Pailin - volunteering work

Pailin is the place where I did volunteering work for Alliance Global Serve. I guess I'm kind of a special case for them, because I think usually people go in a team, and people usually have some kind of subsidies from church. I had neither. I was able to get free lunch and dinner at Panneth's place because of that :)

I have to say that for me, it seems the trip to Pailin wasn't finalized until the very very end. I mean the very end, because all along I wasn't able to contact Ka Lun, and couldn't confirm that AGS has made all the arrangements for me, even when I arrived Cambodia. I was only able to contact some local personnel nearby, who English wasn't very good. Thanks the Lord, everything was fine at the end!

At the beginning, I thought I was going to just hook up some computers, and then I can g do my own things there, but because of some parts failure, and my own inefficiency due to the fact that I haven't fixed a computer for some time, it took me 2 days to hook up everything! At one point I was worried that I would only be able to finish 1 or 2 computers, and I wouldn't know what to report back to AGS. Thank God, everything was finished as planned at the end.

At first, Ka Lun has planed quite a bit of activities for me, but due to various factors, most of them didn't happened. However, at the end I did met her English class. Even though they couldn't speak good English, I was able to communicate most of the time, but of course couldn't go very deep. Some of them even helped me out to fix the computers. I feel many of them are smart, and want to learn more. However they lack the resources and opportunities. In the very last night, we gathered at the church to have a little gathering. Nothing was planned, we just chatted, and at the end they showed me a Cambodian game. Now when I think back, I wish I have done more that night, and more initiations.

I originally planned for 3 days in Pailin. However because of lack of activities there, when chatting with Ka Lun about my original plan to go to the beach, she suggested me to leave one day early to go there. After some thoughts, I decided to take her advice. I'm still not sure if I've made the right decision, because it seems that I've done so little in Pailin and I don't know if the Lord would have shown me more if I have stayed for 1 more day.

I do have to admit that at the end I was worried about my health if I stayed longer. My guest house room was full of little mosquitoes, I already had bites everywhere on my legs and I was quite worried about malaria. But then I could have just easily switched to another hotel...