell someone that my daughter has moved to Cambodia is, "She must really love it there." After spending seven of the last 9 years in country, she likely would agree that she does truly love this small country on the other side of our planet. But as in any relationship, love doesn't come easy. Love implodes if it's not selfless and sacrificial. Love must patiently learn to accept flaws. Cambodia is not an easy place to live, an intuitive place to love. And for this American, at least, it's not always easy to be lovable when living there.

Because, for all my "I used to live in Europe," and "I speak German," I'm still very much an American. I want to fix things, tackle problems. Going through the streets, I want to organize a Cambodian version of "Don't be a litterbug", the campaign that cleaned up the US in my childhood. I want to tell everyone to stop wearing hooded sweatshirts and jeans in the sweltering heat, that it's okay if the sun turns their skin a shade darker, it's really okay. I want to tell them how beautiful they are, such lovely, amazing children they have, so ready to wave and call out, "helloIloveyouwhat's your name" when we pass. I want to round up the parade of stray dogs off the city streets and their trash diet and give them a happy life on a farm. I'd like to make everyone wear a life jacket on the rickety ferry boat. I'd like to pull aside the clever and intelligent but underemployed tuk-tuk driver who taught himself English. I'd like to reach out to the young woman at the market stall with a life work of selling scarves. I'd like to hand them a pathway to a skilled trade that challenges their minds, an education. I'd like to provide running water for the villages. I'd like to stop the rolling truckloads with thousands of garment workers, all young women, and provide the hope of a different life for them. And, less nobly, I'd like to provide each bathroom a clean working toilet with a real seat and a roll of toilet paper. Oh, yes, and I'd like to send the lizards and toads and snails and super-sized insects to a safe place anywhere outside my four walls.

But I can't. I can't even find my own way through the ever-expanding city. Without a translator by my side, I can communicate exactly nothing. And even if I could say these things in fluent Khmer, it would have only a negative effect to focus on the unchangeable. I'd like to think I'm more able to flex culturally, and am disappointed to find the small luxuries built into my daily routines have clouded my lens. Being there showed me how short it is to the end of my rope, how the smells and heat and poverty around me overcome my appreciation for the world's peoples.

But yet there was so much to love:

     The endless varieties of flowers and fruits. Tasting and enjoying passion fruit and dragonfruit and jackfruit and the variety of mangoes. Even bananas tasted richer, creamier. 

     The beautiful shoreline rising into green mountainsides. The flat landscape of so much of the countryside like a child's drawing dotted with palm trees and triangle mountains. 

     The crazy patchwork of traffic patterns, where people weave in and out in an unrushed manner and no one seems bothered by road rage. 

     The soups and stews and heaps of steaming rice and fruit smoothies with the richest of flavors.

     The easy way people sit on the floor together.

     Hearing my daughter speak Khmer, seeing her joy and warmth in the interactions with the neighborhood shopkeeper, the tuk tuk drivers and market sellers, the worker at the butterfly garden. Feeling her love for this place cracking open my heart, too. Loving what she loves.

     The welcome that we got from the bevy of high school girls at the Plas Prai dorm in Preah Vihear. Chelsea bonded with them throughout last summer as she was finishing language training. These are all girls from subsistence rice farming families who would not have been able to finish high school in their village, and could not afford to move to a city to do so. They were the cream of the crop of a group of applicants, and knew they were privileged to stay in the dorm, six to a room on thin mattresses, so they could finish high school.

     The families from Davisville Church who followed the call to Cambodia 15 years ago. Spending time in the Gabriels’ home, enjoying home-cooked meals and hearing about SAM, the school of applied mission, which is training the rural pastors and leaders in that area. Meeting up with the Hartsfields, whose focus is shifting to the growing task of leading World Team staff for all of Asia.

     The children's ministries training in the open air facility, with all the distractions of chickens and children and loud speakers on trucks and water deliveries, yet culminating after months of preparation by the staff in Preah Vihear and me. Seeing it come to pass, resonate, spark change.

     Watching the lessons we taught, now put to work in the villages. A new creativity, fresh ideas to try out, which seemed to be enjoyed by the leaders and participants.

But as I watched, it struck me: would our American kids come and sit on pig feed bags in the dirt and the heat, sing songs at the top of their lungs, and play and take part and listen together? We require so much more in comfort and climate control and technology and glitz. I'm not sure how much our kids stateside could focus on the basic truths without the bells and whistles.

What would a Cambodian think of how we do church, how we live our lives? What would they find hard to love here in America? What would they want to change, but find us intractable?

God love us, God love us all.