The Girls in My Life

Up to now, I haven't had a chance to share too much about the girls I work with at the aftercare home. Some of that has to do with the fact that I'm still learning a lot about them. And some of that has to do with the sensitivity of their trauma - I didn't quite know the best way to share about them. But I gave the girls some homework a month back and I'm going to use that as my method for how to share about these beautiful, young people I've gotten to know.

To give a little background, the girls in the aftercare home are there between six months to a couple of years because they've been taken out of sex trafficking or sexual abuse. Their ages range from 10-20 years old. At the home, they get access to social workers and counselors to talk through their trauma, work on their social interactions with the other girls as well as the staff, use vehicles such as art and music as a part of their healing, and most importantly get the chance to be kids and simply have fun. That last part is where I mostly fit in. I've mentioned this before, but the reason why sex trafficking resonated so much with me was I couldn't imagine how anyone, especially a young child could come back from going through that type of painful experience. I don't know what kind of childhood that would be. If I could use my time to help these girls forget about those experiences, if only for a couple hours a day, and just have fun, then my time was well spent.

I've been working with these girls over the past 3.5 months in a couple of ways. My initial responsibility was to work with about half of the 19 girls on improving their english. I would lesson plan and throw in a few games to test them, let them have a bit of fun to break the monotony that is english class, and give myself an excuse to provide them snacks. Then about a month after I started teaching english, the director of the home told me a handful of the girls wanted to learn guitar and ukulele. Guitar was a go. I've been playing since high school, so that was no problem. Ukulele on the other hand was less of a slam dunk. I'd never touched one before, but the girls wanted to learn, so I said, "Sure." 30 minutes before my first ukulele class, I learned the only three chords I needed to know for the song I was going to teach them, and off we were! Relative smooth sailing from there.

My average day with the girls is an hour of teaching english followed by an hour of either guitar or ukulele, depending on the day. Over these past 3.5 months, the girls have been so great in welcoming me in and helping me feel a part of their family. Some took a bit more time to warm to me, but my strategy (as it is with all females in my life) is to keep making goofy faces at them until they start to smile, and so far it's worked pretty well.

Each girl I interact with is so unique and I appreciate so many different things about each of them. The homework assignment I gave them a month ago was to share one thing about another girl that they really liked, so I'm going use that same assignment to share a bit about the girls I get to interact with everyday. (Since I don't work with all 19 girls, I won't be sharing about all of them. And to be safe, I'll be using aliases instead of their real names.)

SP: I love that SP is so enthusiastic about answering questions in class. She's probably my smartest student, and she basically jumps out of her chair to raise her hand. She's slowly understanding that I want other students to answer questions as well, but that doesn't mean she's happy about it. She'll give me the pouty face if I haven't called on her for a few questions, which should never work, but always does. She even acts as my translator a lot of time for the other students since her english is so good. She's also learning guitar and she's basically mastered it in a couple of weeks. Basically she keeps me on my toes.

KNY: KNY is one of the younger girls and doesn't talk as much, but man, her smile. HER SMILE! I also love greeting her everyday because she'll run up to me with the mightiest high-five someone under four feet can pack.

KTA: I love that KTA helps KNY in class. Like I said, KNY doesn't speak a whole lot, and knows very little english, but KTA will always help her work out each question and come up with an answer that KNY loves to enthusiastically scream out even though she probably only understands half of the words.

PH: PH is so respectful to the point that it makes me chuckle. Without fail, each time she answers a question, she'll stand up, gather herself, and answer as if she was in the army. And when she's not doing that, she's raising her hand quickly to answer a question she doesn't know, and instead will just giggle, while standing up of course.

RM: RM also isn't as talkative, but she's really goofy and makes the funniest faces. What I also love about her is that she always offers me a snack from their 3:00 snack time, whether it's a banana or a slice of mango. A lot of my fruit knowledge comes from her.

SM: SM is similar to SP in that she's really smart and loves answering questions. I'm similarly working with SM to not just blurt out answers so the rest of the class gets a chance. Here's what a typical exchange with SM looks like:

Me: Please raise your hand if you know the answer.
SM: Blue triangle!
Me: SM, I said raise your hand!
SM: I know! But...
Me: OK, please next time raise your hand so someone gets a chance. 
SM: OK...
Me: Ok, everyone, please raise your hand if you know the answer.
SM: Red circle!
Me: SM!
SM: I know, I know...

She just gives me her sheepish smile each time I ask her to raise her hand. My other favorite thing about SM is how far she's come even in the short time I've worked with her. When I first started teaching, she would always sit quietly, not engaging or smiling. Slowly, maybe from hearing my broken khmer or seeing my random dance moves, she started to smile a bit more and she quickly turned into the non-hand raising participant she is today.

SPN: SPN is really shy, so she rarely raises her hand and doesn't like being called on. But what I appreciate about her is that she'll always ask the other girls for help if she doesn't know the answer. And then they'll work out an answer together. And being completely honest, one of my favorite sights during my entire time out here is when SPN knows the answer to a question and jets her hand in the air excitedly yelling out the answer. I see her pride swell in these moments and I do my best to soak in that second before moving on to the next question.

SD: SD is similar to SPN in that she doesn't love to answer questions. What I love about her is that she is such a copious note taker, which means she's really trying her best. She'll even reprimand me sometimes if I start to erase the whiteboard before she's done copying down her notes.

CH: CH is the girl that is most to herself. She doesn't really participate in class, but joins us everyday nonetheless. What I love about her is she's always the first face I see when I get to the home and she'll wave to me. I'll ask her, "Soksabai dei? (how are you)?" and she'll give me a quiet, "soksabai (I'm fine)." She's the hardest girl for me to interact with because of her quietness and lack of english, but she always finds me to say hello and that's a great way for me to start my day with the girls.

SL: SL is the girl who on my first day visiting the home asked if I was married, then commented on the fact that I'm probably too old to find someone at this point. That's the point I knew I would love this girl. I don't interact with SL that much because she's one of the older girls that goes to her own school, but I'll see her for a handful of minutes each day before she goes to dinner. We've worked out a handshake, and she braided my hair in a way that made my teammates at Gates actually like my rattail, which is pretty much a minor miracle.

MRI: I don't get to see MRI that much either because she has her own school, but she tries to sneak into my class for the last 10 minutes whenever she can. She'll come to game day, and basically just answer every question. She's like a hired gun. It's funny, too, because she's so nonchalant about her excellence. She sneaks her head in, answers a bunch of questions, then just skips away when she's done. For the love of the game.

MAR: MAR is one of the older girls and you can see her maturity. I appreciate how she acts as an older sister to all of the younger girls and basically helps to take care of them, even though she's still pretty much a kid herself.

RN: RN is no nonsense. I think my first image of her was of her arms crossed. It was as if she was saying, "Impress me." I loved it. I don't teach her english, but she's one of my guitar students and she's fierce with that, too. If RN communicates something, I know that's how she feels, which is a trait I really appreciate in her...now that I'm not scared of her anymore.

SK: SK is also one of my guitar students. SK is generally really reserved and to herself, but my favorite thing about her is when her determination comes out during guitar lessons. I've been working on strumming patterns with her, and it's one of the harder things I'll teach her. SK will work on a pattern, mess up, giggle, then turned stone-faced in a blink of an eye and calmly, but intensely say, "Again." It cracks me up every time. There's no time to dwell in the giggle. It's time to move!

SR: SR is like another caregiver to the girls. She's been at the home for a good amount of time and all of the girls look up to her because she's really mature and takes care of everyone. I so appreciate her maturity and her care for the other girls. She also plays a mean ukulele.

I've been immensely lucky to get the chance to work with these girls everyday and similarly to the girls, I've grown some as well. I remember in the beginning of my 3.5 months teaching them, I probably focused a little too much on lesson planning, and didn't just be present and enjoy my time with them. But as I thought again about what my value was to them, I reminded myself that I'm pretty sure they won't look back at their time with me and think warmly that I taught them simple past tense. Instead, I hope they'll look back and remember that they were cared for, thought of, worthy of being loved, and that they had so much fun laughing and playing and just being kids.

My Happy Place

Before coming out here, I had a little personal goal: to find a place where I frequented enough that the people recognized and knew me. I was initially thinking it would be like the local market, and I would get to know the older ladies selling vegetables or fruit or something. I don't really go to the market that often so that version of the dream hasn't been realized, but I did get introduced to the coffee stand in the nearby Buddhist temple and that has become my go to place if I ever want to just get away and read, write, listen to music, or people watch.

And my dream of being "a regular" was confirmed a few weeks ago when I sat down at the coffee stand and the mother (of the mother/daughter tandem that run the place) brought me my iced coffee without me having to order it. I can't overstate how awesome that little act was.

On top of that, it's a prime location because so many people pass by the stand on their bikes or motos. I get to meet a lot of people that pass by everyday, like San who is the garbage guy that walks by everyday and stops by to practice his English with me, or some of the monks who frequent the stand and want to meet the barang (foreigner). I also get a chance to see a lot of my students come and go because the high school is just down the road. It's also the location of where I got in my moto accident, so it's the source of many memories :).

This coffee stand was also literally the first place I went to when I arrived in Cambodia. Michael picked me up from the airport, and took me there to get an iced coffee before I even went to the house to unpack. I'm sure when I think back on my time in Cambodia, this coffee stand will be at the forefront.

40 cent cafe duk dakoh taggoh! (iced coffee with condensed milk - the first word I learned when I arrived)

 The coffee stand is also where I get my beauty tips...

...as well as my fruit.

Success! Also, that's ramen seasoning we're dipping the mango in, and it's delicious.

Some (In Progress) Thoughts on Hope

So I don’t know exactly how this is going to come out other than an unorganized stream of consciousness that is far from being resolved or even understandable, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past couple of years, especially over the past few months where I've been forced to look at it in a different lens.

Let’s start here: I’m a Christian, which is a huge part of my life, and trying to figure out how my faith shapes my views, interactions, and motives is something that is constantly in the foreground of my thoughts. What I’ll add is that I’m learning the art of nuance and gray areas, but for most of my life, I’ve ebbed and flowed between extremes on most things in my life, including my faith. When I was younger in my faith, I very much thought that if you simply believed and trusted in God, you would/should be fine, whatever "fine" meant. God was enough and to complain or not be happy about life was on you. I very ungraciously responded to friends’ issues with, “Why is that a big deal? You have God, what else do you need?” Tactful, right?

And like many of the lessons in my life, I was only able to see my ugliness when I was on the other side of the equation. When I went through my own painful situations that didn’t make any sense and weren’t easily gotten over, hearing “just pray” or “that’s not a big deal” or “get over it” didn’t help me feel closer to God. It just made me feel that God was only in the ether in the form of buzzwords and platitudes. He was there in the sense that God is always there, but if I needed to actually resolve anything, it was through other practical means, not God.

And again going back to my love of extremes, I went from believing that as long as you did the right things and trusted in God you’d be fine, to believing that even though God loves people, fluffy talk was cheap and there were other ways I needed to practically help people (and myself) than simply saying “just trust God” “or “God is enough” or “pray.”

Which brings me to 2015, and the little real hope I put in God.

My life was very much driven by my faith, but it was skewed heavily more toward how God wanted to use me practically to help, rather than believing God could truly redeem dire situations. A lot of my friends can testify to the fact that I’ve asked them repeatedly over the past year about what it looks like to “thrive” in your life, and could you really use that word if all you knew was pain, abandonment, and loneliness? Could someone honestly say that even though none of their deep longings were met, or that they went through some indescribably painful trauma that colored everything in their life, that as long as they had God in their life, they would “thrive?” I was skeptical. My view of God continued to be very small.

The last person I wanted to be was someone who looked at another person who had brokenness in their life and very real needs like housing or food or counseling, and simply say “God loves you!” and walk away. How does someone who has felt nothing but pain, hear “God loves you?” It seemed like a slap in the face. “I know you need food and clothes, but what I’m going to offer you is some nice words of God’s love and not a whole lot else.” If I heard that, it would probably only trigger the thought, “With friends like that…”

So how did I respond? By being a doer. I volunteered at a lot of places, and was always really intentional about making sure I wasn’t just saying nice words, but was doing something that could practically help someone. Clothing drives, handing out food and blankets, fundraising for projects. And a lot of that drove me to want to come to Cambodia and see how I could be a practical help to young girls who have only known having their trust broken by the people that are closest to them. They’ve gone through trauma no one should ever go through, let alone children in elementary school. So I wanted to help in ways I thought would make a difference.

I’m going to take a quick sidebar and share three things that are (trust me) a part of this inner dialogue of mine – two from comedians I love, and one from my wonderful pastor (emphasis mine):

Norm Macdonald: “I used to give homeless people food, because I didn’t want them to use the money I gave them for drugs. But if I was in their situation and homeless, all I would want is drugs, too. You think with their life, an extra sandwich is going to make a difference?”

Louis CK: “It means they were bad, and now they’re---I mean they’re better. They’re not good. Life is shit wall to wall.”

Pastor Brenda Salter McNeil: “So Paul believes that this world is not the end of the story…Paul says I want to know God. I want to know who God is. I want to know what God is doing. Paul says I’ve come to know that this world is not the end of the story. There is a future state, a kingdom of shalom that’s coming. Paul says I’ve gotten so close to the heartbeat of God, I know that this world grieves God, too. Massacres in Paris and terrorism on campus make God cry. And that’s why God has told us that this is not the end of the story. There’s another story, greater, bigger, worth living for. Something that transcends our physical reality, and it’s called HEAVEN! Paul says I want to go, I gotta go, to this place that God says is the end of war, and the end of death, and the end of sickness and disease, where reconciliation, healing, and peace, and justice reign…and there is harmony, and there is peace. And all creation flourishes. What a vision, what an image.

“Now the truth be told, those of us who are really, really educated, and haven’t suffered much, heaven sounds like a pie in the sky theology, doesn’t it? Go ahead and tell the truth, it does. That’s why you’re kind of looking at me like that – ‘Heaven, really, I haven’t thought about heaven.’ Well let me tell you something. Folks who suffer, who have been through hell on earth, they believe in heaven. Because they know that they can’t trust that this world is it. They can’t believe the hell they’re experiencing on earth, is the end of the story.”

I think you can see what I'm getting at with these quotes: for some, life doesn’t provide much of anything other than pain and loneliness, and for these people, God and the promise of a redeemed story after this life is the only thing they’re holding out hope for.

I stayed away from my initial belief in God being enough because I though there should be action along with words of God’s love. And I still think that’s right. But in the process, I yoyo’d so far to the other side that I reduced God’s hand in things because I was one of those “educated people” who hasn’t suffered much and didn’t see the true need of God’s healing and promise that there’s more to life than this. The “this” in my life was pretty good and comfortable, so I just wanted to help people get some of that “this” in their own lives.

First, who’s to say what I have is what we really need and all it’s cracked up to be? I know there’s more to life than comfort and security, but those nice things make it easy to forget there’s more that we long for and need. As they say, good is the enemy of great.

Secondly, do I really think that teaching English and ukulele for 6 months is going to help a girl get over her trauma? I heard a story of a girl being raped by her grandfather and having to get an abortion. Another story I heard was that a doctor who was helping one of the girls’ mothers, ended up raping the daughter. The mother didn’t believe her daughter’s accusation. For some people, life is a series of pain, abandonment, and loneliness, and I think I can change that by volunteering for a little bit? And think about this: the BEST CASE scenario in terms of support for some girls who have been abused or trafficked is that they find their way to one of the NGOs that provides counseling and support for 6 months to a few years, then they go back to their families and communities where there isn’t a promise of any continued professional help or really any acknowledgment that her trauma will continue to impact her life; it’s just supposed to be a return to "normal."

(A couple of clarifying notes: 

1. One thing I want to make sure comes across clearly is that the work that many people do to alleviate social justice issues and trauma such as sex trafficking is crucial and makes a huge difference. I'm not disputing that all, which is why I'm still trying to involved practically. I just needed to remind myself that these interventions have their limits and many times they’re not enough.
2. I also want to make clear that I'm not saying that just because someone has painful trauma in their life, it means they're relegated to a life that is just constant pain. A friend reminded me recently that suffering and joy are closely related and I know of people who have overcome trauma and have thrived in spite of the trauma, and sometimes partially because of it. But while acknowledging that many people emerge from these situations with resolution, perspective, and understanding, there are many who don't.)

I went to a conference a couple months back that was the gathering of many of the human trafficking orgs in Cambodia. Once thing that quickly stuck out to me was how many orgs had the word “hope” in it: Heart of Hope, Hope for Justice, and Garden of Hope to name a few. And the more I’ve heard the stories of sexual abuse, the more that word is the only one that makes sense to me.

So what does all that mean? For me, I think it helps remind me that my faith not only asks me to help people practically and provide some hope in this life, which in many cases is incomplete, but it also pushes me back toward my earlier mindset that God really is the only thing we can put our full hope in that there will be healing and redemption. Helping on the ground plays an important role and the practical healing process is necessary, but no matter how much people care or try, sometimes it’s not enough to overcome some really messed up situations. The more I help, the more I see that the help we as people can provide is limited. There are enough examples of stories that do not resolve and they’re not due to the lack of effort or having the right programs in place. What else can we do than everything we can do? That’s where we’re left – with no more answers and only the hope that God has more to the story, even if that resolution seems distant or impossible or too supernatural or just a fluffy fairytale.

There are a lot of reasons why I am a Christian, and all of them are very real to me. In some ways, my life circumstances have pushed me toward this faith, and in many ways I've been very intentional about my path. But if all those reasons fell to the wayside, and I couldn't rest on being "devout", or "faithful", or "disciplined", what other choice would I have than to believe in this hope? That this life is all we have, and for some, it’s just going to be shit wall-to-wall? If I'm being completely honest, a lot of my faith isn't because I'm so thoughtful and holy and chose it as my first and only love. It's because I've tried everything else, and that's all there's left for me to hang onto. 

I asked earlier “How does someone who has felt nothing but pain, hear ‘God loves you?’” and could easily see why they would be insulted to hear that claim given their circumstances. But what I’ve realized is that the people who hear “God loves you” the most acutely are those who have nothing else in this world to hope for apart from that promise.

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” - Revelations 21:4

Fear and Willingness

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I like to give my students assignments that benefit both them and me. Them in that they practice thinking how to structure ideas and speak publicly, and me in that I get to learn more about their lives.

In the past two months, I've been teaching my evening class (my most advanced in terms of speaking English) a new vocabulary word a day - the theme being "words I think of when I think of them." A couple of nights ago I chose the word "willing" for a couple of reasons. For one, it aptly describes them because they generally are goodhearted and make an effort whenever I pose a new activity for them to try. Secondly, it was a bit of pre-emptive encouragement because I had a new assignment for them that same evening that would be challenging for anyone, let alone for students speaking a second language in front of their peers and a teacher from another country. The assignment? Tell the class about one of your fears and why it scares you.

Again, I love these assignments because I learn so much about my students. In the past, they've been open enough to share about their life goals, as well as people in their lives demonstrate faithfulness. The other reason I love these assignments is that it gives me a chance to share a bit about my life with the students. For most of my life, I've worked with kids in some capacity from coaching basketball to mentoring at church to helping with summer camps. It's something that I realized over time I love doing and that I'm a bit wired for. And one thing that is aways present when working with kids is how when I was their age, I really wanted to be able to hear from older people who in my mind, had "made it" so they could give me the formula. There weren't many occasions when I heard something from someone older and thought, "oh, you too?!" And when I was young, what I wanted more than most things was to know that I could relate to other people. So that's why I really enjoy sharing with kids (even though I'm far from having "made it", whatever that even means) - that hopefully some of my experiences and learnings could resonate with them and they could feel the sense that they're not on their own and someone understands a bit of where they're coming from.

Before I asked each student to share, I shared a bit about a few things in my life that caused me fear growing up, and also shared a couple of quotes on fear I really enjoy (again, thanks to the journal from Judith):

“Fear is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.” - Donald Miller

"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear." - Rosa Parks

"Courage is fear that has said its prayers." - Anne Lamott

Here are some of the responses - some really honest and difficult, some lighter and funny. And some that made me want to high-five them and say, "me, too!" (I'll let you guess which ones those are)

• "Fitting into new groups."
• "Worms."
• "Pretty girls." (definitely high-five worthy)
• "Not succeeding at University and with a future career."
• "Ghosts."
• "Not fitting in with their family."
• "This." (Referring to public speaking - this response had my dying.)
• "Failing high school."
• "Lizards."
• "Traffic accidents."
• "Being alone."
• "Thunder."
• "Being pressured into getting married and settling down, when there are other goals I want to pursue."
• "The dark."
• "Not being able to afford university."

I really enjoyed hearing their stories, and I was so proud of them, as I always am when they share with everyone about their lives. And I think through this exercise, they were able to see that many of their fears were shared.

Before they shared, I made sure to let them know they didn't have to share anything they weren't comfortable with sharing. It could be light and quick if they wanted. I didn't want to force them into sharing fears that were things they wanted to be more private. My last student to share was insanely brave because she shared something that was really difficult for her. She shared that she was afraid of her father because he would drink a lot and hit her mom. She cried while she shared, and in the middle of her sharing I felt horrible because I felt I forced her into sharing something she didn't want to. I apologized to her after class, but she reassured me that she was happy to share because she said she wasn't sad anymore because her father stopped drinking and stopped hitting her mom. Like I said, willing.

My evening class has consistently been the class I've enjoyed teaching the most because they've been receptive to my maybe less-than-kosher teaching style, they've been willing to do things that are new and scare them, and man do they teach me a lot.