The good news of the day is that we were able to procure New Testaments. Roger and I will get 10 for our 5 guys and extras for other Khmer that we've met.
After worship we drove for about 1 hour to the zoo. During the trip, I talked with 2 Khmer students (which helps them with their English) and a lady on our trip who came from Wisconsin. (Their whole family of 4 came at their own expense to help out and generate interest within their church - Wow!).
The zoo was interesting from a Western perspective. Small monkeys roamed freely about as well as some deer.
The zoo was REALLY primitive. They had Lions, Tigers and Bears (oh my!) , Elephants and some of the wildest monkeys I've ever seen. Unlike Western zoos, you can get pretty up close and personal at the zoo. One type of monkey with really long arms grabbed Roger's backpack and another Khmer who was teasing the monkey got grabbed pretty hard. One type of monkey had a call that was as loud and obnoxious as a warning siren in a building. If I hadn't watched the monkey make the sound, I would have thought it was a siren. No kidding.
It rained almost the entire time we were at the zoo, so we were all drenched. Next time I'll come during dry season. (At least the busses didn't break down).
At the end of the first part, we stopped and bought 13 coconuts from a boy who had been following us on his bike. The Khmer cut the top of the coconuts off and put a straw in and drink the coconut milk. It was pretty good - not sweet enough for my taste, but really interesting. Got some great pictures.
Our coconut salesman & Tan Tan enjoying a Cambodian snack
Before we left, we stopped at a "petting zoo". There you could feed the monkeys bananas. They hissed at each other when one got a banana that the others wanted. Really wild stuff. Nothing like you'd see in the USA. We also saw some deer and fed them bananas, and two types of cranes that were both fascinating.
The trip home was interesting for another reason. I sat next to the Khmer who had helped us buy the bass for the church. (I can't spell his name, but it sounds like Peerom). I had talked to him about the instrument needs at their church, but our conversation went in many different directions. He works for Evangelism Explosion and also does some translation for gospel books from English to Khmer. Neat guy with two kids. But the interesting story came at the end.
Phearum Gneau and his family. The girl on the far left is his cousin.
I asked him if his parents were Christians and he said that they were now and that his dad is the pastor of the largest church in Siem Reap. His father had been in the Khmer Rouge army and had killed many people. While he and his mother and sisters were in a refugee camp in Thailand, a Swiss lady shared the gospel with his mother, who then became a Christian. At the time she was unable to do much more than lay down - she was in very ill health.
When they got back to their home, her husband told her she could go to church as long as her God was real and could heal her. The people at her church and the elders regularly prayed for her and she was eventually healed. At this point his father did not want her to go to church and tried (without success) to beat her. She and the children continued to pray for him.
In the late 1980's or early 1990's (I can't remember which), his father began to have a change of heart and became a Christian. From what he said, there was a big change in the life of his father. His father said now that only Christ could forgive him for the atrocities that he had committed. His father went into the pastorate and is now being used by God to lead and build the church in Cambodia.
We'll be meeting in our dorm in about an hour for worship and prayer. As odd as it may sound (and as cliche' as it may sound), there are things that I will miss here when I leave. Once you begin to build relationships with the people, your view of the culture seems to change a bit. You also see that in spite of the awful conditions, by western standards, they still love their lives, their families and their friends. And they love God - probably more deeply than we do.
Peerom is already asking if we will come back to Cambodia and come to Siem Reap (they have 2 English camps - one in Phnom Penh and one in Siem Reap) to help with English and to provide musical training for their worship leaders. Peerom even asked if my wife would come next time.
Lora, if you're reading this - don't worry, I didn't commit you to anything.
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