Last Friday, I visited the new Village Learning Program in Takeo Province. This is the one that the team from AZ helped to build in March. When I entered the doorway, I was immediately and pleasantly surprised by the teacher, Chovy. She seemed quite in control of the group of nearly 20 9-12 year olds. She seemed confident and well trained. She spoke clearly and loudly. I was surprised because she has always been very quiet and reserved. I was unsure of how she would do on the job. My fears were quickly put to rest. I'm sure she will only improve over time. I'm very happy that our training program worked so well. Sina deserves much credit for training her so well.
As of now there are about 30+ children in the program. I expect it to increase over the coming weeks to our typical 60ish.

I'm excited that most of the children are unchurched. It's a great opportunity to see how well our program reaches out to them.   At First, the parents were afraid to send their children because they feared the children would be ridiculed and beaten like the public school. But now they are seeing that our program is different. We even have a few kids that come twice per day. And others want to stop attending the public school; although we encourage them to attend. 
Please remember to pray for the host church. It is small and has been small for many years, but the group is well grounded and committed. One reason it remains small is the prevalence of rice Christians in the area. Our hope is the program will cause the church to grow over time.

Sina took it upon herself the other day to take all the kids (64 in all) from two of the village schools to the zoo.

As I was visiting our Village School in Jeung Prey, teacher Kim Huang told me a little story about one of her students that was sick and had to stay home and miss class one day. It made the student cry because she couldn't come to class that day. Wow! I love to hear stories that show that what we are doing is having a significant impact on our students.

In February, we opened Village School House #2 in a village quite close the the first one. The name of the village is translated something like "at the base of the forest". However, the forests have long been replaced by rice fields.

It was a bit of a slow start. On the first day we had only 5 students show up from the 20 that had pre-registered. Everyday the number increased and by the next week, we had over 60 kids and more say they want to attend. Of these, only 7 currently believe in Jesus. What a tremendous opportunity we have to teach them how to read and write and learn of the wonders of salvation using the literacy books developed by the Bible Society of Cambodia!

For one hour a day, as a supplement to regular school (if they get regular school), they learn to read the Bible, sing praise songs, pray and some other practical things like hygiene and manners on a daily basis. We are also adding in additional subjects such as math and geography. On Sundays, they have the opportunity to attend the church that meets in the same place.

(Below) Ages 7-14. When asked none of these children said they could read prior to attending our program, although they all attend a local school. Paul told them that now they make their teacher at the school look good because they will be the smartest students in their class. One girl (middle row, left) said that she recently got the highest marks in her class.

 
It is the end of a great week for Allan, Mike and Tom from the USA. They came to help build a new Village School House and worship center in a village loosely translated "Jungle Pond Village".

On their last day, the church held a brief celebration to dedicate the new facility to God and ask his blessings on the new school house and church. The church has been meeting at the pastor's house on the same property for the past 10 years. It will be a great blessing for them to have a place of worship like this.

Here the pastor prays for a safe return trip to America.

 
Tom, Allan and Mike from Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in AZ arrived to join in the construction of our new Village School House (and church) located in Takeo Province about 1-1/2 hours south of Phnom Penh. 

Boy they work fast! Not. Construction had already begun last week.

We've started construction this week of the new school/church in Takeo Province. The first phase is building the foundation in preparation for a team that will come from Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in AZ to help with the final building phase later this month. The building will be a copy of the one Sina currently teaches in.

After the Khmer New Year in mid-April we will open our third Village School. These are exciting times indeed!

Wow! On day 1 we had only 5 students show up from the 20 that had pre-registered. The next day there were 16, not bad. The day after there were 40 - now we're talking. This week, (10 days later) we have 64 kids and more say they want to attend.

Of the 64 only 7 currently believe in Jesus. We fully expect that many of those, perhaps all, will trust in Jesus in the coming months and years. Please pray for these children (and their families) as they learn to read and write and learn of the wonders of salvation.

Also, we are in contact with the Bible Society of Cambodia about providing text books as they have done in the past. It's a bit slow going with them. Please pray that it won't be long before we can acquire the books and tapes.

Attendance at the new village school reached 40 students on the second day. Praise God. We only had 20 pre-register. We can handle up to 80 students without the classes getting too big. 

Recently all of the teachers gathered with Paul, Mai and Neth (7 in all) to have a time of encouragement and team building. It was important because it's not often that we are all together since we work in different provinces. Paul shared a short message from Prov. 22:6 encouraging the teachers to train up children in the ways of the Lord and how important their role is. And also to enjoy what they do.

Village School #2 opened today. It was a modest start. We had 20 students pre-registered. The first morning class had 5 attend with another class scheduled for the afternoon. Many families are afraid of the church. Our program aims to change that and we fully expect our enrollment to grow rapidly.

There are also scheduling challenges with the local school. Apparently they frequently change their morning/afternoon schedule which is confusing for students. We try to schedule our program to coincide with the local school so they students can come regularly.

A member of the host church for the new Village School House has donated some land to the church that is waiting for God to provide the means to build a new church/Village School House. Depending upon the type of construction, a nice functional structure can be built for as little as $5,000. Please pray for God's provision.

We've set the date for the opening of one of two new Village School Houses. The teacher Kim Huong is now training with Sina and two other new teachers. I think they like the camaraderie, but soon they will be on their own.

Below (left to right) is a picture of Paul with the pastor of the new host church, home owner of the church and program location, and Kim Huong and Sina.

Please pray that registration on Jan. 22 goes smoothly. Our target is 50-80 children. There may be more, but that's too difficult for one teacher to manage. We are also hoping the Bible Society of Cambodia will get involved and help provide literacy books and tapes like they did last time.

This is the location of where one of our new Village School Houses will meet. It's in a village very nearby Sina's village. It's also the meeting place of a small church. Our teacher in training is Kim Huang. Classes may begin in February, 2009.
 

Here's a terrific article that sums up many of the challenges facing Cambodia's future. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43552

Quote from Article: Two of the most significant barriers to increasing women’s participation in the workforce are their education and health status.... Approximately 40 percent of women aged 25-44 are illiterate (vs 22 percent for men). Although improving in younger age groups, 23 percent of young women aged 15-24 are illiterate (vs 16 percent of young men).

We are very pleased that through God's grace we are able to help educate young girls and boys and provide some great opportunities to some young women as teachers in our Village School Houses.

I arrived at the Village School House to see a whole pile of flip-flops. Wow! That means there's a whole lot of good stuff going on inside. PTL!

We have some friends visiting now. They are from the same church that Jerry Low is from. We've known them for many years, before we served in Thailand. I saw them last year in America, but Mai hasn't seen them since the old days. Anyway, they had fun visiting the village and took over the class for a while to teach the song Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. Our kids learned it quickly enough.

I was very excited to see a whole table of new students in the class. These are from unchurched families that have heard about the program and sent their kids to learn in our program. I also think that in addition to our good reputation, the new building has something to do with giving the school an identity of it's own - rather than meeting in someone's house. I'm very excited because all the kids in our program eventually trust in Jesus and attend church.

The new children are around the table in the left side of the picture. 

God has provided an abundance of new teachers for the Village School House program!  All will be training for a few months in Sina's class until they are ready to fly solo.

Left to Right: Sina, Chovi, Kim Huang and Tiari

All of them are training right now, which is a good thing because when I visited the school yesterday there were more than 35 kids in the class, much more than we like to have in one class.

Chovi will teach in her village in Takeo Province, about 45 minutes south of the current school house. Kim Huang has not yet been approved as a new teacher. I haven't yet been to see the village and meet the pastor of the host church. But she seems very good with children and wants to teach. Tiari is Sina's sister and will be her part-time assistant.

Please pray that God is with them all and they can do the job. Chovi is only 18 and only has an 8th grade education. It may be the most challenging for her.

This past week Sina began to train Chovi, a new teacher that we hope will be able to start at a new Village School House in 3-4 months.

Chovi is in the front left along with her family and some visitors from Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in AZ. They are standing on the land that may become a new school building and church.

Please pray for Chovi's training. She only has a middle school education, but can read well.  Her father is the pastor of a couple of churches in the area.