Theme party #2: Black and White Party

Just a month after our Downton party in April, we had a Black and White party for Michaela's birthday in May.  It was a labor of love, born of 3 years of conversations.  Michaela once went to a Black and White party back in Scotland, and she’s always dreamed of doing one in our house.  We have an open area that’s mostly black and white already, and so we started discussing what it would take to pull off an all-B+W party.  It took some doing, including painting a green wall white.   (Neither the green nor the white was a great paint job, but it’s not a conspicuous wall.)  We borrowed a bunch of black sheets from school, which uses them near the stage during plays and concerts.  Along with a bunch of old white sheets, they served to cover several doors and chairs, a couch, and a few small tables for food.  

Each guest had to dress entirely in black, white, or gray.  We also asked each person to bring a black, white, or gray snack to share.  The guests got really into it!  We had everything from chocolate-covered marshmallows to coconut ice cream to dragonfruit, which is white with black seeds.   On the back left, you can even spot Michaela's homemade cupcake stand.  The drinks were my favorite part: she photocopied all the soda labels so that they were black and white.  It was so surreal looking at them – my brain wanted to add back the color!  We had old black-and-white commercials running on a projector, and then watched a classic black-and-white comedy: “You Can’t Take It With You.”  A big hit was some photo booth props we found online.

I don’t feel like a natural-born hostess, and I don’t usually crave large-group gatherings.  But I really had fun, not only at these events but also while planning them.  Hosting together been a great way to bond with my housemates, and I’m looking forward to future theme parties.  Any suggestions?

Theme party #1 - Downton Abbey

I’m not exactly a party animal.  My four housemates and I are usually in for the night by like 6:30.  It’s rare to find us watching a movie (on a weekend, duh!) without a pile of grading on someone’s lap…or a few someones.  Our house is more like a nunnery than a sorority.  And most of the time, that’s really OK with me. 

However, it’s been a fun surprise to get into hosting theme parties together.  We’ve hosted two in the last several months.  The first was in honor of (most of) our favorite show, Downton Abbey, a BBC period drama set in England during the 1910s-1920s.  Michaela, Annalisa and I have been watching it all year on our black-market DVDs.  ($1.50 a disk, no bargaining necessary.)  Michaela went ahead and watched the Season 3 Christmas special on TV while home in Scotland, and she warned us that it was a bit of a downer.  We decided we needed to end our Downton drama habit on a high note, in good company.  Plus, we needed to take advantage of the paper dolls Michaela had stumbled across online. 

My favorite paper doll because all her expressions are THE SAME!

I printed out the paper dolls and added some other characters so we could invent and perform a sequel to the Christmas special: “Holiday in Cambodia.”  I did a bit more digging online and discovered a “name that Downton character” quiz game, which I turned into a team activity.  I also took some classic Dowager Countess quotations and transformed them into a fill-in-the-blank competition with three levels of difficulty.  (Can you tell I’m a teacher?)  The quiz questions and answers are below if you'd like to see them.

A bunch of us Logos ladies met at a local restaurant that has a private room with a projector.  (Good thing I’m not the only Downton nerd in town.)  We ended up not using the paper dolls, but we DID have a lot of fun with the games and just hanging out together.  Since we’re in Cambodia, there were technical difficulties with the projector.  So we returned to my house to watch the long-awaited Christmas special.  It’s true, it’s a bit of a downer.  But we didn’t let it get to us – laughter and fun dominated the evening!

Click on "Read more" if you'd like to see the quiz game.

Beauty in the mess

Both are there.  Which one am I looking at?

Why live in Cambodia?

My friend Mindy wrote this for her church in Canada.  I'm learning a lot from her and her husband Lyle's example of embracing Khmer people and culture with gusto.  She says a lot of wise things: some that are true for me, and some that I hope to grow into.

So, why are we living and serving in Cambodia?

Is it because white people are the saviours of the developing world?

Is it because we have ‘so much to offer’ a nation recovering from genocide and war?

Is it because we want to share Christ with people who have never heard the gospel?

Honestly, one of the biggest reasons that we live in Cambodia is that we like it here. 

I have prayed this prayer for nearly my whole life: “Jesus, may the joys of my heart meet the needs of Your world.” For me, Cambodia is the place where my joy intersects with the needs of God’s world. I recognize this as a gift of grace, because many acknowledge that Cambodia is a difficult place to live. Of course there are daily challenges, like the unrelenting heat, not to mention the unending corruption and injustice. But for Lyle and me, cross-cultural living energizes and excites us. Learning to love the people of this nation has drawn our hearts closer to the heart of God.

My dad often marvels at the openness Cambodians have towards us. He says, “When I think about cross-cultural missions, I think about how I’d feel if someone came up to me speaking bad English, and THEN tried to share a foreign worldview or religion with me. I don’t know how open I’d be to that!” For better or for worse, most Cambodians are open to foreigners, especially Western ones. They patiently laugh when I make language mistakes, and strangers constantly invite me to sit down in their homes. (Admittedly, most of that is probably because I have a cute baby, not because I’m a foreigner.) I am well aware that my face and upbringing bear the marks of “rich privileged white person”. I am aware of what this has meant around the world throughout history – from colonialization to financial hand-outs to local churches looking a bit too much like American megachurches.

So we always try to start by listening to our friends and hearing their stories, long before we try to implement programs or save the world.

I think one of the reasons that I love Cambodia so much is that I didn’t hear its stories by reading books or listening to jaded expats talk about Cambodia. Rather, Cambodians told me about Cambodia. And I didn’t hear a single story of one demographic of Cambodians. I am close friends with middle-class university students, high class officials, moms in the slums, garment factory workers, ex-monks, radio DJs, and people who survived the worst of the Pol Pot regime. The stories I’ve heard are both heartbreaking and hopeful.

I believe in cross-cultural ministry because something very heaven-like happens when this mutual sharing of humanity occurs. We all need a ‘prophetic outsider’ to both listen to us process our world, but also to provide a different perspective and speak into some of our cultural blind spots. In Canada, my life was changed forever by my college roommate who happened to be a Korean ‘outsider’. My prayer is that I can be this ‘prophetic outsider’ for my Cambodian friends. It’s the things that we share in common – raising kids, going to work, living as spiritual beings with hopes and fears – that allow us to connect. From this connection, there is so much joy in learning about and sharing our differences, including our language, food, wealth, and faith.

Having said that, there are very practical and urgent needs here, and we work for an organization that does a really good job of addressing the needs of poverty, education, empowerment of locals, and sharing the gospel. (www.asianhope.org) But you know as well as I do that there are needs all over the world. My prayer is that the joys of YOUR heart will meet the needs of God’s world.

So thankful

In March, I posted about going to Samrach's new house with some people from church to help him and his siblings paint the house.  We went back a couple weeks ago to do the next coat (the first time was just primer), and he and his sister Sakhey just e-mailed this to all of us.  

Dear all,

we just let all of you know, we so thankful God through all of you, that helped  us to have a beautiful new house and painted the wall with beautiful color.

.now we can protect the raining,

.no mouse run around inside our house anymore and mouse can not bite us again while we is sleeping,

.it is enough space for sleeping,

.it is no flood to come up on the floor.

. it protect from the big wind.

................................

we don't know how can we share about our heart ,and how much can we tell about our feeling to you  that we are really exciting with the great miracle, great mercy,great love ,great blessing  from God to have a new house through all of you.

 Shalom,

 Samrach & Sakhey.

This e-mail made me grin.  Their English is cute. (Not to mention a million times better than my written Khmer.)  Their statements are heartwarming.  And it was a happy reminder of a happy time spent with them and their family.

But once I got over all my condescension, I felt convicted.  Grammar notwithstanding, their infectious joy is unmistakable.  So many families near my house and school can't say any of these things about their houses.  In a storm last week, many homes near school had roofs or even walls blown off, and were majorly flooded.  At my house, I've never worried about being awakened by bites from the friendly kitchen shrews and scampering attic rats. Strong walls protect us from the elements.  I have a spacious room to myself and even a bathtub, for crying out loud. I overlook the blessings they describe and so many more. 

So today I want to take time to share in their delight in this "great blessing from God:" a home.  Lord, let me thank you as passionately as Somrach and Sakhey for daily evidence of Your great miracles, mercy, and love in my life.

Fernweh

My 9th graders are working on Multi-Genre projects, where they address one topic (soccer, the future, rebellion, sleep) through many genres of communication. One person might have a collage, a short story, a persuasive essay, and a movie review, for example, all related to one central topic.

This Cambodian student's poem is part of her project on Fernweh (German, literally "farsickness"), the opposite of Heimweh ("homesickness"). Fernweh is similar to Wanderlust: the longing to venture to distant places, the ache for the faraway.  

I love how her poem drops me into another world and another heart. She wrote it completely independently, with no input from me. This class has some incredible writers!

You don't know where the feeling comes from,

or when it actually begins to stir in the pits

of your stomach and eventually overtakes your body

and your previous thoughts. It makes you numb with

emotions, but somehow you know precisely

what you were doing before it happened.

Time is slow; so slow, that you swear you can feel

the plates of the earth shifting, and hear the blood rushing

through your veins, and you're sure you've memorized every

chip and crook and cranny on the "antique" table you're

sitting at. You stare out the window, and the lazy

evening sunlight beams down on you, and you can

feel the rays growing weaker, and you suddenly realize that

the way the city lights begin to blink on, one by one, are like an

animal's eyes in the dusk, and the bustle of the city is quieter

than you would've wanted it to be, and suddenly you don't

quite know how to feel.

You know that you feel, quite suddenly, that this

apartment room is suddenly smaller than before, and the walls

are seemingly pressing in on you. Suddenly, you long

to be away from this small town, with the all too familiar faces

and the same bakery shop that has been there for

longer than your mom has been alive, and the supermarket that

everyone seems to go to, because there's nowhere

else to go - and you want to be on the other side of the world,

walking the streets that have been worn down with the feet

of millions of pedestrians that have scurried past

every day. You want to be where the city never sleeps,

sitting in a hushed room and listening to a cellist play; and thriving

in a sea of anonymity, falling in love with the glorious sights

and the wafting smells from a Mexican restaurant.

You long for a place you've never been to, a place

where you've only seen on a few postcards, and in your

own imagination. It is a kind of longing that strangely keeps

you going, that motivates you to finish school and continue

with your fine-just-fine life, until you will finally be able to

break free from this routine.

Suorsdey chnam thmey!

That’s Khmer for “Happy Khmer New Year!”

A neighbor's New Year's offerings, a few years back

Today’s the first of three days in this mid-April holiday, when farmers celebrate the end of harvest and the imminent arrival of rainy season.  (This year, the rains have started early – it’s pouring outside as I write.)  Phnom Penh is a ghost town this week, since most people have gone back to their home villages to celebrate with relatives.  I'm savoring the hush and the wide-open streets.  For some people, like my friend Srey Pos, this is the only time all year that they’ll return.  Everybody wants to buy a new set of clothing to show off in their village.  They enjoy traditional games, songs, and foods.  Most people also participate in religious ceremonies honoring Buddha, ancestors, and other spirits.

At the hotel my parents and I visited last year in Siem Reap

I found this fantastic New Year 2013 song on YouTube. In it, you can observe typical elements of Khmer life and culture, such as…

This style of music – the sound is typical of songs played at weddings, in karaoke videos, and other sources of popular entertainment.

Melodramatic slapstick humor.

Wooden houses on stilts: this is true of almost every house in rural areas, while in the city most homes are made of concrete, but even my next-door neighbor and several families near Logos have houses like this.  The blue trim around the windows and door is also typical.

Guys sitting around drinking beer.

The low bamboo structure that the guys are sitting on.  People use those to prepare and eat food, hang out with visitors, and often sleep on.  They're often located under the houses.

The krama, a checkered scarf worn around people’s heads.  (It's quite versatile: hat, bandana, scarf, man skirt, bag...I've even seen one suspending a baby between bicycle handlebars.)

Fruit and incense being offered to ancestors and other spirits.  (This happens all the time, but especially during the New Year.)

Traditional long skirts, made from colorful sarong material.

Dancing that consists mostly of simple steps (in a circle or in place) while twisting your wrists around.  Note the lack of physical contact.

Guys flirting with girls who reject their advances, or at least pretend to.  

Livestock wandering around...though I don't tend to see pigs where I am, only cows and chickens.

I'm probably missing more...what else stands out to you?

Obviously the song and the holiday celebrate tradition, and some people in the capitol are more cosmopolitan and "modern."  But most of the video is still quite normal in everyday Cambodian life, including for the average Phnom Penh resident.   (With the possible exception of throwing sticks at livestock.)  Despite the ubiquity of TV, electric guitars, and cell phones, most aspects of Cambodian culture have remained constant over several hundred years.