Ministry On Bangkachang

On Saturday afternoon at about 3pm, we left the church and took the two-wheeled taxi to the jetty. Taking taxis in Cambodia, as you should know by now, meant risking our lives without crash helmets, but thank God the traffic in Koh Kong was not as bad as Phnom Penh.

Marissa had gone on ahead of us, to the market to buy packets of biscuits for the children's ministry on Bangkachang island, and when she met us, she said since there were six of us going, we would take a 'bigger' boat. I thought... ok, bigger boat = something like this size, right? Yup, like the pump boat we took from Iloilo to Guimaras island in the Philippines. Not too bad.

Who knows she wasn't referring to those, but to these little fellars.

Anyway, we survived that ride, and reached the island in one piece. To all our brethren who had visited the island previously and had their feet soaked because the beach was flooded, you may like to know that Pastor Vic was prepared with his white slippers, but I went [by faith] in my only pair of shoes. Actually, the truth was, I didn't know about the Bangkachang flooding until I got there.
I'm pleased to report that it was very, very dry and sandy that day. Pastor Vic was most surprised - he had been to the island several times before and each time, he said he had to wade to the houses which stood on stilts. And Marissa told me that Baozhen got her feet dry only because she had a um...gallant husband. Well, this time, it was dry. For me.
There was a large group of kids waiting for us, and chairs miraculously appeared out of nowhere, arranged in the shade of a house near the concrete jetty. The three Cambodian young people who were with us led the children in prayer and songs while we watched from a distance.

Marissa and the team go to Bangkachang village every Saturday for this ministry, and they taught the children Christian songs and told stories from the bible. We heard that there may be about 60 children in the whole island, but only about 20-plus gathered there that day. We were told that the older children may be too embarrassed to be seen together with the young ones and thus refused to be there, but perhaps, in future, if they had two classes, they would be able to gather more of the Bangkachang youth population together.
Here are some children playing with a kite on the concrete jetty. There's just one school on the island, and this school had three classrooms catering to Grades 1 to 6 (i.e. Primary 1 to 6). The older children had to take the boat to the main island of Koh Kong and back for their studies each day.
The children's session ended with some mad games and finally, the distribution of the biscuits.