How Long Since I Found Jesus?

A few days after I started working here at IDE, my friend Phalla, the receptionist, mentioned that she was going to the country that weekend with friends. She invited me along. The plan fell through. The conversation went something like this:

Adam – A
Phalla – P
Adam’s Brain – B

A - “Are we going to the country this weekend?”
P - “No no. Sorry. Cannot do this weekend. I go to the country this weekend with friends. Maybe next weekend you come? We help children?”
A - “Help children? Help children how?
P - “Give food. Make show.”
B - “Aha! A chance to help poor orphans in the countryside.”
A - “Sounds good.”
P - “Friends from this group all Christian. This is okay?”
B – “This might be a little awkward. Still, working with orphan children is still good work.”
A – “No problem. I am still happy to help.”

The trip finally happened last weekend. As it turns out, this group was very Christian. They were also very young. I knew something was amiss when Phalla asked me to fill out a form and asked for the name of my pastor and my parent’s permission. Arriving on the bus that weekend, I felt awkward and out of place. I began reading my Khmer grammar book, trying to teach myself how to read and write. The boy sitting next to me started to help. When we arrived Phalla and I were having a new conversation:

P – “You learn Khmer.”
A – “Yes. Your friend is a good teacher.”
P – “He’s good teacher. If you want, he teach you English, yes? When are you free?”
B – “That was a mite forceful. How do I back out of this gracefully…?”

We arrived at what appeared to be a small church with a large outdoor yard. A tent had been setup, the kind that one usually associates with revivalist meetings in the Southern US hosted by a pastor whose name begins with Brother and end with either ‘love’, ‘-iah’, or ‘-iel’. I was assigned with Phalla to the stage decorating group. My ready-made nametag said: “Ädam Kaufman, Stage Decoration, Sex: Female.” No one else’s nametag mentioned sex. I don’t know why.

There were people working as “Cameramen,” “Entertainment,” and “Supplies.” As it turns out, I had agreed to participate in a membership drive for an evangelical Christian group. Oops. Nearly a thousand children from nearby schools, some Christian, many not, were coming for the entertainment. There were hip-hop dancers, English language lessons, a raffle, and many prizes. Several local food vendors set up shop nearby. Phalla bought some baked salted snails, which several of us ate by using a thorn to pull the snail out of its shell. At first I felt like this was a novelty; then I realized the French had beaten me to the punch.

Several men were busily assembling a stage just in front of the tent, using logs and 2x4s. I began inflating balloons and quickly made friends by helping others to practice their English and French. Once the stage was built, I helped to decorate. Along the way, several more fun conversations between Phalla, me, and my brain occurred.

P – “You look tired.”
A – “I am. I could not sleep last night.”
P – “You can not sleep last night. Do you sleep alone? Maybe it’s because you sleep alone.”
B – “What the heck?! That doesn’t sound very conservatively Khmer, or even Christian for that matter. Relax. Figure it out…”
A – “Do you sleep alone?”
P – “No I sleep with friends.”
B – “Now we’re getting somewhere!” ;)

As it turns out, she was referring to her housemates from her all Christian dorm. This led to her asking if I wanted a roommate. I’m still looking to integrate as much as possible here. I’ve been keeping my ears open for some time for an opportunity to find a Khmer housemate who could maybe also double as a cultural informer...

P – “I have a friend. He good to sleep with.”
A – “Okay…”
P – “Don’t trust Khmer boys. They many bad people. But he is good person. He has Jesus. Others don’t. He can stay with you. Can not pay though. Okay?”
B – “That was a mite forceful again. Perhaps I should try for someone less earnest. Again, how do I back out without causing offence…?”

Standing on Stage in Front of the Children

I spent most of the afternoon making friends, teaching English, and learning Khmer. To the usual basic questions of “What is your name?” “Where do you come from?” and “Tell me about your family,” was added a new one: “How long do you have Jesus?” I felt like an awkward interloper when they asked this question. Between my awkwardness and our mutual lack of vocabulary, to my shame I responded the first time with, “A long time.” This seemed okay for them. The second time, trying to be more honest, I responded with “Not very long.” Most of my audience were the only Christian converts in their family. I tried explaining that my family was Jewish as a way of leading them towards the fact that I wasn’t Christian. The conversations went something like this:

C - Christian

C - “What is Jewish?”
A – “It is a different religion. Here you have Christian, Buddhist, Chinese, and Muslim. Jewish also is different.”
C – “Okay but you have Jesus Christ.”
A – “Actually no. Jewish people also have the Bible but we believe only the parts before Jesus. We believe in God, yes, but we don’t believe in Jesus.”

For them, this did not compute. No one understood. How can you have one God without having Jesus? The conversation would go elsewhere and eventually I would be asked again, “How long you have Jesus?” I’ve since met other Khmer Christians, some of whom spoke excellent English. No one seems to understand about the Jewish thing. I did manage to communicate the concept a bit by saying that it was the religion in Israel. They understood that part. It would seem the Zionists had a point in saying that peoples and religions are instinctively tied to nations…

Along the way, I learned two surprising things. These weren’t all children. The reason they looked so young was chronic malnutrition. A few were my age. A few were older. I also learned that not all of the participants were Christian. I made friends with two girls, Sreyna and Sovanly who told me that they were both Buddhist but living at the Christian school so as to get a good education. I’ve noticed that though the Christians here are only 1% of the population, they seem to make up a very disproportionate number of the educated and professional class.

That night, back in Phnom Penh, I was invited me to join them for Khmer New Years games. We ran, stood, and laughed in the middle of the street playing games that would have worked well at any children’s camp. I nearly gave myself a black eye playing the Khmer equivalent of Duck Duck Goose. Once a clutz, always a clutz no?