My Friday with Students from Japan

When I first moved to Tuol Kork (an area of Phnom Penh) I was introduced to a woman from Japan named Akiko Sasaki. (“Akiko” is also my mother’s name.)  Since meeting Akiko I have done a few small volunteer projects to help Akiko and her husband with their healthcare NGO. I received an invitation from Akiko and today had the privilege of going to the Mother Teresa Mission of Charity with a group of eight university students from Fukuoka, Japan. I really enjoyed meeting these students. They were very nice people and seemed to have a genuine happiness and great energy despite only having a very short night of sleep and being in a completely new environment. They also seemed to be interested in me; possibly in part because I am Japanese, but removed from the Japanese culture. We had some good laughs as I discovered that I actually speak more Japanese than I thought I did – the reason being that the words “cup”, “straw”, “shirt”, “camera” and “hair” are the same in Japanese as they as they are in English.

The Mission of Charity was started in 1993 by Mother Teresa – only 4 years before she passed from this world. Our visit was hosted by Sister Joanna Marie who is Vietnamese by birth, but was raised in the United States. Before meeting with Sister Joanna Marie we assembled in the waiting room that is part of the Convent on the large campus that makes up the Mission of Charity. In the waiting room there were several posters with quotes from Mother Teresa, most of which I recognized from having read Mother Teresa’s daily devotional book “Love: A Fruit Always in Season” every day for more than the last 15 years. As I glanced around the room I noticed on one of the walls there was a laminated poster. It was a picture of Mother Teresa with her personal handwriting “God bless you all Teresa MC” written on it. I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing and reached out to touch the edge of the poster and ran my hand over a part of her writing. This was such an emotional and powerful experience.

 

The Convent is surrounded by beautiful gardens and on the opposite side of the gardens there is a residential health care area where people who are ill and poor may come to live, to eat, and to heal.  Sister Joanna Marie said that many who come there do not live long. The Mission of Charity, however, gives them love, respect, a safe and good place to live – and the Sisters help to usher them home to God. Those that do live longer will usually live at the Mission of Charity for their whole life. The Mission of Charity will help them to receive an education and to get a job. Sister Joanna Marie then took us to the HIV unit. In the children’s HIV unit we saw a two year old child who was HIV positive. The good news is that medicine has dramatically improved meaning that people live longer with HIV and also that far fewer children are born HIV positive because pregnant mothers can get effective medicine when they are pregnant so that their children are not born HIV positive. What impedes this happening sometimes is the shame that comes from being HIV positive. We heard that one of the children at the Mission of Charity was actually born in the street because his mother felt too much shame to go to the hospital and receive treatment.

 

On the way to the HIV unit I saw a man with one leg come hopping through the doorway of the dispensary area; he had the biggest smile on his face. I saw him a second time later in the morning. He was riding a bike and when I said the traditional Khmer greeting to him his face again lit up with a smile. It was so clear to me from seeing this man and from seeing the energy and smiles on the children’s faces there that God is blessing the work that is being done in His name there.

Sister Joanna Marie explained to us that the Sisters make four promises to God: 1) To live in poverty, 2) To live chaste, 3) To be obedient to God, and 4) To serve the poor without ever asking for any money in return. As we gathered to say goodbye to Sister Joanna Marie tears began to roll down my cheeks as I was filled with such deep respect and gratitude for the way these Sisters have chosen to live and to love God and to serve people who are poor and ill.  

After visiting the Mission of Charity we got back in the bus and went to lunch together. I thought it was kind of funny that I was in Cambodia, riding in a bus full with students from Japan, and that all they wanted to eat was Chinese food. We went to a really good restaurant though and had fun with the iTranslate app on my iPhone. I showed the group leader, Lei, how I could say something in English into the phone and it would translate both in writing and spoken word what I said into Japanese. We started having a conversation back and forth using the app and at the end of lunch I said that my favorite dish was the first one we were served: chicken and noodles. She replied about her favorite dish and somehow it was translated, “It was a delicious guy that came out at the beginning.” I started laughing really hard, but I was the only one at the table laughing and when I couldn’t explain what was so funny Lei said to the other students, “American joke”.

In the afternoon we visited an orphanage called The Cornerstone. It is run by a Christian woman from Japan. She has more than 20 children living with her; they range in age from 7 – 20 years old; most coming from the Provinces. We were with Cornerstone for about 3 hours. We jumped rope, chased the children around the yard, played a jumping game, and sat in ad hoc groups on the ground exchanging English, Japanese, and Khmer terms – and laughing when we didn’t understand. Two of the students from Japan shared a collection of drawings that they had done to demonstrate the importance of and proper way to wash one’s hands.  

One of the students from Japan has serious hops

 

 

It was really heartwarming to see how happy these children are and how excited and welcoming they were to us as visitors. On the way to dinner there was a crowd gathered in front of one of the Ministry buildings. The guide told me that this was a demonstration in protest of the government taking away the land where people were living next to the railroad tracks and only giving each family $8,000 – not enough for them to replace their homes with.

 

 

We went to dinner at a place near the National Museum called “Friends”. It is a little more expensive, but the proceeds go toward helping former street youth who are learning job skills and working at the restaurant. It was a very nice dinner. It was getting late and so after dinner we just took a short walk and then packed into two tuk tuks to return to the hotel. It was really fun to see how excited the students were to ride in a tuk tuk for the first time. They literally were squealing with excitement.  

Not the dinner we ate. This picture was taken from the bus as we passed through the market on the way to dinner.