Bella Ella

That's Ella in Mummy's arms back in 2003

This is Ella’s reflection from her trips to COSI. Before her mei-mei Alex came along, she was the youngest team member every year. To say that she has gone up to see COSI is an understatement. Ella has made friends in COSI and they have indeed watch each other grow up these last 8 years.

Though still young, this young lady can truly be an inspiration to other children out there. You are never too young to be involved in the mission field.

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I have been to COSI since 2002 and I really enjoy the trip there every year. It is great to see all my friends in COSI and a privilege to be able to visit them. Some people may think that visiting an orphanage is boring. It is actually very fun and I learn many things there. At the orphanage, I get to play hand games with my friends, visit the farm and learn how to plant rice at the paddy fields. These are the things which we can’t do in Singapore. I also help my mom to teach English to the younger kids.

In the past from 2003 to 2006, I didn’t really like to go to COSI as the COSI kids always crowded around me, saying I was very cute. I would get very scared, as I didn’t know anyone there yet. So I would run into the guest house or hide behind my mom. But now that I have a sister who is 5 years old, she gets all the praise and “you’re so cute” comments instead of me. I realised then that the COSI kids were happy to have visitors and only wanted to befriend me. I also learnt that the kids are all very friendly even though mischievous at times. Now I try to chat and play with them, even though sometimes I get stuck for words. It’s not really communicating in the same way as my classmates or friends here. In Cambodia, they know a limited amount of English and I don’t know any Khmer at all. So we just smile at each other and engage in simple English conversations. I wish I could communicate with them more but learning Khmer is really hard. I can’t even pronounce my name in Khmer properly even though my COSI friends have taught it to me. Yet I have made many good friends like Bopha, Ratana, Niki, Natalie, Mati, Alyssa, Pov Phuong, Srey Mich, Leak and many, many other friends.

All of them are very talented in many ways. Drawing is one of their talents. Whenever we exchange cards before becoming back to Singapore, they draw very pretty and elaborate pictures with a special message. I have kept a lot of their messages and would occasionally take them out to read again. They are great cards and when I read them, I can’t wait to go back to see my friends in person again.  They are also very good in sports. When my church friends David and Ethan came to COSI, we played volleyball with the COSI kids but we couldn’t beat them! They were very good. I don’t think the COSI kids have any PE lessons in school unlike us in Singapore. Yet they still won. Another skill they have is to weave boxes out of strips of palm leaves. I tried to learn to weave one from Bopha, Chanthin and some other girls but it took me the WHOLE evening and night to do it. Whereas they could do it in about half the time I took or even less! I thought it was very cool to know how to weave the box. Now I can’t remember any of the steps to make one.

On one occasion we also had a run. My friends Ethan and David were there too. I was very excited, thinking how fun it would be to run in Cambodia. I was quite sure it wouldn’t be hard as I had joined different kids’ runs in Singapore. Besides this run was about 1.6 km which was the distance I had run for the past races. When we started, all the kids sprinted off, leaving me in the dust. I started jogging, thinking that I could catch up later. I saw a small boy take off his running shoes and continue barefooted. It was very funny to watch him run faster without his shoes on! Before I knew it many of the kids had already turned around and were running back. I was not quite at the halfway mark. In the end I was the last to finish.

I think God has done many things for me and my COSI friends. God has given my COSI friends a very spacious and nice orphanage to live in and has given me the opportunity to go and befriend them. Not a lot of people have the opportunity to go to Cambodia every year. God has taught me many things through my trips to COSI. He has made me aware that there are many poor and homeless people all around the world such as the homeless people living on roadsides that I see as we drive into COSI. God has taught me to have compassion for them and made me aware that I can actually help them, even though I’m still just a kid. And as we seek to bless them, God has also blessed me. I have been blessed with a great family and that is why I want to help the less fortunate and bless them too.

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Ella (right) and Alex (left) - 2010 catching crabs in the padi fields.

 

Clement, our IT specialist

“Brother Clement” (First from the left in the addidas jersey)- As he was affectionately known. He towered WAY above the children, standing at about 1.8m tall, but was far from scary. Really, he was like a gentle giant, always going around helping the older boys with their little IT problems, and worked closely with Wee Long to teach the youths what it takes to become an computer engineer.

It was his first time up to COSI as well. Here’s what he had to say:

Reflections of mission trip to Cambodia

August 2010 traveled to Cambodia for my first ever mission trip.
First time stepping into an orphanage, first time stepping into Cambodia.
I remembered vividly before making my way to the airport for late afternoon flight. My colleague was sharing with me :” You’ll be learning more than what you are able to share” It took me a while to digest what he said. I just find it amuse myself I’m there to play games and mentor few kids what i may learn from helping?

It was drizzling when I reached COSI late evening. Some boys were still awake when I suppose they should be in bed at that time. I felt at home when the boys tried to help me with my luggage and books which were brought for them. First encounter with the kids was very accommodating. Nice garden at the orphanage and there was a small farm at the back too. There was a night when I was sitting on the swing with another kid. A plane flew above us and he was looking up to the sky that one day he’d like to sit on the plane too. It was really a young boy’s dream that I could see from his eyes. My reply to him was that he would definitely be able to take the plane one day for the Lord will provide.

I mentored 2 youths both about 16~17 years old boys, brought them out of their place to chat with them. Did a life checklist with them on what would their dreams are and what they had to do to realise those dreams. They have limited exposure to television, limited exposure to outside world. The people they interact with are only the friends that have in the orphanage and their classmates. The boys were telling me about the nice car that drove by the nice house across the street. But they were clueless to was what they want in life and how they needed to achieve their dreams. I saw a real life human living in a shell and learnt that exposure is very important for them. Goal settings skills are critical for their age.

On my flight back Singapore I recall what my colleague had shared. Did I really share a lot with them or did I gain more lessons from them? What are my dreams in the first place? What am I doing now? I reflected and felt that many things should not be taken for granted and to learn to hold things with a lose hand. A lot of times external factors cannot be controlled, but things can be controlled internally and emotionally. Majority of kids are brought up without parental love. They can’t feel the love which we have been showered constantly by our parents since young.

Until you go and see it for yourself, you can’t truly comprehend just how blessed you are.

I’m reminded of a verse in Romans 12:6-8
We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

The long absence – Introducing Mark

Many apologies for the long absence… as with every blog, there’s always a huge challenge looking for good solid content. As a team, we’ve been talking about changes to our programmes and have already started planning for our trip next year. We’ve been meeting monthly and the time spent together has indeed been very fruitful. It’s exciting to hear all the ideas on how we’re going to improve our programmes and to see how each of us can bring our strengths to add value to the team.

We’ve been doing a series of reflections about our last trip and we’d like to share them here. So today, our featured member is Mark Kesavan, an accountant in training and first time tripper up to COSI. Mark’s been wonderful with helping us to always find good dinner places to hold all of us (every time we meet for dinner, there’s at least 10 of us). The reservations are always in order, and the food is needless to say, consistently yummy.

Here’s what he has to say:

Mark Kesavan

I had always wanted to go on a mission trip. But I knew full well that, I did not want to go on my own choosing of a destination but the choice should be shown to me by God. God knows the needs of the various nations and will place me where He needs me most to do His work. Indeed, He showed to me that Cambodia was the place that I was to go to and more importantly, was the work He wanted me to do and that, was to teach English to the kids in COSI.

Before leaving for COSI, I was a little apprehensive as I did not know what to expect and first time jitters started to set in. But I knew that, with God, I can overcome and not let such emotions get the better of me. I was excited to see the work that God has been doing all along in the place and, how I could be a part of that.

The kids were very friendly and welcoming to all of us, even to those who were new to the place. Being around them, playing with them and trying to communicate with them was indeed a blast! Having the opportunity to teach the kids English was an even bigger blessing and even more fun! As someone who loves being around kids, I wanted to be a blessing to the kids and to be blessed by them as well.

The experiences that I have brought back with me will always stay in my heart. My only desire, is to continue building on these experiences and to carry on the work that God has placed in my heart.

Art for a cause

A toast to Uncle Brian's big 50

Ee-ling and Steph’s uncle, Uncle Brian hosted his 50th birthday at Sunjin Galleries art gallery at Chip Bee Gardens. It was an afternoon of wonderful wine, food and good laughter between family and friends. Steph, Ee-ling, Geraldine, Alvin and myself went down to share with Uncle Brian’s guests a little more about the work that we do in COSI.

The event was a strictly no-gifts birthday. Instead, Uncle Brian insisted that his guests gave the money that was going to his birthday present to the PCOSIIP education fund instead. Additionally, he was also auctioning off three artworks from his personal collection. All of the proceeds raised from the donations and the auction go straight to the PCOSIIP education fund.

All of us in front of 2 of the 3 pieces on auction

Uncle Brian and some of his friends

Uncle Brian and Family

Uncle Brian and his two nieces

We all spent the afternoon in cosy company among good friends and family, and also had the chance to meet new friends who also championed other social causes. It was very enriching, and all heartening to hear of many others who were also helping in small ways.

That afternoon, I was reminded of how fortunate the children in COSI are. To have wonderful Angels like Uncle Brian, and you, who are constantly thinking of their future. To those who’re also supporting the children in COSI and COSY Hostel, whether you’re from another church, or from another school group etc. You know who you are. Thank You for having these children in your heart. Even though we’re separated from them by thousands of miles, the Kingdom of God knows no boundaries and we’re grateful that we’re all working towards bettering their futures.

Last but not least, I quote Uncle Brian, here’s “A Toast to Life, to Love, to Family and to Good Friends!”

May he have a blessed 50th Birthday!

On day 3 – Water Theme Park

On Monday morning , we took the youths out to a water theme park in Kien Svay just about 1hr 30mins away from the hostel. We set off early in the morning, packed lunch and all headed off in three vehicles.

The theme park is far from the big spash of Singapore, but still, the youths had fun just being out of the hostel. They had a ball of a time playing out in the sun even though we were greeted with a little mouse in the water when we arrived.

Ee-ling taking the plunge

Andrew going down in style

Mark, reaching for something...

In true Cambodian style, pack the people on!

Snippets from the trip

From L to R: Steph, Mark, Andrew, Dawn, Ee-ling, Faith, Wee Long, Alvin, Geraldine and Poh Kiang

We departed Singapore on 31 July 2010 in the wee hours of the morning. Our flight with Jetstar was delayed by an hour and we were all completely exhausted by the time we arrived in Phnom Penh. Upon arrival, we headed straight into the city to grab a quick bite and to meet the youths in university for lunch at Tonle Bassac. There, we had some time to introduce the team to the youths and to find out how they were each doing in school.

Just to recap, our team was split into two sub-teams. One was the English team. They basically focus on teaching English to the children. There is a longer term goal of working on an English curriculum that the children in COSI can benefit from. We hope that in the near future, mission teams that go up can follow up with this curriculum and hopefully this way, the COSI children learn English progressively, rather than for each missions team to go up each time, not knowing the true standards of the children.

The second team was called the Buddy team. We are concerned about the well-being of the youths and because of our close age gaps, we know that the youths will likely have no trouble sharing and opening up to us. Our aim is to help partner these youths both emotionally and spiritually through high school, and expose them to as many jobs as possible. This trip, we arranged to visit a few local companies and tried to conduct station games that elaborated on certain occupations. We wanted to establish a bond with the youths, to earn their trust so that they know that they have another help line in times of distress. Li Diang will soon have 53 youths in the hostel and she can’t possibly see to all the individual needs of the youths. We hope that we can help shoulder some of that responsibility for her this way.

After a long day out in Phnom Penh, we made our way into COSI after buying our groceries for breakfast for the week.

As usual, we had a very nice warm welcome from the children the minute we stepped into COSI. It was good seeing familiar faces and some new faces among them too.

Energetic boys

We had to unpack and quickly settle into our house, stock up the infirmary and then head to vesper with the children. It was good to be back. After a long day, the team had an early night to recharge and prepare for a long week ahead.

After Sunday’s service, Francis took us on a tour around the COSI compounds. We had fun walking through the farm and checking out all the vegetables that grew on COSI’s land.

A very hot tour of COSI

The ducks that became our dinner

Older pigs

3 month old piglets

The children in COSI have daily farm duties and they are expected to look after the pigs, ducks, plant vegetables, weed and harvest the rice.

Wee Long and Mark looking like they're hard at work

One of the boys, Seyhar, looks after the chickens and ducks on COSI. He’s moving off to the hostel in October because he’s hitting grade 10 next year and so needed to sell of his chickens and ducks. After much haggling and negotiation, we bought the ducks and chickens from him, and threw a feast of duck and chicken stew on the last night. He earned USD$244 from selling us 20 ducks and 20 chickens and the money went to his ‘bank account’ so that he couldn’t spend it all at one go.

Negotiations. There's a difference between Thai and Khmer chicken!

Sunday afternoon was also spend playing some icebreakers with the youths. It was a chance for the new members on the team to get to know some youths, and for them to also have some fun while being back in COSI. There was space constraints in the hostel and so we knew we had to carry out games and activities on COSI’s compounds while they were there that weekend.

Flipping the sheet

Pass the rambutan

Tossing the water bombs

The first two days in COSI went by just in the blink of an eye. We were happy to have the chance to let the youths stay in COSI – because the hostel lacked such open space and it wasn’t ideal for us to conduct our outdoor games there too.

Find us on the MMS website

We are now linked from the Methodist Missions Society website.

Just in case you forget our blog address, you know you can find the link to us from there!

Also, pictures from the recent August trip will be up soon! I am still sorting them out. With over 13GB worth of photos, please be patient!

Hear from them!

6 of the youths are here in Singapore for two weeks. If you’d like to find out about how our trip went and to hear their testimonies, do attend the 9am, 11am or youth service at Pentecost Methodist Church this Sunday!

See you then!

Our Prayer Requests

We leave in a few hours time. Last week, the group got together for one final meeting and shared… we shared about our personal objectives, fears or apprehensions and our prayer requests.

In this post, read about our prayer requests and do keep us in constant prayer throughout the next 10 days.

In general, we’d like all of you to pray for our safety and unity as team. We would also like you to pray that we will be sensitive to God’s prompting during this trip and that we will be able to function together as one body, to achieve the wonderful things He has planned for us.

THANK YOU!

Second row (from left to right): Mark, Alvin, Clement, Wee Long

First roe (from left to right): Ee-ling, myself (Dawn), Faith, Stephanie, Geraldine

Missing: Andrew, Joel, Siew Eng, Poh Kiang, Joan, Ella and Alex

Lessons for ‘late reformers’

For some of you who may be interested to read about the current economic situation in Cambodia. Here’s an article taken from the Straits Times.

By Hal Hill, Jayant Menon & Chan Sophal, For The Straits Times

THE charming riverside capital of Phnom Penh has seen a lot in its turbulent history. But arguably, there has been nothing on the scale of its first skyscraper – the 42-storey ‘Golden Tower’ now nearing completion – not to mention the bank complexes mushrooming throughout this ancient Cambodian city.

The changing physical landscape reflects broader developments in the country, which has been experiencing rapid economic growth – the sixth-fastest in the world in the decade to 2007 – for the first time in its history. More than two million tourists a year now visit this country of 14 million, a 20-fold increase over the figure in the early 1990s.

The Cambodian people also have better nutrition and access to education and health services than ever before. Life expectancy has risen by almost a decade and infant mortality has fallen significantly.

The macro-economy is stable, with inflation under control. Debt service is almost negligible and public debt has fallen sharply to about one-quarter of gross domestic product (GDP).

The economy is highly open, with exports plus imports equivalent to more than 120 per cent of GDP. The investment climate is welcoming, with generous tax incentives and low tariffs. Aid flows are large, currently almost US$1.1 billion (S$1.5 billion) in a US$10 billion economy. The country’s openness meant that growth dried up last year as the global financial crisis hit. But the economy is now rebounding.

But for all the good news, Cambodia still faces many daunting problems. It ranks 166th and 135th respectively out of 181 countries surveyed in the Transparency International corruption perception index and the World Bank’s Doing Business indicators.

Deforestation and what is referred to locally as ‘land grabbing’ have been rampant. The local dailies abound with reports of land being awarded to the politically powerful for nominal amounts, and a startling but detailed account is presented in the 2008 study by non-governmental organisation Global Witness, entitled Country For Sale. In an ironic twist, the land price boom has often made some of the most vulnerable worse off, as they have been evicted or forced off their land. The periodic household expenditure surveys report a significant increase in inequality.

These problems illustrate the challenges poor transitional economies face when opening up without institutions to manage the complex process of globalisation. In this environment, the recent discovery of oil and gas could complicate things, as articulated by the well-known ‘natural resource curse’ theory.

The central challenge is to achieve growth that is durable, equitable and environmentally sustainable. This, in turn, requires the development of institutions which, while they may be rudimentary, are effective, trusted and clean.

A number of problems plague Cambodia’s institutions:

The country has no shortage of laws, especially after its accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2004. But businesses view the courts as the most expensive ‘last resort’ when all else fails. Legal judgments are routinely for sale. Civil service salaries are meagre. A mid-level senior employee with a foreign master’s degree receives US$70 a month, compared with a private sector alternative of about 20 times this amount. Ministers earn about US$500 a month but some seem to live quite lavishly.

The country’s tax effort (its tax revenue as a percentage of GDP) is a paltry 11 per cent, despite the introduction of a broad-based value-added tax. Thus the country’s infrastructure remains inadequate in spite of huge aid flows and notwithstanding recent improvements.

The number of banks has been increasing rapidly due to unfettered entry. The lax supervision carries with it the risk of a future meltdown.

Shipping a container from factory to port costs about double the regional average owing to widespread ‘facilitation’ costs, a feature, apparently, of most transactions with the government.

‘Late reformers’ can draw five general lessons from the Cambodian experience:

First, liberal and open economies cannot function without due respect for property rights, as exemplified by the widespread land grabs.

Second, these liberal regimes need adequate regulatory capacity to manage a modernising market economy, as demonstrated by the uncontrolled growth of Cambodia’s banking industry.

Third, large inflows of foreign aid and natural resource revenues ought to be viewed as transitory, and invested wisely for broad-based development.

Fourth, donors need to better coordinate their work and avoid imposing excessively on a weak bureaucracy.

Fifth, civil service reform has to be undertaken early, with clear incentives and disciplines.

Unless these conditions are met, the achievements over the past decade in Cambodia and many other similar states could be undone by economic crises, or rising civil unrest driven by outrage at political and bureaucratic excesses.

The authors are respectively a professor of economics at Australian National University, principal economist at the Asian Development Bank, and president of the Cambodia Economic Association.