Touched - Day 4

*Warning: this entry is looooong, brace yourself!*

My day today started very extra specially early, 5.45am to be exact. I had to be up and ready for my first experience of a Christian Khmer (pronounced Khamai) wedding which started at 7am... yes that's right 7AM! It was a surreal waking up in pitch black but I actually managed it. The wedding itself reminded me a lot of the traditional engagements of a Nigerian wedding. The groom had a procession to the bride’s house (which was really the church) and we all went behind him in pairs bearing silver trays of matching fruit. Then we had to stand outside whilst the negotiators negotiated the terms:

Bride family: "Who is this man??"
Groom family: "We have come to seek the hand of your daughter"
Bride family: "our daughter?"
Groom family "yes your daughter"
Bride Family "Ah...really?
Groom Family "yes really...." and so on and so forth.

Eventually we were accepted in and the Christian ceremony proceeded, and just like in all other traditional weddings I’ve been to I didn’t understand a word of what was being said! But there were lots of pretty colours to look at so I enjoyed myself in my own way!

After a few hours we left, and I had the rest of the morning to myself. Like i wrote yesterday, I’ve been thinking a lot about the reality of being a missionary. What it would be like to be a single person on the mission field to be alone and so far away from family, My two housemates are in there late 20's/early 30's and there are not too many male prospects around! How would I handle that? Or even more complicated... what would it be like to raise a family here. For them to endure the staring, and the alienation and the heat! Would it be fair to put them through that? So so many thoughts in my head about the practicalities and realities of this potential life. But God being himself (i.e being good) was on hand to speak to me. I had another meeting at 3pm and so took most of the mid morning gap to pray (although I did also watch Titanic....it was a long gap!) I really asked God to speak to me about this country, and lo and behold his voice, well impression came...

At 3pm I took another Tuktuk with Serene to meet a woman called Ruth Elliot who runs a programme in Cam called “Daughters”. Basically they offer women who are prostitutes another way of making an income by teaching them other practical skills. In coming to the centre the girls have to agree to leave the life of prostitution.
Now i had been looking forward to this meeting since i arrived but i don’t think anything could have prepared me for what i saw. We had driven for a long time, to the poorest part of the Phnom Penh, down alleyways, past rotting sewers and into a small tiny cramped street. Based on first impressions i wasn’t expecting much at all! We had to sign in the visitors book and read the visitors guidelines which included things like not taking photos of the girls, and not disclosing the whereabouts of the centre or the girls that were there. Then we were given a tour.

The centre is simply a really big house that has been separated into several areas. We started the tour on the ground floor where some of the girls were painting the nails of tourists. They showed us the designs and colours they were using and the tourists seemed happy enough with the designs. In the next room were girls some girls working at several sowing machine stations, our guide told us that these girls had only just arrived at the centre and so were being given a month of teaching where they learnt basic sowing skills and were shown how to use a sowing machine..
The next room had another group of about 6 girls sitting on the floor hand-stitching bags, purses, scarves. These girls were the ones who had progressed from the first class and were practicing their own designs. The next room had another 5 or so girls hand weaving lace tapestries. Literally taking a string and weaving lace patterns out of nothing but there imagination. When they had finished the small lace stitching they then passed it on to the adjacent group who were painstakingly hand-stiching they different lace tapestries together to make table coverings, pillow cases etc. It was really quite amazing to watch.

We then went upstairs to the kitchen area to meet some more girls. This group were very very (!) chatty and spoke some English they had been at the centre the longest and were really friendly. They insisted were tried some of the potato soup, fresh bread and caramel cake they had just finished preparing. They how Ruth was supporting told me of their plans to open a restaurant nearby, calling it Daughters Cafe, where they would sell all their new recipes!
In the final room were a group people making buttons... yes buttons made of leather made by hand. I have never seen anything like it! Some of the people in the group were transsexual boys, they didn’t look more than 14/15. It was a shock at first to see them acting so feminine and i didn’t know who they were but later Ruth explained they were also ex-sex workers from the area. They had literally come to the centre a couple of weeks ago and then just last Sunday 4 of them suddenly gave their lives! It was a touching story!

Ruth herself is quite an amazing woman, and I found myself really relating to her. Being at the centre it kept coming to me over and over again that she was really changing these girl’s lives by giving them a way out of the sex trade they were caught in. She told me Daughters even had an arrangement with the local bank so that when girls finished at the centre (which takes about 2yrs) they would help them get a loan so they can buy their own sewing machine and start their own business. It was truly touching. It really got me thinking for the first time since I’ve been here about the impact that can be made when we answer God’s call. What would have become of these girls (and boys) if Ruth had stayed in England because of the comforts of life? For the first time I really thought about the need of these people. I was so encouraged because with my own two eyes I could see that God was using ministries like Daughters to practically change real lives.

Lx