Guest blogger: Mike Smyth

My name is Mike Smyth, and I have had the joy of visiting Cabaret 13 times, traveling with the group from Mount Hermon in Danville, VA.  

There are so many stories that I can share, but today I want to focus on my experience at Te Nwa, leading vacation bible school.  Teaching VBS is difficult enough in America, but imagine preparing the bible lessons, crafts, games, and snacks for the journey up the mountain to Te Nwa School.  

For context, Te Nwa school was built by CHM and serves an area a few miles up a rugged dirt road from the main orphanage.  All the necessities of life are limited at the school.  Power, water, and sanitation included.  However, CHM provides a meal for the teachers and students every day of school.  That is a blessing from God, thru our sponsors.

A few years ago, our group was preparing to leave Te Nwa School at the conclusion of our day teaching VBS.  We were packing the teaching materials and leftover crafts into the truck and preparing to walk back to the children’s home.  There were about 30 kids still at the school, waiting to walk down the road with us.  I had a couple of Jolly Rancher hard candies in my pocket, so I decided to give them to one of my “favorite” kids.  He smiled and said thank you, leaving me feeling guilty that I did not have a whole bag of candy that I could have provided.   As I packed the rest of the VBS material into the truck, I decided to walk behind the school to see if we had left any of our teaching materials.  On the ground behind the school was that precious child, surrounded by about 15 of his classmates.  He had two rocks, hitting the candy between the two, and breaking it into pieces that he shared with his friends.  What a picture of pure unselfish love for others.  We learned a lot at Te Nwa School.