The 2009 KM mission team left for Cambodia this Monday. If I could I would have endured 10 hours confined in a box to go with them. Going to the airport with them and then seeing them off made me oh so very nostalgic and I found myself reminiscing on when I went on missions with my team two years ago.

We had a team built for disaster. Or that was my first impression at the first meeting… and quite a few others that followed. There were three groups of threes: Three obbas, or older guys, who I had never spoken a word with, who never smiled/ answered/ showed any sign of response when I greeted them at the door during my two years as an usher were sitting in a corner and whispering amongst them. Three high school kids, feeling awkward and unwelcome I was sure, were sitting in another corner mutedly and the last three (one boy, two girls), who were all in the same cell group and were close to each other, were there chatting away. Our leader, who was much older, married and a stranger to me, was trying to break the ice but it seemed an impossible feat.

Although my heart was with Cambodia, having listened to so many testimonies from those who had been there and thus having decided to go there on missions, it wasn’t with my team. Rather, it was with the India mission team, which included my best friend, brothers and sisters whom I knew well. Our team didn’t get along and I felt left out, not knowing which threesome to join. When our team wasn’t doing anything, I would sneak over to the India misson team and pretend that I was a part of them, colouring in love hearts and cutting up cardboards in the shape of sheep.

Then it worsened. The older guys started showing up late for meetings or not showing up at all at times saying that they had exams and thus had to study. I’m a pacifist, so I didn’t say anything although I wasn’t too happy but this ticked off one of the other girls, and harsh words were exchanged. Furthermore, the need for prayer within the team was being neglected and I didn’t see hope for our team.

But God works for those who have been called to His purpose, as Romans 8:28 declares, and He did work. Through worship dance. Haha. As we learnt a number to razzle-dazzle the Cambodian children, we became undignified and unguarded. We had fits of laughter while watching each other attempt to dance, the really bad ones compete against each other and argue with passion that they were the better ones. The ice shattered and we became one. From then on, it only got better. Our bond became stronger at every meeting, and we had so much fun as we got to know each other more. We were an eclectic mix of people that would never have come together if it hadn’t been for missions but by God’s grace everyone got along with everyone else, despite the evident difference in personalities and age – our leader was 13 years older than our youngest member.

When we finally went, it was even better. We had massive fun doing everything, anywhere and all the time. Worship dancing in the villages, clipping children’s fingernails, bus rides to and from the places where we ministered in which we sat on the floor cross-legged applying ridiculous amounts sunscreen on our faces until we looked like zombies or went through the photographs we took and laughed uncontrollably while zooming into everyone’s faces. We were on a perpetual high, and us girls had so much fun singing kiddy worship songs non-stop and simultaneously annoying the guys. We huddled in the guys’ room to watch the Premier League and although I didn’t know anything about soccer except for the fact that David Beckham was in Manchester United back then, I still had fun watching the guys go crazy over a yellow card or an assist that was allegedly very awesome.

So this was how all barriers were broken down. It didn’t matter who sat next to who when we were on the road or having a meal. I felt unity so strong within our team and experienced for the first time what it meant to be one in God. We bonded spiritually as well, as we shared about our individual walk with God every day. QT sharing in the morning and ministry sharing at night took place without fail whether it was 4.30am or 1am respectively.

Even after we returned from our trip, we had monthly dinners where we caught up with each other, ate, prayed for the nation or went to karaoke. They were the first people I told about my decision to surrender to God’s command to go on missions by myself. I remember feeling so secure, so encouraged and empowered by my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ even though I had no money and had not yet gotten my parent’s permission.

We still talk about the numerous hill-lehhh-rious incidents that took place when we were there. Like a fisherman talks about his greatest catch over and over again but never gets sick of it, we regurgitate but strangely never get tired of both recounting or listening to the stories. We said jokingly that all of us should go again just to take more photos because the photos that were taken were so little and of poor quality. However, as I talked to KM obba at the airport, a fellow ’07 team member, I seriously felt a deep longing for that joke to come true. And though I’m not five years old and I know that there is probably next to no chance that it will actually happen, a girl can still hope, right?  :)

This time last year, I was in Cambodia and even though I was only there for three months, not a day goes by when I don’t think about the place and its people. It’s the trivial things that take me back – ordinary everyday objects that didn’t have any meaning to me before – and put a smile on my lips.

Mangoes, for example. Because Cambodia is situated near the Equator, its climate is tropical and fruits, in general, are much more sweeter than what we get in Australia. The pineapples, watermelons and mangoes that I had in Cambodia were just epic. But more than the actual taste of those sweet-as mangoes, the thing that I’m reminded of more is the company I had when I had those mangoes.

I used to get dragged out of my room and peaceful solitude for these late-night ‘snacks’ by Kyung Sun unni, a missionary I lived with during my stay and about twenty years my senior. She would slice up a mango and shove it under my nose defiantly. I would try to tell her that it was already 11p.m. and I didn’t feel like eating, but in the end, after minutes of nagging, cajoling and plea, I would give in to her girlish charm and we would devour all the mangoes we had in the house.

Motorbikes are another thing that remind me of Cambodia. Although there aren’t that many in Australia, there are more than you can count if you step out onto a mainroad in Cambodia. It is their prime mean of transportation, and it serves every purpose – a ride to school, a taxi, and also a family car. I used to catch a motorbike taxi, called mo-to-dop, every day to get to the orphanage to teach English and although I grabbed onto the seat from fear of falling off the first two days or so, I was able to ride on it afterwards with my hands comfortably resting on my thighs, like a true blue Cambodian.

Other fragments of memories include: the wind whipping through my hair, haggling before getting on the motodop, drivers surrendering when I used my last-resort phrase, ‘ssang jjoh hauei’ (meaning petrol prices have gone down already), and the drivers who recognised me by the end of my stay and took me to where I wanted to go at the desired price without any verbal exchange but a hello and thank you. Another memory I have with motorbikes is when my friend, Kyung Sun unni and I got on a Cambodian friend’s scooter on a whim and shouted ‘Ddau pteah’ or let’s go home, until he drove us home, the four of us on the one scooter and almost dying from laughing.

Speaking of transportation, bicycles remind me of Cambodia too. Bicycles, like motorbikes, are ubiquitous in Cambodia. It isn’t difficult to see a small child riding a bicycle three times his/ her size. With ease, I might add. The sight of a boy jumping on a bike that was double his height in length never ceased to amaze me. There was a night when one of the Cambodian staff hired by the NGO that I served with, a sweet girl named Lida, taught me how to ride a bike. I still don’t know how to ride one but I remember having an absolute blast, forging a deeper friendship with every stumble and burst of laughter that it didn’t matter.

Cambodians like everything sweet. Their iced coffees are no exception, containing an unhealthy amount of condensed milk. However, they are just perfect for washing down Kkoy-Tiu, the Cambodian equivalent of Vietnamese pho. Now whenever I go to a Vietnamese restaurant, I’m reminded of Kkoy-Tius and the overwhelmingly sweet glass of iced coffee. The iced coffee that Kyung Sun unni used to make for me after EVERY meal (totally ignoring the fact that I find it hard to sleep at night when I drink coffee) with Korean coffee powder I miss too. I tried making it for myself at home but it just didn’t taste the same.

Then there’s beer. I swear, though, I only drank twice during my 3 month stay and both times within reason, just as a beverage. I remember sneaking out with SY obba, a friend who I went to Cambodia with, and walking to a nearby Cambodian restaurant one night. It was a nice place that had wide outdoor seating with bamboo chairs and a floor that was like the beach, having been filled with soft sand. Cambodian video clips played on a projector and we had an epic chat under the stars, with a jug of Angkor beer and a neverending supply of salted peanuts served by pretty Cambodian girls who all wore the same shade of lipstick. And the best part? It only cost about 5000 Riels – just over a dollar.

There are countless other things that reminds me of the country – and they come like a gunshot, sharp and sudden, but lingering. I guess that’s what you come away with after three months in one place – memories. I don’t have a lot of photographs, but I do have a bunch of memories that can be triggered by even the most trivial things.  But with every memory, there is one rule – that company is the essence of it all. I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by wonderful people during my stay, and although I don’t know when or in what way God will allow me to revisit, I know that when I do, I will come away with more cherished memories of the country and people that I have come to love.

I wish I could say I truly enjoyed the film, that it was a heartwarming, lesson-learning experience, but I have to confess that it wasn’t so great. In fact, the wide seats and the extra leg room in the new VMAX cinemas made a bigger impression on me than the movie. The friend that I went with thought it was ‘really good’ and I didn’t have the heart to say that I thought otherwise so I just mumbled ‘Yeah’, but really, it wasn’t that great.

The movie had a thin plot (the book’s pretty short, I heard) and it was just plain boring. *Spoiler Alert* In a nutshell, it’s about a troubled boy who runs away from home, meets these wild creatures, befriends them, but returns home after realising that he needs to make peace with his family. However, the events in the story unfolded in a tedious manner, the shots overwhelmingly brown and unimaginative, the characters flat,the protagonist oh so very ordinary, thus failing to arouse the intended feelings in the audience. In my opinion, the only thing that saved the film from becoming a total disaster was the dialogue. It wasn’t witty-funny, but there was a sense of humour in how the creatures spoke e.g. ‘(in a genuinely warm and caring tone) You’re the first king we haven’t ate.’ that provided some entertainment.

I took a look at forum discussions after watching the film and I was relieved that I wasn’t the only one who found the movie to be less than what the majority said it was. I couldn’t agree more to the guy who deemed raving, analytical reviews ‘just psychobabble’. One fan said you just have to look below the surface, ‘get’ the film and find the deeper meaning, but I think the onus is on the director to do the hard work so that viewers don’t have to mull over the events of the film to ‘get’ the movie. I once heard a tutor at uni say that the best essays are the ones that take the reader by the hand and lead them through from the beginning to the end. And I think the same goes for film too. You can be ambitious, even ambiguous, and you may even be praised for it, but at the end of the day, there are going to be people like me who go into movies simply expecting to be entertained, not to be puzzled, bored, searching for answers or wondering when it would all end. I have too much of those going on in my life already.

P.S. Don’t tell Susanna.

… so we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts…

-Romans 5: 3-5

AND THEN there was this other time where I was scheduled to open the store, but forgot my keys and had to ring my manager on her day off to come to the store (during rush-hour, too) with her set of keys. Her motorbike broke down on the way and I ended up waiting in front of the store for two hours while Ikea and all the other stores opened, and by the time she got to the store, I was a teary-eyed mess, hating myself and wanting to jump off a cliff. But we went well over budget that day so it was all good. Needless to say, I busted my arse off, trying to up-sell everything and was extra EXTRA nice to all customers, who were potential victims of a sales scheme called rip-off.

Then there was a time when I left some books that I got out of the uni library on a public bus, only to realise that I had done so after the bus had gone. I had to wait until 9 or 10pm that day, when the bus terminated, to go to the bus depot in Kingsgrove (the final stop in the bus route) and collect it. Tired but relieved, I was just grateful that no one had taken it and that I didn’t have to pay for the replacements. Embarrassment didn’t exist in my vocabulary by then.

Then last year in Cambodia, when I was there on missions, I came back home one night after having dinner at the head missionary’s place and realised my phone was missing. I searched frantically for it, worrying that I had dropped it on the way home and will never be able to see it again. When I rang my phone, the missionary answered and asked, would I like my bag back? Only then did it hit me – I hadn’t JUST left my phone there, I had left my bag.

Oh, the HSC. It makes everyone lose their senses, but the effect was particularly strong on me. I remember having two exams that day – Japanese and Maths 2 unit. One subject that ten students take, and another subject that EVERYONE takes. (Every Asian, anyway, and I assure you, there was no shortage of us black-haired, yellow-skinned kids at our school). I arrived late to school, my face smothered in revision notes of every mathematical formula we have learnt in the past two years. I hurriedly set down my bag, grabbed my calculator and two Kilometrico pens, then tried to find my seat in the hall while trying to memorise the projectile formula that I never really understood. But something wasn’t right – there were far too little students in the hall;  only around fifteen. Bewildered, but holding my calculator tight against my chest, I somehow managed to find my seat. When I looked down, I saw the words ‘Japanese 2 Unit Beginners’ in big, fat, bold letters and thought to myself, ‘Ah, you’ve done it again’. Thankfully, I was well-prepared for my Japanese exam, and got a REALLY good mark for it. Can’t say the same for maths, though.

Other stuff, like realising I’ve left my wallet at home after walking to the station and having to come back home for it, or forgetting to bring my timetable at the beginning of the semester when it’s not yet embedded in my brain, or getting on the wrong train, thinking it’s the right one, has happened too many times to be awarded individual paragraphs. I have mentioned in the beginning of this post that I find my forgetfulness rather sweet – I have self-acceptance, now all I need is a guy who shares my opinion, and  is über-unforgetful, but not unforgiving.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds know still don’t.

…and the awesomeness goes on. I first listened to this three years ago and the wisdom of it still amazes me when I listen to the song once in a while. Delivered with so much candor, without any sign of self-righteousness or authority, it makes even a stubborn mule like me take heed.

I don’t need someone to relay to my friends and families that I had said ‘I do’. It’s the weightiest two-syllables you will ever utter in your life (or one, if the wedding is held in Korean) ; a magical moment when you declare your love and promise to do so for the rest of your life to everyone who matters, including your husband. It is not a time to care about what others would think, to play the part of the demure, meek and ‘lady-like’ bride and conform to others’ expectations. Why let the pastor steal your thunder when you have perfectly good, functioning vocal chords? I will say my vows in a clear, loud voice for everyone to hear and know.

However, I won’t try to exceed the decibel level of my groom’s ‘I do’.

My heart and my hand outstretched in one perpetual motion,

Longing for a glimpse, a whiff, a word.

But really, a chance is what I desire;

A chance to fit into the me-shaped hole next to you.

I wonder what kind of person I would have been if my family didn’t migrate to Malaysia when I was four, or to Australia in August 2000, and had lived all my life in South Korea. Would I have survived through the so-called ‘examination hell’, or would I have just lost it and gone off the rails? If I did make it unto university, what would I have studied? Would I still have been arts-focused, or would I have become an accounting or medicine student? Or what would have happened if I still had the life I had here in Sydney, but went to boarding school? Or a girls’ school? If I lived in a different suburb? If I wasn’t Christian? If my grandparents lived with me (I have no fond memories of grandparents doting on me, as my paternal grandparents passed away long before I was born and my family left Korea when I was four)? If the child that was conceived before me had been born and I had another older brother/ sister?

I believe that people are what their surroundings make them, that we are infinitely malleable and shaped by circumstance and context (that God puts us in, of course), and these questions haunt me at times. I would do anything to find out, to get a glimpse of the life that could have been, although I am quite satisfied with the life I have and know any effort will be in vain. Then I wonder about the wackiest things that even a time machine wouldn’t be able to help – I wonder what kind of person I would have been if I was born a boy, or of a different nationality, even? Say I was born a boy into a well-off family in the States and went to a prestigious boarding school, would I have been the quiet, shy and retiring bespectacled nerd with red curls, or the daring but charming rebel who always seems to have an endless supply of alcohol and cigarettes, or the compassionate and smart poster boy who everyone admires, looks up to and is the unspoken leader of the pack?

I could go on for days on this, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that is alterable is the present and the future. And even this, is not entirely up to me. Unforeseen circumstances, little bits and pieces of arbitrary events, actions or words of friends, families and acquaintances, and a myriad of different factors could turn my life around at anytime. But I have peace, because I know that all of those have been planned, screened and given the green light by my father in heaven, who holds my petty little life is in his palms :) and I have no doubt He will answer all my questions, no matter how stupid or foolish, the day I meet him.