Jum-riab-sua!
That's hello in Khmer by the way. Alvin and Chu Yee here, we're not quite in Cambodia yet, in fact it's still about 3 weeks away, but we thought we'd get a start on this blog and let you all in on why we're going and how our preparations are going. We weren't initially going to write a blog but then thought it would be a nice way of recording what will happen. For the purpose of narrative, it'll be me Chu Yee writing.
Who are we?
For those who don't know us. Two Christians who married each other 2 years ago. We're Chinese with black hair; one wears glasses the other doesn't, we’re alright at maths. One is a born and bred Londoner; the other arrived in the UK from Malaysia about 14 years ago...he forgets. The Chinese Church in London is our home church and we love it dearly, warts and all.
The Why:
Why are we going?...basically because God wants us to. Back in September 2007 when I had just started the second year of my radiotherapy course I asked Alvin if he thought it would be possible to take 6 months out after I had finished my course in order to do something together. He said it was an option, so then I started dreaming about going away travelling around the world for 6 months - backpacking and that sort of thing. I talked to Alvin about this travel bug and he pretty much put a stop to it. He was ok with us taking 6 months out but not if it was to backpack. The topic of missions then very quickly came up, and one evening after praying together we knew it was what God wanted. So we knew God wanted us to go for 6 months on mission. But where?
The Where:
Looking back it was funny, we kept saying to each other "yeah, we're really open to going wherever God wants us to go." But on discussion we knew for certain there were places we didn't want to go. Sometimes I would suggest a place and he would say no, and vice versa. The only place we were in agreement with was Cambodia. We decided to speak to Pastor Ong about missions and guess where he suggested? Yep, Cambodia. Later on we spoke to Kenny Gan from OM and he also suggested Cambodia to us. So we thought "that's it, Cambodia it is!!"
The Work:
Many people have asked us what we'll be doing and we always respond with "don't know exactly, we're just going to be flexible, see the different areas of work and see where God leads us." However, the tentative scope of work and ministry could include youth work, teaching English, involvement in the performing arts, engineering/technical/health projects, income-generating programmes, anything else CMS (Cambodia Methodist Services) can think of. So you see, being flexible is probably the best way to go about this!
Cambodian for Beginners: The name is taken from our language book and cd and sums up not only our knowledge of the language but also how we feel about going on this mission trip! Neither of us has been to Cambodia before, and up until a few months ago knew little or nothing about the country. Furthermore neither of us has ever done anything like this before so we really are beginners. We feel pretty inadequate about the whole thing but know that God has prepared the way. Only He knows what lies ahead and I'm sure He has a whole bunch of lessons to teach these two beginners about who He is and how much He loves the people of Cambodia.
