Today Was Really Good

I'm currently sitting on my bed after a really long, but really good day, and I'm semi-reminded of another quote Judith wrote in my journal: “Be thankful when you’re tired and weary because it probably means you’ve made a difference in someone’s life today.” I say “semi-reminded” because I don’t know how much of a difference I actually made. What I do know, however, is that a lot of cool stuff happened and now I’m exhausted.

The day started like my normal days thus far with me teaching an English class at 720am. For those who know me, that hour is ungodly early for me, but one of the pluses of the heat and humidity is that it doesn’t let you sleep in too late.

English class was energetic and fun, and then I took a couple mile walk to one of my two go to cafes (this one is the one with AC), so I could use their faster internet to Skype with Sapna, who is my main point of contact who hasn’t joined me yet in Cambodia. We had a good time talking about my first two weeks, and then also planned out how I should start getting involved more with working at the KTVs and beer gardens. Even though I enjoy teaching English, I was happy to get this ball rolling because I’d love to meet and help some of the women at the KTVs and beer gardens as well.

After chatting with Sapna, I walked the two miles back to our place, had lunch (fabulously made by Chef Nathan), then had a study session at lunch for kids who wanted some extra help with grammar. I then sat in on Michael’s afternoon class because I might be helping with that one as well. On a side note, a lot of these kids know so much more about English than I do. Kids are asking if words are in perfect present, simple past tense, or if they’re infinitive, and all I can do is pretend not to hear them and move on quickly. As a second aside, the more I teach English, the more I think how stupidly difficult it is! I’m constantly apologizing for random exceptions. Trying to explain certain exceptions reminded me of this rule of thumb: “i before e…except when you run a feisty heist on a weird beige foreign neighbor…and after c.”

After class, I ran a couple of miles then met up with Michael at the coffee stand in the Buddhist temple (my other daily coffee shop, this one with less amenities…like walls) to grab a quick coffee and then begin my second moto learning session.

This is where the day goes from productive to eventful.

I had one moto lesson a week ago and felt relatively comfortable riding it in a closed off neighborhood. This was enough to give Michael confidence to let me ride on a busier street. I was less convinced, but Michael likes to say “go with the flow” so I went. Oh also the helmet strap broke so we were like, eh, no one really wears a helmet here anyway. Famous last words. (not really last words, mom. I’m totally (kind of) OK. And I promise I’ll wear a helmet in the future J).

I went down a busy street and back a couple of times, but there was one busy intersection and the rules of the road are still a little enigmatic to me. Michael has told me, “no cop, no stop.” Matt (one of the other English teachers) told me, “all you’re responsible for is what’s in front of you, nothing else.” So with intersections, you just kind of go and slow down or speed up as you need to...without a helmet of course.

A car was making a left turn, but I was in the intersection first so I honked and slowed down so they would give me the right of way. But they went anyway and their left was wider than they planned and side swiped me forcing me to avoid them, veer off to the left, hit some loose gravel and wipe out.

I got a few cuts and scrapes up and down my right side, but it wasn’t too bad. It could’ve been worse. I was lucky there were a few folks there that helped me gather the stuff that was thrown from the bike (as well as myself). And to help ease my ego, the guy who helped me spoke English and told me the driver was a “crazy Cambodian driver” and that I should call the cops (another Cambodian guy actually yelled at the car as it sped away and I have literally seen nobody yell about traffic here even though it’s chaos at all times). I honestly would’ve equally believed him if he told me it was completely my fault – again, these traffic rules, who knows.

Lesson 1: Helmet? Yup! Scrapes? Nope!

Lesson 2: Helmet? Nope! Scrapes? Yup!

Here’s a third aside that is just funny to me in a “hmmm” kind of way. I’ve been wearing thin athletic shorts every day because it’s so hot, but going to the Buddhist temple today, I decided to wear pants. Was it because I was forward thinking, knowing that pants would be smarter in case I fell off the moto during my riding lesson? Nope, zero smarts and forward thinking here. It was because the outdoor coffee shop has a lot of flies and they always land on my legs and bother me, so I decided to do something about it today by wearing pants so the flies couldn’t bother me. And because of these annoying flies, my leg is now in much better shape than it would’ve been if I wore my normal garb. Funny how things work.

My daily routine of getting a Cambodian iced coffee (similar to cafe sua da!) at the local wat, sans flies.

Anyways, I got back to our place and immediately was reminded how I’m not very prepared or forward thinking in other areas of my life as well. I forgot (i.e., didn’t plan to bring) bandages or any sort of antibiotic. Jason saw me scouring our place for medical stuff, and it was equally funny and warm how he responded to my cuts. He looked like a concerned father – a 19 year-old concerned father of an irresponsible 31 year-old son. He immediately took me to the pharmacy down the street, I got the stuff I needed, and he stood over me and helped me tape up my wounds, all the while constantly asking to make sure I was OK. I didn’t know what the split should’ve been between me feeling grateful and embarrassed over Jason’s concern, but I do know I really appreciated the ice cream he got for me afterward to cheer me up. (The way this story turned out, the ice cream cheer up could have easily been true).

Jason (right) - my responsible caretaker and ice cream provider.

Ok back to productive from eventful.

Bandaged up and ready to go, I got a chance to talk to Matt after his evening English class about the best way to support these kids, many who are balancing school with multiple jobs and families they need to send money to. I’ll delve into that discussion in a later post, but it was really encouraging and I’m very hopeful that there are really tangible ways to help these kids get into University, which will open up so many more doors for their future career goals.

The best part of my day was saved for last. After the advanced English class ended, I had my first mentorship session with one of the kids (Sina) who asked if I would meet with her a couple of times a week. I was happy to meet with her because I really, really enjoy smaller group discussions. She gave me a homework assignment the night before to answer a question for her during our first session, but I made her answer a question first before we started. I asked her why she wanted me to mentor her. Sina is so mature and thoughtful. She gave me these three reasons:

1. To practice her English more
2. To hear about my experiences living in a different country
3. To engage more deeply with people she interacts with so she can learn their stories 

I just loved that with so many things going on in her life, she still saw the importance in engaging deeply with people around her. Her question for me was “what is a dream you’ve had for your life that never went away?” Like I said, she’s very thoughtful and inquisitive. I gave her my spiel, and she’ll be repaying me with her answer when we meet on Monday.

Sina's meeting time proposal for me. Signed "Miss Sina" of course :).

I finished out the night playing guitar with the boys. Tiger even asked me to play a Derek Webb song because a little guitar riff got stuck in his head :).

Before today, I don’t know if would've considered a day that included a moto accident a good day, but today was really full of meaningful engagements and even with the moto accident, I was happy I kept trying to learn even though I’m such a wuss when it comes to doing things like learning moto in the midst of chaotic traffic.

Again, my schedule and responsibilities still aren’t full set in stone, and I don’t know exactly when that will happen, but even though I’m very type-A and generally like to have things planned and organized, I’m slowly learning how full and fulfilling a day can be if I embrace having some breathing room and ambiguity in my plans. Or as Michael would say, “go with the flow.”

“I’m Mr. Lin #1, he’s Mr. Lin #2.”

That was the answer I gave to a student’s question when I visited my brother’s 2^nd grade class a couple of years back. What was the student’s question? “If you’re Mr. Lin, and he’s Mr. Lin (pointing to Kert), then what does your mom call you?”

My brother’s a great teacher and I got to see him in action that day. My first week out here in Cambodia has given me the opportunity to use some of the techniques I saw him use in his class (and if we're going with teaching skill, Kert is most definitely Mr. Lin #1).

Like I mentioned before, my work out here will be a little fluid at first until I get settled in a bit. My original responsibility of working with prostitutes to provide them first aid training hasn’t started yet, so luckily I’ve been given the opportunity to help out as an English teacher in a ministry called Shelter of Hope that provides free English classes. I originally was going to stay in a different apartment, but was invited to stay at Shelter of Hope, which put me squarely in the middle of a lot of teenage students. I’ve worked with middle school, high school, and college-aged students for most of my adult life, so I was ecstatic to get the opportunity to do so here as well.

Before coming out here, I’d read some books and articles about Cambodia, especially about the educational programs available out here. Things are improving drastically (they just implemented a standard test required to go to university AND reduced cheating by a fair amount), but there is still a big divide between the quality of education between state and privately funded schools. Some state teachers even require bribes to accept students, and many students don’t have a lot of money so there are a lot of barriers to navigate in order to get a proper education out here.

Many, if not all, of the students that come to Shelter of Hope are there because 1) they have a deep desire to learn English because they know how important it is for their future, and 2) it’s free.

Because one of the regular English teachers got in a small moto accident, I was asked to sub in, which saw me teaching once in the morning for more beginner speakers, and once at night for more advanced speakers. The advanced evening class is less about learning grammar and more about practicing conversation and hearing a native speaker pronounce certain words, which gives me a little more flexibility in how I teach. So what I wanted to do with them was for them to explain what their future goals were (either big or small), and what they felt like they needed to do in order to achieve that goal. Part of this lesson was selfish since I wanted to know more about their lives. But the non-selfish part was that I wanted them to think hard about what they wanted to accomplish and to be realistic and visualize the steps they needed to take.

It was so great to hear what these kids (most of them were in high school) had in store for their lives, especially given that existing educational systems aren’t built that well to support them, but also really tough to hear some of the barriers they faced. Here’s a bit of what they shared with me:

“What is your goal for your future and how will you accomplish that goal?”

Kong:

“My initial goal is to study hard and pass my English certification so that I can get a good job anywhere in the world (Preferably England – he’s a huge Man U fan!). I don’t know what exact job I want yet, but having my English certificate will allow me many opportunities to choose from, similar to my sister.”

Pov:

“I originally wanted to dance for a living because I love music and I feel like helps people enjoy life. I wanted to be a part of something that helped people enjoy life a little more since most people connect well with music, but I learned that I wouldn’t be able to make much of a living dancing, so I recently decided to switch to architecture. I’ll study hard so that I can get into university so that I can pursue my architecture degree.”

Yanit:

“I want to become a doctor because I want to help people that need medical treatment. I also want to make a good living, so that I can help support my family back home. I will have to study very hard and earn money so that I can get into university and pay for it to accomplish my goal.”

Sambath:

“I want to be a tour guide in Korea so that I can make a good living to support my family and myself. I will have to study Korean so that I can become a tour guide. I will also have to earn some money, so that I can afford to attend university, which is expensive.”

Pheaktra:

“I want to be a lawyer because there is a lot of corruption in Cambodia with the law and I want to help people who need someone to represent them against this corruption. It’s also a good job, so that I can make money and send it back to my parents to thank them for raising me.”

Sina:

“I don’t know what job I want yet, but I know my first goal is to get as good as I can with speaking English. I believe that will give me many opportunities to try different things. One thing I feel like will help me practice English and also give back is to be a mentor to someone that needs help. I feel like I can help give some guidance to people who need it because I received helpful guidance that helped me before.”

Phally:

“I want to become a nurse because there isn’t very good healthcare in Cambodia. Also the people who live in the country don’t know very much about taking care of themselves and there are very few doctors available for them. Even the ones that are available take bribes so people without money cannot get good healthcare. The accomplish this goal, I have to study very hard so that I can pass the exam to get into nursing school. I also have to work hard to earn money so that I can afford to go to nursing school. Right now I am working two jobs and it’s hard to study enough for my test, so I will need to work on my time management.”

Cheng:

“I want to work in accounting because it is a good job and I can earn a good living (This is will Phally also mentioned that the company Cheng works for will probably have most of the money, not Cheng J). I will need to pass a test to get into university for accounting, which I have already failed once. I’ll need to study harder to pass it the second time so I can get into university.”

“What can Teacher Pert help you with in the next 6 months to help you accomplish your goal?

• “Have English competitions and riddles with prizes so it forces us to work even harder!”
• “Speak more English with us so we can hear how to say words correctly.”
• “Help me with time management, so that I can balance school and work to pass my tests as well as make enough money for college.”
• “Help us prepare for interviews and applications.”
• “Help us understand what are some different views between Cambodia and the USA.”
•  “Maybe you can be my mentor if I have questions about English or my future goals.”

Notes from my advanced evening class

Learning new vocabulary with my morning class

A Few Thoughts on Settling in, My "Housemothers", and Generosity

It’s only been 5 days here in Cambodia and I already have a lot of things on my mind, but let’s start with a few of the basics.

As I mentioned to a lot of people, my situation out here is pretty fluid. I’m partnering with a small NGO called Save Each One, but their founder (who I’d been meeting with in Seattle) isn’t here yet and Michael (the other volunteer) also volunteers a few other places. The work I had been prepping for working with prostitutes hasn’t happened yet, and so I’ve been pretty much just shadowing Michael in his other work to see how else I can get involved and help.

Michael volunteers at a place called Shelter of Peace where they provide English lessons at various levels. Not only does this provide a valuable skill, but it’s a way for the volunteers to get to know people in the area and potentially fill needs other than English. I quickly learned that Michael is taking advantage of this opportunity and providing great guidance to a few of the young men in the program. [BREAKING NEWS: While writing the post, they asked me to step in to help teach English because one of the teachers was sick! I was literally dripping from playing basketball and so not prepared, but I truly had a blast teaching. I was able to tell a bit about my story, and one of the kids actually asked me what my dreams in life were!]

Observing Michael teaching English before being abruptly subbed in later that night!

When I landed in Phnom Penh on Friday, Michael greeted me with a welcome sign, and then we took a tuk tuk to the school/apartment where I’m staying. What I didn’t realize was that the tuk tuk driver was one of these young men in the program at Shelter of Peace. His name is Sophea, but we call him Mr. Tiger because as Michael tells me, he’s wild. Upon arriving, I noticed that the two other young men in the program, Jason and Nathan, already prepared a home-cooked lunch for me.

Also, now you know our wifi password

As I spoke to Michael and the other three, I learned that they had been taking English lessons for about 5 months in the program and quickly moved into the apartment because they had just left their monkhood where they had grown up from a young age and were now trying to figure out what their future looked like. Michael has taken them under his wing to continue English lessons, but also to learn a few other skills to set them up for success outside of the monkhood. There’s a lot more I plan to learn about these three (and Michael, of course), but all I know is that I’d be starving and alone if it wasn’t for them. I’m so, so grateful for them welcoming me in and showing me the ropes, and in essence being my housemothers (I’ll be playing sous chef for the next week, so that I can show I’m more than a pretty (see: hairy) face).

 The school/where I'll be staying

Jason's turn to cook a tasty dinner

My beautiful housemothers: Jason, Sophea, Nathan, Michael

For the four guys to welcome me in and start taking care of me was so generous and hospitable, but I also wanted to share another experience that exemplified these traits. On Saturday, my second day here, I was invited by Jason’s parents to eat at their house. I’m not going to pretend to know about all of their finances, but I asked them if they did this every Saturday and they said that they would have these get-togethers only as often as they can afford them, so I know it wasn’t commonplace or due to a having lot of disposable income. With that said, I don’t know if I have felt more cared for and welcomed than at this meal.

They spoke a handful of English words, and I a half-handful of Khmer, so there wasn’t a lot of spoken communication, but man did they clearly express their hospitality in providing for me over a 5-hour span of eating. They cooked chicken, beef, fish, snails, vegetables, and even had fresh mango and grapefruit from their backyard. To quote Lloyd Christmas, the beer was flowing like wine (with the customary SE Asian ice cubes, of course) and the one word I felt like we were able to connect over (and over and over) was chul moy (or cheers)! Again, I did not feel like one expense was spared. Jason’s younger siblings kept coming back on motos with new treats to fatten us up.

Round one of the 5-hour marathon

Nathan trying to get some fruit for dessert

Ice in beer? Check. Lovely hosts? Check. Chul moy!

Cooking up some snails.

Slurping up all that slimy snail goodness

Even wild men like Mr. Tiger need to rest

My goal here is to help where I can because there is a lot of objective need, but this was such a good reminder to me that no matter what a person’s income or status is or whether they have a huge house to host in or they’re cooking me dinner in the bottom floor of an apartment turned school on a portable gas cooker, there’s so much everyone can offer. My good friend Judith made me an awesome gift for my trip – a journal with her favorite quotes on every page, so that I’m encouraged or tickled (I don’t actually talk like this but the word fit) whenever I want to share some thoughts – and this quote from my good pal Bill Nye seemed appropriate for reminding me to approach every interaction with humility: “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.”

"So What Exactly Are You Doing?"

That's a really good question and something I've been asked a lot over the past few months as I've prepared to go to Cambodia to volunteer for 6 months. The short and simple answer to that question is that I'll be volunteering with a small non-profit called Save Each One, primarily working with prostitutes to 1) meet them, get to know them, and provide an outlet into programs where they learn other vocational skills if they want to and can get out of prostitution, and 2) provide first aid education for those that stay in the brothels so they can live healthier lives. I've been learning a lot about sex trafficking and sex work over the past 5 years, but it will be a huge learning curve as I start helping out on the ground and seeing exactly how this plays out in people's lives, rather than just on paper.

The less short and simple answer to the question of "what exactly are you doing?" is something I've been thinking about more specifically over the past year. Yes, I'll be heading overseas with the plan to help people and that on the surface sounds like very good and noble work and that could probably suffice if I didn't want to think about it more. But as many of you who know me, not over-thinking anything in my life is rarely an option for me :).

Let's start with how this whole process began. I started looking to volunteer overseas in earnest about 5 years ago. I was trying to do some non-profit work through Accenture, and had a very cool opportunity to go to Ghana for a few months, but my plans went through the red tape machine and didn't come out. I then decided to look for opportunities outside of Accenture, and sex trafficking was the issue that I had been learning more about through my church as well as with One Day's Wages, the non-profit I was heavily involved with. I've worked with kids my whole life, whether as a counselor at church, a basketball coach, or at summer camp, so when I learned that children as young as a few years old were in forced into the sex trade, it was hard for me to feel like I could just keep going without trying to do something. If I tried to put myself in the situation of a child who had to go through such young and formative years with the experience of being so intimately exploited (and given up by their parents, sometimes because that was the lesser of two evils), I honestly don't know how I could come back from that and feel like I wanted to keep going on.

I naively thought that I wanted to immediately start busting down doors in southeast Asia to "rescue" these children, but didn't know how to even get involved. I felt paralyzed because the issue was so massive and far away. And as I continued to learn about sex trafficking, it's a lot more complicated than just raiding brothels and taking kids out. For example, if governments don't punish these brothels for exploiting children, then they'll just open up shop down the street the following week. And if the children being taken out of brothels don't have anywhere to go for support and care, they'll just go back to the only place they've known: the brothels. The more I learned about the complexity of the issue, the more I felt the sense of powerlessness in what I could do to help.

Nevertheless, I felt like I had to do something. So I kept studying the issue here in Seattle, and trying to raise awareness and funds to support organizations doing great work to support these children. One of these organizations is Love146, who I learned about through my work with One Day's Wages. Love146 provides a support system for children to who are taken out of the sex trade to begin the long process of restoration. I so loved their approach to holistic, long-term, and consistent care and that felt like something I wanted to get further involved with. So I emailed them and literally asked "how can I help?"

That kicked-off a year-long discussion on how I could help them on the ground which culminated with a six-month opportunity to join them in Cambodia at the beginning of 2014. I would be working in a program that provided aftercare for boys taken out of sex trafficking - a prevalent issue, but one that doesn't get as much focus.

But like with most things in life, God has a funny sense of timing. Literally the day after I committed to going to Cambodia, I got an offer to join the Gates Foundation full-time. I was (and am still very much) flattered and honored with the offer, but the opportunity in Cambodia took so much time/planning and was the end goal of a few years of thought that I felt like I had to do that before committing to anything else. With that said, I loved my team at Gates and the work we were doing was so amazing and exciting, and I felt like it could be so beneficial not only to the foundation, but also to the non-profit sector as a whole. When Gates came back and very generously said that if I committed to them in 2014, they would find a way to give me six months to pursue my volunteer opportunity in 2015, I made the decision to finish out my work at the foundation before going abroad. It was a tough decision given how much time and energy went into setting up that opportunity, and how I still felt like I needed to find a way to help in that arena, but it felt right at the time and I'm very proud of the work our team accomplished for the foundation.

Which brings us to 2015. Even though I was now able to pursue my 6-month volunteer opportunity, I honestly hadn't given it much time/effort/thought. I knew how long the planning process took previously and just didn't feel like starting that up quite yet. On top of that, the people I had been working with at Love146 were no longer there, so it would literally be starting the whole process over again. This is the part of the story where friends that keep you accountable, my big mouth, and Warren Buffet come into play.

Throughout this process I had shared my desire to go overseas to volunteer with friends and family. This process had now been going on four years and counting, and I was feeling like I should either push through and make it happen or stop talking about it as if I really wanted to do it. I've found that
telling people your plans serves as a good incentive to make sure you follow-through. And my caring friends, who all knew my desire to go overseas kept gently reminding me that I, in fact, had not yet gone overseas. To exacerbate my big mouth syndrome, I wrote a devotional for some of the folks at my old church having to do with remembering that you need God, even when you're life is comfortable and you don't actually feel that acute necessity anymore. I asked if "remembering" this need was sufficient. Maybe for us to really feel that need, we actually had to put ourselves in position of needing God, not just feigning need for the sake of it. This could take many forms: helping with something you're not very skilled at, getting to know people that you don't see eye-to-eye with, or in my case, going to a foreign country to help in an area I wasn't familiar with, without knowing the language or people. Yup, that bullseye you see forming is the one on my back.

At the same time, Warren Buffet spoke at our annual meeting and as he usually does, was both self-effacing/humble and inspiring/convicting. He spoke of two things that showed his humility: He reminded us all that he's not an amazing person (he actually is), but that he's just trying to get the most utility out of his resources. For him to spend money on say another car, would give him very little marginal value. But to take that same money and spend it on vaccines would provide people life-saving value and that's where he wants his money to go - where it can provide the most utility. He gave to the tune of $35+ billion - so just a few cars sacrificed.

The second thing he reminded me of was that he's had success in his life not because he's smarter than everyone else, but that he won the "genetic lottery" (he actually is smarter than most, but you get the point). He had a 1:40 chance to be born in America and a 1:2 chance to be born a man. The combination of those two chance occurrences allowed him opportunities that relatively few others in the world had and he knew it. You know the saying that some people are born on 3rd base thinking they hit a triple? Warren Buffet knew he was born on 3rd base, and he wanted to use the resources that came with his chance privilege to even the playing field.

These two things were a profound reminder to me that I should be thoughtful/intentional about my resources as well as the fact that any thoughts I have of deserving what I get because of hard work are coming from a place of naive privilege. So the question to myself was what do I do, if anything, with the knowledge that I was blessed with many more opportunities than most.

Let's add all this up:

1. Human trafficking was an issue I was interested in, but didn't know much about and felt a little paralyzed with how to help
2. I had a desire to travel abroad by myself because it forced me to get out of my comfort zone, which is where I learn the most and have the most dependence on God since I can't fall back on my routine - even though it terrifies me at the same time (which is probably the point)
3. Warren Buffet reminded me that with my great privilege (and luck), I should do something to reduce the gap between the haves and have-nots.

So if I'm trying to answer the "what exactly are you doing question?" it would be a combination of those things.

I'm still not exactly sure how I'll be helping these six months. There's a lot I've learned over the past few years about trafficking, etc., but with that learning comes the realization that I don't really know very much at all - and definitely not enough to feel like I can just come in and start making a huge difference.

But I'm reminded of something one my pastors mentioned this year (and I'm paraphrasing): "We think ability is more important than availability, but sometimes we just need to go if there's a need, regardless of how ready we feel."