That ONE.

Today was Joshua's birthday. If we have ever spoken then you know how in love I am with this kid.

I celebrated today with a migraine. A bad one. I ended up going home. Because I couldn't see straight, form coherent sentences, and there might have been some throwing up involved.

I was sad to miss the day at school with him. He smiled that smile that kills me and told me to go home.

In my journal, on August 13. Less than two weeks after arriving in Cambodia I wrote, Currently my favorite it Joshua. He reminds me of an old man with his smiley eyes and kindness. I'm only 13 days in though. What do I know about favorites.

As it turns out, favorites are for life.

A few weeks back in church I was sitting with Henry. We had just gotten back the night before and I had only seen Joshua for a second on Friday. As I spot him across the room he is looking around searchingly, when we make eye contact, he smiles that smile, throws up a wave and sits back in his seat.

At school when the lunch bell rings, Joshua usually waits for me while I get everyone out and lock the door and we walk together. Then he takes my tray after lunch. This week though, I said, Joshua take mine too! And he said, No! I can't! I asked why not, and after a minute the story came out, he had ended up carrying Phil's, Olga's, Thida's, mine and his, and ended up dropping it all and Kim Sereng said he couldn't take anymore. He was frustrated about not being stronger, which made me laugh.

Don't get me wrong. He is terrible in class.

He doesn't want to do anything, he talks, he gets out of his seat. He gets to run a lot.

This week he stopped writing the U in his name and when I pointed it out he said, I know, I am Josha!

The other day I asked, who knows what statues means?

Joshua responded with a shrug, I know what dog and cats means...

I think every SM that works with kids has that ONE.

That one that makes days a little better, even if they make them a little harder.

Joshua is mine.

When Joshua started this year he was one of the lowest with English. And now he is one of the good ones. I think there is something to be said for loving the crap out of kids.

When I work with some of the more frustrating kids one on one, I try and remind myself, ok pretend he/she is Joshua, would you be losing patience this quickly?

When I read blogs from SM friends, past and present and they talk about their ONE kid. I FEEL it with them. Because I KNOW the same things. I know the smiles, the jokes, the love.

It scares me a little to be in so deep.

Not just with Joshua.

In four months I won't have this anymore. I have dreams about leaving sometimes, and I'm always broken hearted.

But I think the brokenness means life happened. It means I am really alive.

Someone told me once, they would rather skip the loving part if it means avoiding the hurt the accompanies.

But I think I would choose the pain over the choice of staying safe.

If my heart ends up broken, it's only because I've been giving pieces away.

"My dear children, let's not just talk about love, let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality."

1 John 3:18-19

Wait, I Paid For what?!

For the past two weeks there has been an extra volunteer in our midst. Kim is on summer holiday from Avondale and has stopped in Phnom Penh after a two week tour through Asia.

She has been in my classroom helping and doing some teaching. Which has been delightful, because I've had time to do things like, grade.

On Sunday Olga, Kim, and I decided to go get massages. Because Kim isn't here for too much longer and we wanted to do something out of the ordinary. They just opened a new massage place down the road that looks a little more classy than your average Cambodian massage place. This seems like a good idea! Olga and I were talking about going anyway since her birthday was recently.

When we walked in there was a little excitement about the three white girls, and the employees stood around and stared at us until we chose what we wanted. Olga and I chose head and shoulder massages while Kim opted for an oil massage.

They took us to a room with three mats, we changed into the massage clothes and waited.

The girls came into the massage room one by one, greeting us respectfully before taking their places.

It started out nice enough. The girls kept chattering while they massaged which is annoying, and I caught enough words to know they were talking about us. One of them said something about me and I corrected her. They stopped talking about us after that.

The girls massaging Olga and I started out on our legs, which was not what we asked for, but we didn't say anything. It started out a little rough. Alright, I thought, your just sensitive and prone to bruising. It'll be fine.

It wasn't fine.

As the massage continued I felt myself become tense. I have never been beat up before, but I'm pretty sure it feels something like this massage. As I became tense I was yelling at myself in my head, she's going to notice!!! Loosen up!!! AHH! I CAN'T! SHE IS HURTING ME!!!!!

I looked over at Olga once or twice and knew she was having the same issues.

We're polite folk, though. Each of us tried to tell the girls to soften up once. And when that didn't happen, we just prayed to survive.

The beating, sorry, massage, continued and I tried to not laugh out loud at how ridiculous this whole thing was. At once point I let out a giggle and the girl looked at me quizzically. I shrugged it off, Oh, sorry, it tickled.

TICKLED?! What is wrong with you?!

The crowning moment though came near the end. They had us sit up so they could massage our, I can't remember, I just remember pain. [One thing I should mention, these aren't trained professionals or anything, and some of the moves were not exactly what we would call... "safe"... anyway] My girl twisted my arms behind my back and swung me to one side, cracking my back, and then swung me to the other side getting everything she missed the first time. I was so impressed with the sound it made that I forgot to cry out in pain.

Then Olga came to the same move, the girl twisted her arms, but before she swung, Olga exclaimed, I'm scared!!!

The massage ended, we paid our five dollars said thank you and left feeling like we would probably need another massage to recover from this one.

This is Cambodia.

Learning to Walk.

Last week I lost my favorite red pen.

This qualified as a tragedy. Panicked I started cleaning my desk. Asia, you have stolen my sigg, my sunglasses, and given me nothing but bruises from stairs and motos! You can't have my pen too!!!

After my desk was clean I found my pen.

Granted I found it in a completely different room, but I found it nonetheless.

I've noticed some things lately.

I'm on the verge of panic less often these days.

When I first started teaching I felt like I was drowning. I felt like I could hardly stay on top of all the grading, the lesson plans, the kids names, it was a lot.

But here we are. Quarter three, week three. My lesson plans were finished on Sunday and they didn't take me all day. My grading for everything except today is done and entered in the computer. I know my kids names, I can even recognize their voices without looking.

Instead of knowing what is happening on The Office or on How I Met Your Mother, off the top of my head I can tell you what page each of the four groups is on in their reading books. I can tell you what period each of the classes have Khmer. I can tell you who is going to need more help, and who needs to sit in the front row.

I don't come to school early to GET organized for the day, I come to school to make sure everything IS organized for the day.

I still definitely have a lot to learn, the next step is probably following my lesson plans. I'm bad at listening. Even to myself.

But I don't feel panicked anymore. I'm not stumbling around in the dark. I'm not crawling.

I don't feel like posting near as many, "I don't know what I'm doing!!" updates on facebook.

I might run out of patience, but I won't run out of activities. I'm keeping up. I'm getting ahead.

I think this is, how you say, growth.

A Place Where You Belong.

I just want to preface this ridiculously long blog by saying, if you don't make it through the whole thing, this is what matters: 1. I love Cambodia. 2. I love Sunset Lake.

Everyone wants to spend a week in the jungle, right?

Maybe not. I didn't.

It was New Years Eve, and we had just gotten back from Bali and we had the weekend to unpack, do laundry and pack again. We were set

to leave Monday for a week in the jungle with the senior class on senior survival.

I didn't want to go. I was tired, of people, of activity. [Which, yes, please Annie, complain more about your life...]

But I didn't say anything, I just took as much time by myself as I could find on Sabbath and on Sunday, and showed up Monday morning like I was supposed to.

Every day during the week the seniors have music class in my room during seventh period. I had never paid much attention to them, I am always making my out while they are making their way in. They're loud, and take up a lot of space, and I wasn't super excited about a week with them.

After nearly ten hours on the bus over some of the bumpiest roads I have ever experienced we arrived at Jombok Hoas. It is an ADRA run camp with challenge course type activities. Every year the seniors, the SMs and Rithy spend a week there bonding and growing as a class.

When we arrived were given open air bungalows with mosquito nets, sarongs and buckets for showering, and a lecture about malaria.

After we ate dinner we sat down to have worship. As we sang songs the sun was setting between the trees and I smiled thinking about Sunset Lake, those first Sunday nights, everyone a little unsure, but willing to try, a bunch of kids I didn't know but would soon love, and I prayed the same would happen here.

Monday morning dawned and we were fed rice and vegetables, which would be the case for three meals a day for the entire week. These Cambodians and their rice, my goodness. It was chilly in the morning, I'm not really sure what the temperature was. My definition of temperature has changed since I've been in Cambodia. But it was cool enough for JEANS! It was magical. After worship we were divided into groups and went out for different activities and games with our groups until lunch.

We had some issues with Khmer. Three of the seniors are from Laos and don't speak Khmer. So when we were doing activities they were left out of discussions and actions because everyone was speaking Khmer. At first no one was translating. Which wasn't a big deal for us SMs, it was more for the Laos boys we wanted them speaking English. But as the week went on a few of the kids were really good about translating for us.

Part of the schedule every day was the after lunch we had two hours of free time. Two beautiful hours!! I wasted no time in grabbing my Bible and heading down a path to find a place to read. As I sat on the ground and took in the silence I thought about camp and T.O. time every day, and how my Bible, the woods, and the silence kept me sane.

The week continued and we did all kinds of things, swaying bridge, leap of faith, giant swing, repelling, rock climbing, etc. And with each activity I became a little more comfortable, found a few more things to laugh at, learned another name. And then Wednesday at lunch it happened, the moment inhibitions were lost. -I remember at camp during adventure camp, my girls were still trying to figure the whole camp thing out. We had corndogs at dinner, one went uneaten and I turned it into a microphone to interview them about their days, and they laughed. And that was it. They were open. - At lunch someone asked me if I was juhlohm [confused] and I threw my hands in the air and responded loudly juhlohm ahtay! No confused! And they laughed. Loud. And that was it.

That night we played a game, do you love your neighbor? There was switching places involved and I was bad at it. I screamed a lot. They laughed and exclaimed juhlohm ahtay!

The following day was our last full day. After lunch and our final glorious T.O. time we marched through the jungle to the grand finale, the zip line. On the walk out Visak said well you know, Bill Gates first rule, life's not fair. We all laughed, because how does he just know that?! From then on we came up with more rules based on experiences we were having.

Rule number one: Life's not fair.

Rule number two: Don't break the bus.

Rule number three: Mix together and then you will know.

Rule number four: Copy everything as fast as you can.

Rule number five: Don't go to the bathroom when the bus is leaving.

And they continued on through rule sixteen: Don't laugh at me.

While we sat and waited for our turn to climb the big tree Dee-mons[please excuse my phonetic spelling] asked us, what is the opposite of handsome? Feetsome! Let me just say, funniest joke ever. Ohhhh Teacher Travis! You look so feetsome!

They taught me a game where in order to play I needed to know English. I lost. They all laughed at me, ohhh Teacher, you don't know English!

I climbed the tree and sat on the platform with some of the boys waiting for my turn, the view was beautiful!!! We talked about what we want out of life, because thats what you do when you're about to jump from a tree.

One of the boys, Rachana found it hilarious that Annie and any sound the same. And he kept asking me, you want any? Yes yes! Rachana you want any? Oh yes. Let me tell you, some jokes don't get old.

We sang a lot of songs during the week, a lot of songs we sing at school. But during some down time one of the boys started playing on the guitar, I lay my life down at your feet, 'cause you're the only one I need... And I stopped taken back to camp, singing! So wonderful!

Some of the seniors aren't so young. In fact a chunk of them are older than me. And at one point I made a joke about how my job was to watch the kmee kmee! [children] and not climb trees, that yelled, what?! You're just as much kmee kmee as we are!!

Because of my age and the fact that I am not actually their teacher it was easier to become their friend. There were two times I used my authority, once to take away a cell phone, and once to get everyone to go to bed because it was 12:30 and they showed no signs of stopping.

But there is just something about a week in the forest that can make you fall in love...

Before I knew it, it was Friday morning and we were packing up. I thought about Sunday mornings at camp. And how no matter how happy I was to not have a cabin full of girls anymore, I was always sad to see them go.

We rode the bus home. Almost forgot Travis at a stop... I guess he didn't know rule number five... When we arrived back at the school we were greeted by the dorm kids, running and hugging us. Joshua is too cool for running and hugging, he stood back and waited for me to come to him and then he told me, I miss you. Oh my goodness, I'm just in love.

As I type this the 12th graders are sitting in my classroom. When they came in they were loud as usual, but I got to be loud with them. There is something good about being involved and included. Even if it's only for fifteen minutes a day. It's nice to talk to kids that speak English, it's nice to love a new set of people. It makes five months in not so, regular.

I remember at camp when I had to leave for Cambodia I was so sad. I wasn't ready, I needed more time! I was sure I wasn't going to find that kind of happiness anywhere else. And I haven't. But I have found happiness, a different kind, I have found people to love, reasons to laugh. I know when I leave here in four months it's going to be hard. So incredibly hard. But I know that waiting for me on the other side of Cambodia is Sunset Lake. Camp deserves a blog of it's own and maybe I will write one. I sometimes think that I'm not sure I can be this happy outside of Cambodia. But being in the jungle for a week was a nice reminder of how happy I was before I came here, and though leaving is going to be just awful, but I will be going back to another place I love.

Blessed does not even begin to cover what I am.

I Am White, Hear Me Rawr!

There are no shopping malls in Cambodia. Well there is Sorya, but it's not what you think.

It's all markets.

Russian Market, Central Market, Orrusey Market. And then of course the smaller local markets.

Phsar Monnang is the market just down the street from the mission where we buy all our fruits and vegetables.

Each of the larger markets offers different things as far as interaction with people.

Russian is very touristy and very big. Most of the sellers speak enough English to deal with the tourists. And as you walk by each stall you hear, miss you want?! You need?! I have cheap price for you! It's a confusing set up, closely packed, and so ridiculously hot.

Central is also very touristy. Though the set up is not nearly as confusing as Russian. There is a large central area and then the market is divided into arms that are themed around the same sort of items, clothes, electronics, etc. The sellers are often a little more disinterested than at Russian, sometimes calling out, sometimes not.

Orrusey Market is not touristy at all. At three stories tall, you won't find postcards, clever t-shirts or a lot of white people. The wet market is a little overwhelming, and no one speaks too much English.

I get stared at a lot, as do all the white people around here. Doesn't matter if I'm just walking down the street, heads turn. Comments are made sometimes in English, sometimes in Khmer. It's something you get used to.

The other week I was walking to the mission with Thida, one of the girls in my class. And like usual every person we passed watched me, some said hello, some walked with us for a few steps. When we got to the mission she asked, Teacher, why?! Why they talk and look?

I pointed at my skin.

A few weeks ago I was leaving Central and a moto driver said to himself and those around him, ohh sa-aht barrang, meaning beautiful foreigner and then he said to me, moto?!

Today, I was wandering through Orrusey. I needed a shirt and some toothpaste. As I walked down the aisles, I could feel eyes on me from every direction. At Orrusey there is not many with my skin color and so it's impossible to blend in. Not many sellers call out, but they all stare.

I stopped at a stall to look at some shirts. The sellar wasn't paying attention and someone called out to her. Barang! Foreigner! And as I looked at shirts, the seller looked at me, a neighbor seller was standing there watching me as well and said, sa-aht s'baik bpoa. Meaning, beautiful skin color.

I looked down at my arm, laughed and said, Ah-tay! Kynom joe-jet bpoa t'naot! No! I like brown!

In their surprise they stopped talking and just watched me.

On the next floor I passed some pants that grabbed my attention. A man standing there moves aside and points to them. I nod and say, la-ah na bpoa. Very nice color. He replies in Khmer, you too, you want? First pointing at me and then pointing at the pants.

The only thing I could do was laugh.

Everywhere we go, sreys-ah! Beautiful girl!

In Cambodia I turn heads. In Cambodia I don't wash my hair or wear matching colors very often. But people still stare, point, and talk.

Who would've guessed.