We've Arrived

Well, we're in Cambodia. We arrived this morning at 8:55 a.m. (which is 8:55 p.m. Friday night Nebraska time). The local missionaries took us to our "guest house", which is across the street and a little catty-cornder from the church.

I write from a little internet cafe that we use. The young girl that runs it is very nice and has invited us to her church. We've been trying to tell her that we'd love to come but don't have control over our schedule. I think we finally communicated this to her.

The walk to the internet cafe is a real eye-opener for all of us. Street vendors sell fruits, seafood and other things I don't recognize. One vendor is busy re-building shock absorbers for motorcycles.

As I sat on the balcony and wrote in my journal, I counted the vehicles that drove by. 20 of the 20 I counted were all small motorcycles. Based on what I've seen , most are in the 100-150 cc range.

The buildings/houses are all very compressed. Yards do not exist. If a storefront is two story, it seems likely that a family lives in the back on the main floor and one or two families live in the 2nd story. Sanitation seems almost non-existent. As we walked to the internet cafe, the smell on the street seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it. Later on I realized it was the smell I had experienced when taking things to the Fremont City dump. I don't mean this as a put-down, just as a statement of fact.

In spite of the conditions, the people are great. I've had extended conversations with 2- 3 people. Little children are excited to see us and families wave to us foreigners as we go by. I can see already that ministry will be really neat, as the people are easy to love.

We have a 2:00 meeting to discuss ministry plans for the week. Gotta go.

I'll keep you up to speed. Remember to pray for us.

Tim