"Teacher, teacher!" the students chant waving notebooks in the air, showing off pages of sloppy Khmer writing. What is ironic is that I help them write in Khmer although I do not know the language at all!
'New Life in Christ' Church runs a school called 'New Hope' which educates more than 150 students daily. These students are mostly unbelievers from the neighborhood, who get to attend school, because this one has made itself affordable to their families. 'New Hope' School began as a preschool in 2005, and then grew into an elementary school.
Every morning I help in the first grade class. I help the students to write in Khmer, supervise them during recess, and then teach English. Josh teaches a preschool class and a grade 2 and 3 combined class. In the evening at 5:30-6:30pm, we teach English to college-aged students. I teach the 'beginners class', which I taught for the first time without a translator! The students and I definitely had a lot of laughs as we tried to understand one another.
I feel so happy for the students as they advance in their education, resulting in an advance in their life's ambitions. In a nation that is called 'hopeless', it is beautiful to play our small part in this Christ-centered education.

I would love to learn the Khmer language. A missionary named Matthew who lives here with his Cambodian wife and two young daughters, gave Josh and I some flash cards. Just looking at the alphabet, I do not understand it at all. The numbers are a little more straight forward. Hopefully, as we build relationships with some of the locals, we will be able to learn some Khmer. At least it isn't a tonal language, contrary to what we thought.