The worm, the crow, and the challenges of cross-cultural storytelling

Pop quiz: 

Match the sentences to the genre in which you might find them.

1. And they all lived happily ever after.

2. Press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish.

3. She has demonstrated superior critical thinking, organization, and attention to detail.

4. So good to see you again! You look great!

5. "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." 

a. Greeting a visiting friend 

b. Phone recording for a government service

c. Opening line of a dystopian novel (William Gibson's Neuromancer)

d. College recommendation letter

e. Fairy tale closing

Not too hard, was it? In case you need help, answers are at the bottom. But these lines would sound pretty odd if you shuffled them around between those five contexts.

A recent language coaching class encouraged us to help our advanced learners notice discourse. Discourse means the structure or shape of a text or conversation. What kinds of phrases and sentences are used to open, develop, and close it? What markers indicate its genre? A court testimony and a fairy tale are both narratives, but you wouldn't start a court testimony with "Once upon a time." 

Languages can have diverse expectations for what makes each genre sound "right" and natural. If I assume my second language has the same discourse patterns as my first, what can happen? 

• I might miss cues that someone is trying to end a conversation, or feel unsure how to do so myself. (Hanging up the phone with a Khmer speaker used to be so awkward for me!)
• I might persuade in a way that doesn't sound persuasive. (I read that Japanese students are taught to sound hesitant and acknowledge other viewpoints to reflect their humility in a large and complicated world. By contrast, American essay writers are taught to say "My viewpoint IS the truth." This divergence can cause confusion and discomfort in ESL writing courses.) 
• I might communicate information that I see as organized and clear, but my audience finds difficult to follow or process.

Image from ThoughtCo

As with several other coaching suggestions, I knew I needed to grow here in my own language learning, so I decided to give it a try. One area where I'd like to grow is in storytelling. What makes people want to listen? So I chose a Buddhist folk tale in Khmer​, one that I'd once watched in class, and instead of just reading it for comprehension, I picked it apart, trying to understand every word. Then I examined how the words combined into sentences, paragraphs, and story. 

My analysis had three stages: 

1. Very literal translation

2. Somewhat literal translation

3. Non-literal translation

That way, I could compare the Khmer structure to a comparable English structure for folk tales. It was sometimes hard to find 1-to-1 correspondences of English and Khmer words, and even the most literal translation still loses shades of meaning in Khmer. But these three stages will give you an indication of potential differences between stories in the two languages. (You probably don't want to read all of the very literal translation, so I'm just including the beginning to give you an idea.)

1. Very literal translation:

Story Worm and Crow

Even this version still adds capitalizations and spaces between words, neither of which exist in the original Khmer except where I’ve used the Tab function below. Khmer spaces are wider than English ones and work more like commas - I'm still not sure why this story uses commas in some places instead of spaces in the original text.

Have story one say     worm eating leaf      have crow one fly seek food go to notice with worm that. Crow say “Time this have luck get worm eat” and fly go near worm. Worm look see crow also realize say “Self, (impolite) crow this heart brutal      will stab me eat now already.” Worm ask crow say “Come seek what?”. Crow tell go to worm back say “I come eat worm you.” Worm say “When only crow you seek riddle me find then eat me can, if seek riddle me not find eat me not can not.” Crow ask that “Riddle worm you way like what ask come descend I will seek give find.” Worm ask go to crow like have continue go to this:

1 - Like what which they call say sweet more than they most?

2 -  Like what which they call say sour bitter/unripe more than they most?

3 - Like what which they call say stinky more than they most?

4 - Like what which they call say fragrant more than they most?

Whew, does your brain hurt yet? OK, let's look at the intermediate version, where I tried to use correct grammar but stay as possible to the Khmer discourse structure.

Somewhat literal, yet grammatical, translation: 

“The Story of Worm and Crow”

I put in paragraph breaks, quotation marks, question marks, and periods only where they exist in Khmer. I changed verb tenses where appropriate and added some of the following to make it flow better:

• commas and semicolons
• articles [a/an/the] 
• subjects for verbs
• conjunctions like “and” & “but” 

I've marked these additions in red in the first paragraph and left the spaces in to give you an idea. 

There is one tale saying     a worm was eating a leaf     one crow flew looking for food; it went and spotted with that worm. The crow said, “This time I have luck and get the worm to eat” and flew near the worm. The worm looked, saw the crow and recalled saying, “This stupid brutal-hearted crow      will stab me to eat now already.” The worm asked the crow saying, “What do you come seeking?”. The crow told to the worm back saying, “I came to eat the worm, you.” The worm said, “Only when, Crow, you seek my riddle and find it, then you can eat me; if you seek my riddle and do not find it, you can’t eat me.”

The crow asked saying, “What’s your riddle, worm, go ahead and ask me and I’ll figure it out.” The worm asked the crow the following:

1.    How do they call that which is sweet more than anything, most of all?

2.    How do they call that which is sour more than anything, most of all?

3.    How do they call that which is stinky more than anything, most of all?

4.    How do they call that which is fragrant more than anything, most of all?

When the crow had heard the worm ask all four riddles already, he had the most joy and shouted excitedly and playfully, thinking saying, “All four of the worm’s four riddles, I sought and found and can eat this worm without missing out,” so the crow answered and solved the riddle in the following way.

1.    That which they call sweet most of all, that is sugar and honey, sweeter than anything.

2.    That which they call sour most of all, that is sour lime soup, tamarind, sandan fruit soup, and vinegar.

3.    That which they call stinky most of all, that is poop and all types of animal carcasses.

4.    That which they call fragrant most of all, that is magnolia, jasmine, and perfume.

5.    Crow has solved all four of these riddles, he told the worm.

The worm said “Crow has solved the riddles incorrectly.” So Crow looked gloomy saying back to the worm, “Worm, if you say it’s wrong, please tell me these riddles’ answers so I’ll know.” The worm replied to the crow saying “I can tell you, but crow, don’t eat me once I tell you.” The crow said “Just go ahead and tell me, I won’t eat you.” Once they had agreed together in this way, the worm solved the riddles and told them to the crow, like the following words:

1. That which they call sweet most of all, that is not really sugar or honey sweet, but sweet words spoken back and forth with each other through melodious, faithful words toward each other. This is what is called the sweetest.
2. That which they call sour and bitter most of all, that is not really sour and bitter tamarind, sandan fruit soup, lime soup, or vinegar, but vulgar, cruel, impolite, inappropriate words spoken back and forth with each other. This is what is called sour and bitter beyond all else.
3. That which they call stinky, that is not really stinky poop or a stinky carcass, but a foul reputation and name of an evildoer. This is exactly what is called “putrid even upwind.”
4. That which they call fragrant, that is not really the fragrant scent of a flower or perfume, but a fragrant reputation and name of an innocent person doing good, this is exactly what is called “fragrant more than any fragrant spice.”

The crow, having listened to all these riddles, then stopped eating the worm and went.

Small but really true, like a sparkling diamond.

It's a lot more understandable than the first story. But would you buy a book of stories like this to read with your kids? Me neither.

Finally, since I couldn't find a comparable English version, here's my best shot at fitting it into English discourse patterns for folk tales. Red indicates places where I changed the wording to sound more like an English folk tale:

“The Worm and the Crow”

A worm was once eating a leaf when a crow flew overhead, hunting for food, and spotted the worm. The crow told himself, “I’m in luck: this worm will be an easy target!” and dove toward the worm. 

Looking up, the worm spotted the crow and realized, “This rotten brutal-hearted crow is about to gobble me up!” So she asked the crow, “What do you want?” 

The crow replied, “I’m here to claim you as my dinner!” 

The worm said, “OK, fine, you can eat me… but only after you solve my riddles.”

“Go ahead, what are they? I know I’ll get them right,” the crow responded cockily.

So she proceeded to ask the crow: 

1.    "What’s the sweetest thing in the world?

2.    What’s the sourest, most bitter thing in the world?

3.    What’s the stinkiest thing in the world?

4.    What’s the most fragrant thing in the world?"

Hearing these riddles, the crow let out a gleeful caw. He thought to himself, “These are easy. This worm is mine for sure!” He told the worm:

1.    "The sweetest things in the world are sugar and honey.

2.    The sourest, most bitter things in the world are sour lime soup, tamarind, sour fruit soup, and vinegar.

3.    The stinkiest things in the world are poop and all animal carcasses.

4.    The most fragrant things in the world are magnolias, jasmine flowers, and perfume.

5.    I’ve solved all four of your riddles!”

“Not so fast!” she replied. “Your answers are wrong.”

The crow looked crestfallen. “Wrong, you say? Then please tell me the right answers so I’ll know.”

“I’ll tell you, but you can’t eat me afterward,” said the brave little worm.

The crow answered, “As long as you tell me, I won’t eat you.”

Satisfied by their agreement, the worm revealed the riddles’ solutions:

1.    "The sweetest thing in the world isn’t sugar or honey, but a sweet conversation filled with musical, faithful words. That’s what’s really the sweetest.

2.    The sourest, most bitter thing in the world isn’t a food like tamarind, sour fruit, lime, or vinegar, but a conversation full of vulgar, cruel, impolite, and unseemly words. That’s the sourest, most bitter thing of all.

3.    The stinkiest thing in the world isn’t poop or carcasses, but an evildoer’s foul reputation and name. That’s what you call 'so putrid you can smell it upwind.'

4.    The most fragrant thing in the world isn’t the scent of a flower or a perfume. It’s the sweet-smelling reputation and name of an upstanding citizen, 'more fragrant than any spice.'”

With this wisdom ringing in his ears, the crow left the worm alone and flew off.

This story is short but profound, like a sparkling diamond.

Here are some differences I noticed:

• In some places, the Khmer was much shorter than the English; in other places, much longer. We have different conventions for what needs to be spelled out and what can be inferred. 
• In Khmer, people prefer to restate the nouns often because pronouns get really confusing. Even pronouns like "you" often had the animal's name in front of it. 
• Sometimes Khmer and English differ on where subjects are required for verbs. 
• Here English but not Khmer requires a subject: "This time have luck" vs. "This time I have luck/I'm in luck" 
• Here Khmer requires a subject: "When the crow had heard the worm ask all four riddles already, he had the most joy and shouted excitedly and playfully." vs. "Hearing these riddles, the crow cried out with delight."
• I spotted differences in how Khmer uses punctuation: no exclamation points in the original (I added six), fewer mid-sentence pauses (whether commas or spaces), some surprises with question marks. 
• Khmer often adds the word "say" after verbs that imply it, like "reply" or "ask." 
• There were specific phrases to begin the story and to ask and answer about superlatives, "the ___est thing," which never used "in the world" like English might. Likewise, there was a specific phrase signalling "in the following way," which often could be left out in the English translation, but which I've heard in other Khmer stories. 
• This story had less action than I anticipated. I thought the crow would try to get out of the deal and eat the worm anyway. But my tutor said she was surprised too, and the video included a scene with him lunging and her scurrying underground, so maybe that's not a broader pattern.
• There's no moral at the end, just a statement praising the story's value. The worm says the morals out loud during the story. These morals definitely reflects Khmer values of harmonious relationships and preserving one's reputation. English folk tales often have just one moral.
• The moral part has a satisfying parallelism with the opposites of sour/sweet and stinky/fragrant. But in English we'd probably have one wrong answer per question, where the crow gives four or five for some of them. 

Understanding the Khmer took some dictionary work and some help from my tutor. But it wasn't really that hard to translate it into English, even English that sounds kinda like a traditional folk tale. Imagine the opposite, though. Could I take a story I know and translate it into Khmer? Getting it to that intermediate stage, grammatical correctness, is a long way from telling a smooth story that would captivate listeners. I hope to ask more people about what lines or phrases in the original Khmer sound great, are mainly used in folk tales, or should be imitated in my own stories. For now, my goal is oral storytelling, which is both easier for me and more useful in my daily life than writing. But still, getting to Story 3 in Khmer takes a lot of familiarity with strong examples of that genre. 

Realizing this gives me more sympathy for international friends whose logic I can't always follow well. It gives me sympathy for myself as I struggle week after week to understand Khmer sermons, or to tell non-boring stories in Khmer. And it gives me a whole lot of respect for bilingual Khmer friends who bridge the gap in understanding and/or translating for non-Khmer speakers. It also motivates me to keep reading and listening. Khmer discourse is different from English discourse, but it's not random, and the variations aren't infinite. There are patterns to it that I can hunt for and grow into over time. And when I do? I'll be a much better communicator... in Khmer, anyway.

Pop quiz answers: 1. e    2. b   3. d    4. a   5. c

When you have to recruit your own blood donors

Monday was my first time ever donating blood, and it was rather unexpected.

Not that I'd never considered blood donation before. It's always seemed like a great idea: so easy... so practical... so, well, life-giving. At Penn State, there were blood drives all the time, and I felt kind of guilty every time I walked past one. But I had slightly low blood pressure. I had a virus that wiped me out my whole sophomore year and made me wary of infecting others. And I had lived in Germany for nine months as a small child.

That last statement may seem like a pretty lame reason for not giving blood, but it was actually my most compelling. My parents had always told me, "By living in Europe, we were potentially exposed to Mad Cow disease in the late '80s, so now we're excluded as blood donors." Those who had spent at least six months in Europe or three months in the UK between 1980 and 1996 were ineligible to donate in the US. So I never did.

Then ten years ago, I moved here, and still didn't donate. But every now and then, I'd hear about someone needing emergency blood transfusions who had to recruit people to come give blood immediately. Voluntary blood donation wasn't ingrained into Cambodian culture like in some places. Though it's improving, by late 2016 only 30% of transfusions came from voluntary donors, versus 80-90% in neighboring countries, while the rest come from family or sometimes paid donors (AKA blood trafficking). Hey, even in the US, the Red Cross has to fight hard to maintain its blood supply, right? (See the emergency need for donors issued earlier this month; it aims to have five days' worth on hand at all times.) Well, in Cambodia, they've had to overcome myths like "If you donate blood, your body can't replace it," or "Donating blood takes away your antibodies and makes you catch diseases." Information campaigns have especially targeted young adults, with good results.

As donations have risen, the demands have also risen, I think because of expanding access to medical care. The shortage is severe enough that hospitals try to keep a zero balance with patients. If you need one bag of blood, you get one of your friends or relatives to donate. Some hospitals charge for blood, and it sounds like some people without relatives are exempted from the donor requirement. But in general, no donors, no transfusions.

I still didn't ever give, though. Why? I'm not sure. By that point I was healthy, my BP was in the normal range, and mad cow seemed pretty distant. I guess I didn't know where to go. I never heard from anyone who'd donated blood in Cambodia. And I was quite busy teaching. The one time my school hosted a blood drive, I was getting over a cold, so my iron levels were too low.

I didn't really think about it again until reading an article a few months ago on Cambodia's blood bank. I found out it was 30 minutes away, on a road I'd driven many times. I told myself I'd go soon... but then it slipped from my mind again. On Monday, driving that road, I spotted it and turned in on impulse. I'd been antsy to get home and dive into my pressing to-do list, but suddenly it seemed a shame to miss the opportunity when I was right there.

Walking in, I wondered what documents I'd need. A medical history? Evidence of vaccinations? A passport? I couldn't even remember my blood type. Maybe I can't actually give today, but at least I can be prepared for next time. But I couldn't find any staff manning the front desk, just a bunch of people milling around a large room with a few chest-high partitions. I flip-flopped between scanning the room for an official-looking person and scanning the Khmer forms scattered on the desk to see if I could fill one out unaided. A smiling 20-something girl approached me. "Can I help you? Let's look for an English form." Funny, she didn't look like staff. As we kept chatting, I found out she's a Christian who needs monthly blood transfusions. "I need two people a month and it's hard to keep recruiting. Maybe you could donate for me."

I told her I was happy to, but she wandered off while I was filling out my form. In the meantime, a staffer reappeared and said they didn't require any other documents, so I could go ahead and give today.

Eventually, form in hand, I went to stand in line behind a guy who had filled out his form next to me. "Am I in the right place?"

"Oh yeah, you can actually skip the line since you're here by yourself. But you should put that girl's name on your donation. She could use your help."

I tracked her down and she'd already told the staff that I could help her. She stuck with me through the next several minutes, guiding me around to chat with a doctor, find out my blood type (B+, which I prefer to think of less as a grade and more as a life philosophy to "be positive"), and submit my form. I was grateful for her help as I would have been lost otherwise. I told her it was my first time, and she asked, "Are you nervous?"

"Just nervous that they won't let me donate." She looked nervous about that too as her words tumbled out to the doctor faster than I could understand. Would I have noted her pallor and thin frame if I hadn't known she needed these transfusions?

In the waiting area, my new friend told me that she and her sister had needed transfusions the last three years since their diagnosis, but had been sick since childhood. Each of them needs two donors a month, and even with their family and church's help, it's often a struggle to get enough volunteers. How stressful! Her husband is in the US applying for citizenship, so hopefully in a few years she can join him and have better access to health care. She'd been waiting at the transfusion center for about 90 minutes, praying for someone to come and help her. "Really?" I exclaimed. "I had no intention of coming in today... God used your prayer to bring me in here!"

I added her on Facebook, and she promised to contact me the next time she needs a donor. The actual blood-collection process went beautifully: very clean, very professional.

Free snacks for donors!

That night, I searched online. I hadn't heard about mad cow in almost 20 years. Was it still a concern? Was I needlessly avoiding US blood blanks based on a long-since-removed prohibition? Should I have been giving blood in the US all this time? In fact, no, the ban is still in effect indefinitely. The disease in humans, caused by eating contaminated beef (between 1980 and 1996, when they learned to keep it out of human food supplies), is called variant Creuzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD). It can lie dormant for decades, can't be detected with typical blood tests, attacks the brain, and is always fatal - usually about a year after symptoms appear.

That gave me a twinge - had I been careless in donating? Why hadn't I read up on this before going in? Then I read that only about 230 people have ever been diagnosed worldwide, and cases have been declining since 2000. I thought about all the Europeans who donate and receive blood transfusions in their home countries without triggering another wave of epidemics, despite eating at-risk beef for sixteen years. I thought about the scant quantity of beef I'd probably eaten 30 years ago as a toddler in Germany. I thought about Cambodians who need blood and can't get it. And I thought about my friend, safe for another month. Nope, I was happy with my choice to donate. I've been scrambling ever since to tackle projects from that almighty to-do list, but 15 minutes reclining with a needle in my arm might have been the best way I served Cambodians this week.

Also, in researching further for this post, I saw that the US ban has been relaxed so that my 9 months in Germany no longer disqualifies me in the US. So now I could even give there! This blood donation thing just might become a habit.

Redeeming Singleness

In March, I spoke to World Team's leaders throughout Asia. The topic: How leaders and teammates can better understand and serve single World Teamers. I was rather nervous (this wasn’t my idea), but it turned into a great conversation. I learned a lot before, during, and even after our session as I continued reading up and asking others for input.

My contribution consisted of my story and some survey results. I'd asked singles in World Team and other mission groups worldwide, "How can leaders and teammates better serve you and help you maximize your gifts?" They had some excellent ideas that I'd be glad to share with interested parties. 

Two other speakers (both lifelong singles) joined our session via livestream. One, Suzy Grumelot, is releasing a book with Sue Eenigenburg this fall helping singles and marrieds serve well together. The other, Barry Danylak, wrote Redeeming Singleness, which grew out of his Ph.D. research at Cambridge examining Biblical theology on singleness and especially offspring. I just finished that book this month, but before our March session, I was able to read a great condensed version.

As a single Christian who likes to read about singleness and Christianity, I'm not new to this topic. But I was surprised how much I learned from Danylak. I'd like to highlight a few of his main points in this blog because this matters, not just for singles, but for every Christian. In the US and Europe, those living alone (never-married, divorced, widowed, separated) now outnumber those living with a spouse, and other countries are also seeing declines in marriage. If Christians overemphasize family as the purpose of life, we're missing a big chunk of the Biblical story and a big chunk of our surrounding community. 

(If what follows contains inaccuracies, please assume it's due to my poor summarizing, not his poor findings. Quotes are taken from the condensed version - sorry I don't have page numbers.)

“Of the three great monotheistic religions of modern time, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, only Christianity affirms singleness as a distinctive calling and gift within the community of God’s people.” I was fascinated by this. Let's look a bit more in depth:

• Judaism, including the Talmud and rabbinic tradition, contains teachings that marriage and procreation are essential duties for every man, that celibacy leaves you as half a person and impeded from sanctification. I'll further explore Old Testament teachings below.
• Islam strongly urges marriage as a moral safeguard and social necessity. The Prophet Mohammed said, "There is no celibacy in Islam." 
• Even Mormonism discourages singleness since it teaches that marriage is eternal and a core part of God's plan for everyone. You can be sealed with your spouse (or spouses, if the first one died and you remarried) and children to live together as a family forever.

Danylak writes that “those who are single may experience two different but related voids:”

1. No marriage partner: missing out on intimacy and companionship with a spouse. All singles experience this.
2. No physical offspring. Many never-married people and some divorcees and widows experience this. So do many married people who have never had children or whose children have died.

Christianity celebrates singles. While the Old Testament's Sinai covenant delivered key blessings through marriage and the birth of physical progeny, it foreshadowed the spiritual birth available now through Jesus. The New Testament presents singleness as "a calling and a gift." Singles and marrieds, parents and childless, need each other and are equal members of the body of Christ.

Old Testament

Starting in Genesis 1, when God blessed each newly created animal and commanded it to multiply, a link is clear between blessing and offspring.

God's covenant with Abraham promises blessing related to three categories: descendants, land, and a name or reputation. The first of these is required to inherit and perpetuate the second and third. If you don't have children, who will receive your land when you die? Who will bear and remember your name? The afterlife is murky throughout much of the Old Testament, and children are key to being remembered and thus "existing" beyond death. 

God created his covenant people, His symbolic offspring, mostly through physical procreation, along with some sojourners and foreigners joining Israel. In ancient Israel, marriage was a given for every healthy adult, but children were another story. All the major Old Testament matriarchs experienced barrenness, a source of great shame and grief. They had to rely on God to provide their desperately longed-for children. 

Later, in the books of the prophets, God frequently employs family metaphors such as marriage to describe His relationship with unfaithful Israel. The prophets' personal lives often signify an aspect of this relationship, but with tremendous variety:

• Jeremiah was commanded, "You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons and daughters in this place." He lamented his name being forgotten in the future (Jeremiah 16:2, 11:19).
• Isaiah and his wife were commanded to give their three sons names that communicated God's messages to Israel and its neighbors (Isaiah 7-8).
• Hosea was commanded to marry an adulteress and to give their children names signifying God's judgment and subsequent compassion on Israel. He found her and brought her back after she'd run off on him: a picture of God's forgiveness and compassion on Israel (Hosea 1-3).
• Ezekiel was commanded not to mourn when his wife passed away, foreshadowing the pent-up grief of Israel when facing impending judgment (Ezekiel 24).

Israel is also depicted frequently as God's rebellious offspring and stubborn child, at risk for covenant curses like sparse offspring and a blotted-out name (Isaiah 48). The future looks bleak for Israel's offspring (plural). Yet a kernel of hope remains in an offspring (singular) who will be a shoot growing from a stump and a holy seed. He will offer Israel a new beginning. Curiously, he himself will suffer terribly and die -- but then will see his offspring and enjoy a long life (Isaiah 53:10). What kind of descendants can be gained through a sacrificial death?!

More good news targets those deprived of family. In Isaiah 54, the barren woman has more children than her married peer. The eunuch may once again enter the assembly and God’s holy temple. He is promised an everlasting name better than sons and daughters (Isaiah 56). How could these promises come true?

New Testament

While Jesus never tried to undermine or destroy family values, He ushered in something greater: Kingdom values. Jesus' few words on singleness were enough to shock his mostly Jewish audience. For example: 

"The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to the angels and are sons of God" (Luke 20:34-36). 

In other words, marriage isn't necessary for those who have eternal life in Christ, because the species will continue without physical procreation. Um... isn't that ignoring other benefits of marriage? What about the joy, fulfillment, and personal growth that can result from long-term intimacy with another person? Yes, those are good, but Jesus implied that in the new creation we'll have even better relationships without marriage. So the currently single are "worthy" to reflect that coming reality. We celebrate the truth that we already have eternal life and already belong to God's family. 

In Matthew 19, Jesus took an extreme stance on divorce, stating it's permissible only following adultery. The stunned disciples retorted, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." In their Jewish culture, not marrying was an absurd idea. Maybe they expected their hyperbole would force Jesus to modify his statement. Instead, in verses 11-12, he affirmed their words: 

"Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by man, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it."

This third category of eunuch would have surprised them. Jesus was saying there should be some people who willingly forego marriage and parenting, freeing themselves to better serve God's kingdom. This choice was not inferior to marriage, but was a good decision for those who could handle it.

Jesus had no home, spouse, or biological children. But he instructed and invested in his disciples and other followers like a father with his children. He lived not in isolation but in community, in concentric circles of relationships that included women.

New Testament authors like Paul built on the prophets' theme to identify Jesus as the singular offspring heralded by the prophets (Galatians 3:16). By faith all may become true heirs of Abraham and of God, not as physical descendants but “children of the promise” born through spiritual regeneration (Romans 9:8). Under the new covenant in Christ, the significance of singleness changes as God's plan of redemption further unfolds. People no longer need marriage and physical offspring in order to receive God's blessings like they did under the Sinai covenant: 

• Children: We're no longer commanded to "be fruitful and multiply" but to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). Spouses and children are still a great blessing, but we can fulfill God's purposes without them.
• Land: Our inheritance is not dirt to farm and live on and leave to our children, but eternal life and citizenship in heaven (1 Peter 1:3-4, Philippians 3:20). 
• Name: Our name is no longer at risk of being forgotten if our descendants die out, but is an indicator of eternal life (Revelation 3:5). 

Why singleness matters

All believers now have access to genuine relationship and intimacy with others in the church, God's family. While these friendships don't substitute for a spouse and physical children, they are still vibrant and meaningful. They point to the beautiful renewed relationships we'll enjoy with our Father and His family in the age to come, when marriage no longer exists. 

I appreciated that reminder. I tend to view singleness as if it's supposed to be a temporary, short-term state, while marriage lasts a lifetime. That's the American dream, right? Find your soul mate, marry, and live happily ever after. But actually marriages can end at any moment. Most people die single, and all of us will be resurrected single. Nobody who experiences God face to face will say, "I just miss being married," because marriage was never meant to be more than a dim reflection of that glorious relationship. Singleness, not marriage, characterizes our true "happily ever after." This revelation led me to start referring to husbands as "temps." :)

The Bible affirms singleness because singles (and childless couples) can testify that Christ is enough for them and that they have received every spiritual blessing in Him. Singles, couples, and families intermingled in the church community illustrate the "now-and-not yet" season we live in, between Christ's resurrection and the age to come. "The spiritual age has already been inaugurated in Christ and awaits imminent consummation." 

This truth is comforting to people without a spouse and/or children. It's also a challenge for the whole church. Are we operating out of Old Testament or New Testament perspectives?

• Are we communicating to our surrounding communities that our goal is to build homes and reputations and thriving families? Or to raise and nurture spiritual children as we make disciples? 
• Are we looking for our inheritance and treasures in the present world, or in the one to come? 
• Are we trying to build our own kingdoms, or God's?

Singles are uniquely poised to seek God's kingdom first, and our presence can remind the church of its extraordinary inheritance when God makes all things new. 

Want more? Read for yourself... or watch Danylak's YouTube overview. I also recommend this catechism for a Biblical perspective on questions commonly posed by singles (and others).

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.