Just a short word from Micah Bergen
Hey Everyone!
It has been a wonderful start to the new year. I hope that everyone else is having a great year, so far. Kels and I have been busy at it this year (although not busy bodies--because we know what Scripture says about those people). I know that Kelsi wrote some about Christmas already, but I just want to thank everyone again for the amazing generosity that went into BYKOTA Christmas. The video is just a short clip of me talking (BORING), but I wanted to test the video quality of the new computer. If you notice, I am alone in the video, and that is because Kelsi is gone to the airport with her grandparents--Wendell and Carol. They have been with us the last two weeks, and it has been really refreshing. Wendell taught the older BYKOTA boys how to make baby gates out of PVC pipe, so we can contain our children from the Cambodian architecture (stairs). He also built some for the roof to keep Muggy from digging up our garden. During that project, Wendell and I cut ourselves with a rusty hack saw trying to slim the length by one inch... it goes without saying that they are snugly in place ;) Carol helped Kelsi with her month of cooking for February--since we also were blessed by a deep freeze. Mark and I went to Russian market and bought fifty kilos of pork and ground it up to freeze. It ended up saving us over a hundred and fifty dollars in meat! This month, we have been doing school a little differently at School of the Nations. Our schedule has been all thrown off since the kids started Khmer school, but we had been wanting to try something different with the kids. Although the PACE Book system is a fine education, Kelsi and I felt like as certified teachers, we could do more for the kids while we were here (the PACE books can be taught by anyone--not only teachers). So, we have been teaching explicitly this month. We broke all the kids into four categories--Kindergarten, Middle age in need of more basic instruction, Middle level in need of moderate English instruction, and Older in need of intermediate/advanced English. I am of course teaching the moderate and intermediate groups and Kelsi has taken on the Kindergarten and basic groups. Although the kids could have continued in PACE Books and been fine, I think that they are benefiting from learning English from someone speaking it to them, who also has a college education in teaching. Eventually, when we leave, they will go back to PACE Books and continue on in their English education, if that is God's will. (PAUSE). Sorry for that, I needed to go and take care of Abby... she just threw up all over the floor. I love being a dad :) Anyways, I mention in the video that we went to the zoo with the BYKTOA kids and staff... crazy! We had to rent a bus. Such a sweet experience! I really want to add pictures, and I will as soon as I can get some on this computer. I also mention in the video that my computer crashed to the floor--tile, of course, because it is Cambodia. I prayed and prayed that it would be some other hardware problem, but no it was my hard disk--for all you non-computer people out there, that is where all your memory and documents are kept and if it breaks, you most of the time lose everything (no big deal--just my entire college career and pictures). I am now typing on a notebook, which I plan on backing up to an external hard drive frequently and keeping no photos on. I love Cambodia prices on things! I not only got a great deal on the computer, they also through in a mouse, mouse pad, soft case, and cleaning wipes... oh and there was no tax on the final cost :) but strawberries cost $15 for a small carton :/ weird. When I post the pictures from the zoo, I will talk more about it. For now, I think that I will keep it short and say "God is good. He is at work. Pray. Thank you."
BecauseHeLives,
Micah.
