Meatball Subs

June 3, 2016

 Our morning started at usual.  We take our computers into the meeting room so that we can access internet.  Dara has learned of our pattern and for the past three mornings comes in and looks at our computers which are usually full of pictures of the School and Orphanage.  He loves finding himself in the pictures and videos and points out his friends.

Ream and Kit took us to a breakfast cafe that served Khmer breakfast.  It's a few places down from the school and it was very good.  We had rice and pork, and Kit had noodles.  It was nice to visit with both of them for a while.  She said if they need to sacrifice home dreams for their work they would sacrifice.  To me, it looks like they're giving God their all.

Alfven, Joseph, Benjamin and Grace went to see Caleb, another missionary here, who teaches an English class.  He and his wife, Courtney, teach English to the 1st graders.  Anna and I went with Courtney to her class.  The students are taught to sit in lines and stand in lines.   It's a very orderly custom.

The kids work on their writing in English by copying and then practice saying phrases like "Hello, what is your name?/My name is ....", "How old are you?/I am .... How old are you?" and "How are you?/I am fine, thank you.  How are you?".  It was fun to watch Anna work with her own age group here.  Courtney said it was a treat for them to have a peer come to help in class.

Joseph helped quite a bit with the kids.  I heard that it was a very exciting reading of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" as the kids stormed the reader when the butterfly appeared!

After class, Alfven, Benjamin and Grace went on another home visit to a family with their daughter in the school.  They were a Christian family and Alfven said it was a wonderful visit.

They also had a sweet new puppy sleeping under the table where they sat.

We had another delicious lunch from Mao that included lychee!  And in the middle of lunch a big rain came through.  That is always an exciting time because the kids start running to the back to grab their laundry off the lines before it gets soaked.  They are such good sports about it laughing and helping each other.

One of the things that we got to do was to treat the orphanage to a Western style meal.  Kit suggested meatball subs based on the ingredients they can acquire from the local market and the city.  So for 2 1/2 hours the girls and I helped to make meatballs while many others made sauces, rice to help fill the meatballs and other things needing to be done to pull this dinner off.  Kit said that this is a treat for the kids because without the extra help (& funds) they couldn't do it.

I had never made ground beef out of large chunks of beef but the ladies here taught me how.  We chopped and chopped and chopped until the beef was little tiny pieces.  The sound of the hammering with the cleaver on the block could be heard up on the third floor!  Finally the meat grinder was cleaned and the job took a fraction of the time.

This is a pot that had been cracked pot that was repaired.  They do not throw much away here.  They become creative in how to fix things because there can be no waste.

After getting set up for the dinner we were going through the gifts we had brought for the Orphanage.  Last trip books for their school library had been a need so we had set some aside over the years and had several to donate.  When packing I had waited to make sure we had room and weight for the extra books.  I did leave some at home but I brought some too.  After helping in Caleb and Courtney's  classes I offered them the books.  We had brought "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?" and "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What do you see?" and some beginning readers from National Geographic with beautiful pictures.  Caleb and Courtney said the books were perfect for their 1st grade English classes.  God went before us and knew where we could help :)

 Benjamin got a huge old hug from Dara when he returned from school today!

After chores and free time fun it was suggested that we serve the meatball subs buffet style and it was so fun to do!

After chores and free time it was suggested that we serve the meatball subs to the kids.  It was a ton of fun to see them look at the size of the subs!  They were 12 inch subs with 4 huge meatballs, sauces and cheese.  Some of the kids ate 1 1/2 subs!  They don't get meat much and one of the girls had said that she hadn't had beef before.

After dinner Kit put on a kids movie and we had M&Ms that didn't get into their goody bags the other night, so we handed those out as movie snacks.  I didn't realize that they were still in the back of the fridge here.  We had been collecting the individual packs of M&Ms and putting them in our freezer for a year, in hopes of coming back so we had more than I had thought :)

The kids went to bed full and happy, waiting for tomorrow because tomorrow we take them into the city for fun!

"Let love be without hypocrisy.  Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good."  Romans 12:9