July 10 - Missions, Part 2 (to be continued)

As the team left, I moved in with Pastor Simon and Dora Valenzuela. I began going to the orphanage every day. It was only a matter of time before the children got over their shyness and started swarming me. I remember playing tag with the younger children, chasing them all over the orphanage. Once, a couple of the boys climbed up the back wall of one of the buildings and dared me to follow. Another time I was trying to take a nap on a mat, but I wasn't to be left alone. The children would run up to me one at a time to grab my feet, while I was warding off another. By the end of the two weeks that I was there, the children had become like younger siblings to me. The night before I was to leave, they gathered around to thank me for coming. I can still see the picture in my mind, with them sitting on the floor in front of me and the staff gathered around. I can't fully explain the feelings in my heart at that point, but I knew that I loved those kids.
Simon and Dora's daughter, Lois, was responsible for the youth meetings that took place once a week. The attendees came from the village. I had the privilege to speak one night. I remember for me it was something of a freeing experience, as I had always had problems with public speaking, but found that with a translator, I could talk fine without stumbling over my words.
I took part in some other activities, like repainting a room in one of the buildings and taking the kids swimming, but the one that I spent the most time on was teaching some of the village youth to play basketball. The Cambodian sport is soccer. Should I have gotten mixed up in a soccer game, I never would have been able to keep up. But basketball was something that they didn't know how to play, and I knew a little something about, so I made use of the single basketball hoop in the orphanage, every bit of pavement available, and the little training I had had in sixth grade to not only teach basketball, but to organize a tournament at the end of that week. That week I spent with the guys from the village is one of my most memorable experiences. Of course, I didn't speak Cambodian, and very few of them could understand any English, so trying to communicate what I wanted them to do often times resulted in a lot of laughs. I would say something over and over, while showing them what to do, and anyone who could understand a couple of the words I used would explain it to the others. Teaching them from scratch, I had to determine to what degree I would call them on for mistakes, like fouls. Lois got me a whistle, which of course made things more entertaining.
They were a good group of guys. We would begin with drills. I remember after so many days of drills, when I said it was time for suicides, they would all grimace. I didn't give them room to complain, though, since I ran with them. What I really appreciated was that they were always so cheerful about it. Even running those suicides in ninety degree weather didn't repulse them.
After drills we would scrimmage. I would attempt to call them on as many mistakes as I could easily catch, while they had a blast pounding the pavement. These scrimmages were fun and humorous.
Finally, at the end of that week, we took them to a nearby school to play a tournament on the public court. A professional ref probably would have been at his wits end at how many errors went uncalled, but what I remember is a bunch of guys who had no idea of how to play basketball coming together and, at the end of a week, being able to take that ball up and down the court, block, and score. Funny thing is, I am a terrible basketball player. I don't look back on that as so much of an accomplishment on my part. Rather, I see it as having been an amazing opportunity to build relationships with those guys.
In fact, that is primarily what I came away from that trip with. If you are looking for a series of accomplishments or activities to mark a successful missions trip, you won't find it in any of mine. But what I learned from those children and youth in Siem Reap, Cambodia was that the key to missions, in fact, the key to being a witness for Jesus Christ anywhere in the world, is relationships. While building houses, doing Vacation Bible Schools, etc are important and necessary, those things don't give you access into the hearts of the people you are seeking to help. The only way to point others towards Jesus is through binding your heart to theirs in relationship. This means hard work, and often sacrifice, because if your heart is bound to theirs, than anything that separates you or touches them will burn your heart. But it is vital. Jesus did command us to love God first, then others, didn't He? It seems to me that He answered the question of how to fulfill the Great Commission with that one simple command.