Tuesday Morning - Last Day in Phnom Penh

Well, yesterday was quite an adventure! Mike Lewis, Max, Josh & I flew up to Siem Reap to see the temples at Angkor Wat. Our flight was great and our Tuk-Tuk drivers were on time and waiting for us.

The 4 Mustketeers and our Tuk Tuk with Driver

The temples and ruins at Angkor Wat are almost beyond description. Truly boggles the mind to understand how it all was done without modern machinery. One temple had a tree grown up in the middle of it, which has continued for hundreds of years. This has caused the temple to collapse. The tree trunks look like a snake wrapped around it.

Panoramic Shot of the back of Angkor Wat

Panoramic Shot of one of the Angkor Wat pools

Before we left, I put fresh batteries in my camera. By about 1:00 p.m. my batteries were going bad. Mike Lewis had the same experience. I think I took nearly 300 pictures during the day.

We had lunch at a restaurant that served an approximation of western food. I had spaghetti with meat sauce, which was good but spicy. Mike & Max had hamburgers with fries. The hamburger was a hamburger patty between 2 slices of bread. Josh ate Cambodian food.

We also got to see the main church here at Siem Reap. Very nice facility, much nicer than here in Phnom Penh. We saw the bass guitar that we helped replace. Yikes! I took a picture. Their main microphone had no cover.

John 3:16 in Khmer on Siem Reap Church Wall

Siem Reap was MUCH cleaner and more inviting than Phnom Penh. We were actually quite shocked at the difference. We talked to someone who told us that there are parts that are as bad as those in Phnom Penh, but overall it is less crowded and the cars pretty much drive on the right side of the road. (As an aside, we were told that up until 2 years ago there were no stop signs or stop lights in Phnom Penh - a city of 1.4 million people!).

While we were gone, they had to take 1 student to the hospital for a minor infection. All went well. She said the hospital looked just like the hospitals at home. All the medicines, emergency room visit and all cost $63.00.

This morning we will be moving to another house so that the Khmer students who let us borrow their apartments can move back. We will go to our final market and then go to the genocide museum. I've read that it can be pretty disturbing. Yesterday the team went to the killing fields and I guess it affected the students quite a bit.

I may not be able to post again while we're in Phnom Penh. The next update may be from the Singapore Airport.

Thank again to all of you for your support, prayers and emails. We'll be back in the states in about 4 days.

Sunday Evening

Had a few good notes from today.

The days events were pretty straightforward. We went to church this morning and then went to eat at the City Kat restaurant. We had a fascinating discussion with one of the other missionaries about some of the work in Cambodia, ponderings on the political climate (past and present) and an interesting story about an old lady who retired from being a missionary, then went back to Cambodia to start a mission for AIDS orphans and widows.

The City Kat Restaurant - Our favorite place to eat in Phnom Penh

In the afternoon, Mike & I helped find and buy another bass guitar, this time for the Siem Reap church.

We then went to a multi-church youth gathering, which was interesting to watch and see the differences and similarities between our youth and Cambodian Youth.

Tonight during our last group gathering, one of the Australians shared that they went to a Vietnamese church this morning. Tan Tan, one of the girls we were a little worried about earlier in the week were very excited to see them. She had also invited a Khmer student from English Camp to visit her church and he was there too. This was neat to see as the Khmer\Vietnamese issues were a real concern early in the week.

I will not be blogging again until Tuesday morning (Monday night Nebraska time) as Mike Lewis, Max, Josh and I are flying up to Siem Rea to see Angkor Wat.

Thanks for reading. Two more days and we'll be on the plane back home.

Sunday Morning

English Camp Ends

Yesterday was a good day and a sad day. We finished English Camp in the moring. We were very thankful that Koem Va and Doeng were there. They were very happy to get their certificates. They had us take their pictures with them. Very interesting.

We were only able to get 5 bibles in the end, but this worked out ok. 2 of our 5 guys had them, so Roger kept one for a person he is meeting today and we gave 1 to another girl in our group who did not have a bible. They were very thankful for them. It has the New Testament in Khmer and in English.

We had lunch with our boys and took pictures. We had dragonfruit again, which is always a good thing.

Roger and I with our boys and 3 other students
(Our boys are the 5 closest to the center)

A Home Visit

Afterwards, Koem Va wanted to give me a moto ride and show me his university. Roger rode with one of the other guys and we rode about 1 1/2 miles to their University. On the way Koem Va pointed out the hospital (in the process of construction) where he will work. Their university looked nice. One of the nicest looking buildings I've seen.

Just past the University, Koem Va turned onto a muddy alley filled with potholes and small ponds. We pulled up to an area with a stone fence where they were either building or renovating a big building. It looked like a construction site in the U.S. He led us into the yard and over to a small building with 3 or 4 doors. There was a plank that crossed some muddy ground to their door. I'm not sure how to describe the building to you, but it was like a small roadside motel with 4 rooms, but about 1/2 or less the size.

Koem Va unlocked the door ( a swift kick would render the lock useless), and Roger and I stepped inside. The room was, at best, 12 x 15 ft. There was a bathroom in the back with a toilet (not the kind we use - what we call a "squatty potty" - I have pictures). The bathroom as big enough for two or maybe 3 people to stand up in, but that's it. There was a shelf in the back used for cooking and a modern looking appliance used for water purification. There was a table, about 1/2 the size of a card table, 3 chests (where they kept their personal belongings), and a shelf, wide enough to hold a small boom box.

The entire contents of the room could probably fit into the back of my Scion hatchback. There were 3 mats and a mosquito net. The 3 boys that share this room sleep on the floor. I wondered what they did when it flooded. It was rather humbling and eye-opening to realize that they would live here for 4 years and that it was actually and was probably an improvement from where they came, maybe not space-wise, but that there was running water, a toilet and electricity.

Roger got video of the trip. Sadly, I left my camera at the dorm.

The Rest of the Day

At 1:00 we went to the Russian markets to shop. Seeing what I'd just seen didn't put me in too much of a shopping mood, but I found some gifts and talked at length with girl in one of the shops.

Scenes at the Russian Market

At 5:30 we went to the same mall we had visited on our first night here. I felt much more at home now. We had pizza (YAY!) and a cold Diet Coke (virtually no liquids are truly hot or cold here unless purchased in a western-style store. This drives some of our folks nuts). At the end of the night I had an ice cream cone. We went home and played Rook.

Today's Plans

Today we will go to church at 8:30. 10 of us will go to a different church (Vietnamese, I think) and the rest at the New Jerusalem Church. We will eat, I believe, at a western-style restaurant and then go to an all-city youth rally in the afternoon. In the evening, we will meet with our main missionary, Bill Lobazoo, for a "debriefing" session.

Tomorrow's Plans

I will likely not blog tomorrow, as Mike Lewis, Max, Josh and I (and possibly Richard and Roger) will fly up to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat. This was an unexpected change of plans, but we're told that it is quite something to see and that outside of the U.S., it is a very well-known site. The flight is about 1 hour (like flying to Des Moines or so). I'll try and catch up on Tuesday morning.

BTW - we caught our first mouse in the girl's kitchen this morning with a sticky trap.

Saturday Morning

Graduation Day

Well today is graduation day for English camp. We will meet as normal until noon today. Koem Va has not been here for the last 2 days, which has concerned Roger and I, however we do know that he had a nursing testing yesterday that may have gone past the time we left. Fortunately, I got his address so I can send a Bible if I don't see him today.

Although we have been adjusting well and have come to feel comfortable here, last night's sharing time brought some sad reminders of where we are.

Sharing Time #1

Yesterday when we went to the zoo, the church sent along "lunches" for us, because we were gone so long. The lunches consisted of rice (which we've had at every meal) in styrofoam containers with a little meat. We had romotans for dessert. Because it rained, i ate on the bus, but some ate underneath a shelter. As is common here, when the Khmer were done, they just threw the trash in a pile on the ground.

At our sharing time last night one of the students asked if we'd seen what happened with the trash. I had not. The kids who were trying to sell us coconuts were poor farm children. The student shared that as we began to leave, the kids began picking through our trash pile and pouring any salvagable food into a container to take with them. Very hard to fathom.

Sharing Time #2

Roger had a long list of prayer requests for Cambodia that we talked and prayed through last night. In some cases, Roger would give students additional information that he had learned since being here.

One prayer request was for the sex slavery industry here. In our prayer requests (compiled by Operation World), they stated that 50,000 prostitutes operate here. 1/3 of those are children.

Roger shared about a CMA missionary here named Kim who works with the Vietnamese here. As I mentioned before, the Vietnames are looked down on here. Their children cannot attend public schools and they cannot afford to send them to private schools. (As an aside, we have 3 Vietnamese children in our group - Chum Va, Tan Tan and Tye. Chum Va always sings very strong during song time. Tan Tan is shy to a fault and her English is probably the poorest in our group.) Kim is the one who has been bringing the Vietnamese children here. On Monday or Tuesday, she was eating with Roger and told him of a young 12 year old girl who she had been inviting to church (and I believe English Camp). When she went to see her early this week, the girl would not come out to see her. Kim insisted and eventually the girl came out. When she did, Kim noticed that she was wearing jewelry and that her hair had been dyed. Kim knew immediately what this meant. Her parents had sold her to the local prostitution ring. Kim was very upset, as were all of us.

I cannot imagine the desperation and/or evil that would lead someone to sell their 12 year old daughter into such a lifestyle. Things like this are very hard to take in. Unfortunately, as the statistics above show, this happens to thousands of children here.

A Day at the Zoo

Today was an interesting day. We met for worship for about 1/2 hour this morning and then went to the Phnom Penh Zoo.

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.

Max feeds the monkeys / Cranes eating fish at the "Petting Zoo"

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.

Friday Morning

Yesterday was a very interesting day in a number of ways.

Breakfast

The area director for our mission took the adults out for breakfast. It was a true Khmer breakfast. The best way to describe it was pork soup with angel hair pasta (noodles) as the primary ingredient. Eaten with chopsticks. It was actually ok, although I'll take the corn flakes that we've been having.

The director talked about the mission here and in Cambodia in general. During the Khmer Rouge, 90% of the church was martyred. At the end of their reign, only 2,000 Christians remained. Today, the church has about 200,000. They have a plan, which is actually pretty realistic, to have a church in every village by 2021.

Interestingly enough, many of the strongest pastors/leaders are former Khmer Rouge. During the end of the days of the Khmer Rouge, there were many refugee camps along the border, divided up by political allegiance to prevent fighting inside the camps. One camp was predominantly Khmer Rouge and no international group would go there and work with them. The C&MA was the exception, and as they worked, conversions began to take place. Hard to believe, but true. Kind of like Hitler repenting and becomng a minister. Wow.

Brownout

We went to lead worship at 8:30 a.m. - the bass guitar had stopped working, so we set Cindy up on the keyboard to play bass using a bass sound. Five minutes before we were to start, the electricity went out and stayed off for 2 hours. We had been warned about this happening, but it was our first experience with it.

Can't Buy Me Love

Well, maybe not love, but amps. We had planned before going to possibly help the church buy some new instruments, strings, etc.... Having the bass quit working was a sign we were on the right page. Mike & I went with a local church worker/musician to "Music Store Row" in Cambodia. How eye opening. Since we've been here Cindy has shared the 15-watt guitar amp with me. [For context - at home I play a 60 watt amp and Cindy uses a bass amp with over 300 watts]. So our two goals were to find a bass and a bass amp. Medium level basses were in short supply, we could generally only find basses that were the same or less quality than the one they already had. We finally found two nice basses, and Ibanez and a Yamaha (the first name brand instruments we could find). They were wrapped in plastic. The owner told us we couldn't try them unless we bought them first. Couldn't believe it.

At a store down the street we found what we believed was a used Fender Bass. I say "believed" because there is so much fake merchandise you never really know. It played well and sounded good, so we bought it. However the bass amps fell into two categories - very small and essentially unusable for our purposes, and used equipment that looked VERY old and rugged for about 2 times the cost in the USA. We finally had to give up on the amp. Just to give the non-musicians some perspective, the age of the much of the used equipment (95% of what they had) was circa 1980. I saw a number of amps that were prevalent when I was in high school or junior high. Unreal.

We finally decided that for some things, we may be better to go back to the states, buy it there and have it shipped here.

The Orphanage

In some ways, I was not looking forward to this trip. I was worried what it would be like and how it would affect our kids and adults (myself included). We drove out into the countryside and parked and then walked down a dirt road for about 3-5 blocks past "farmhouses". Some were seriously bad. My Khmer friends told me that these people were very poor. 80% of the people live in the countryside in Cambodia.

Two homes of poor farm families on the way to the orphanage

Before the last turn into the orphanage, the view was very beautiful. A huge rice field, dotted with palm trees lay before us. Brahma cows were grazing the rice fields. I had written about these trees in my journal as we were landing in Phnom Penh.

What lay behind the girl's dormitory at the orphanage

As we turning into the orphanage, the children were lined up in two lines, on either side of the road, clapping as we entered. They seemed very happy to see us. They greeted us in English.

We had a short "ceremony" where we presented the gifts to the orphanage. The director said this was the largest group of the year. Most of the time 1-2 people come to visit.

The ages represented were primary school age and up. They take children who are true orphans and those whose parents are too poor to keep them. We learned that most of the "real" orphans have lost their children to AIDS or landmines. You may not be aware, but Cambodia was (and possibly still is) the most landmined country in the world. Bill, our missionary, says that there are reports in the news almost daily of people losing a limb to land mines up in the north. The de-mining process is very slow and tedious. Princess Diana had visited here in her crusade to eliminate land mines.

We also learned that Cambodia has frozen all international adoptions. Angelia Jolie got around this by buying Cambodian citizenship for $1 million, but that's a little impractical for the average U.S. family.

Anyway, we played games with the children, and distributed gifts that we had brought (personally) for them - candy, stuffed animals, pencils, whatever. Our boys had sent a bunch of Beanie Babies, which I and some friends distributed.

Lexi Webb with two girls at the orphange / Mike Lewis & Sarah Mellema hand out gifts

They have a heavy emphasis on kids learning English, so that they can get scholarships to the university when they graduate.

I took pictures of the girls dormitories. Much more simple than our "dorm" basically imagine a chicken coop in the U.S. Make it spotless (no dirt/manure) and make two 4 X 8 pallets with plywood. Now put a few desks and shelves, made with 2 by 4's and such and you have the dorm. The kids sleep on the plywood pallets - no matresses.

Panoramic shot of 1 girls dorm room 6-8 girls live and sleep in this room

Breakdown

When we got back to our bus, it wouldn't start. After trying numerous times, we eventually put the two teams on our bus on the other two buses and everyone stood in the aisles for the trip back to Phnom Penh.

The Mall

At 7:00 we packed into a small bus (and i do mean packed - like sardines) and went to the other western style mall. Mike Lewis and I looked around but didn't see anything that caught our eye. We eventually went to a Swenson's (like a Ben & Jerry's) and had some ice cream. A very nice taste of home.

Thursday morning

mike lewis and i came in early again this morning. may not have much time as we have breakfast with the area director. hope to ask him about the bibles issue. last night when we came back from the internet cafe, our guard was reading his bible - i stopped to talk to him and noticed that it was in English. It's my understanding that you can buy English/Khmer bibles where you have both. I hope we can find these as it would serve to benefit in two ways, both spiritually and socio-economically for them (helping learn english).

and now for a few non-linear type of thoughts . . . .

the traffic here is truly amazing. on the streets at night by the internet cafe, countless motos (small motorcyles - main method of travel here), people, cars, tuk-tuk's (a moto pulling a carriage) and people on foot go by. the streets are narrow and you have to walk in the street as there are no sidewalks. people go around each other, cars drive with 2 wheels on the curb, people constantly honk politely for to warn you that they're behind you. it truly is something to see.

in our dorm , the girls live on the second story and they have a nice balcony which picks up the evening breeze (yay!). When we go up to the "main room" on their floor for breakfast, there is a woman next door with 10 month old baby and a 9 year old daughter. the baby is absolutely adorable! She grabs its hand and has the baby wave to us. it has tight curly black hair. her daughter is a cute girl. both she and her mother are a little plump - i don't mean this as an insult, but i have only seen 3 people here who are not slim and they are two of them. i've taken some pictures, but it's one of the high points of breakfast to hope that you'll see her and the baby when you go up.

The two sisters next door

last night we met at 8:00 for worship, prayer and sharing. One of the interns loaned me a travel guitar (a Martin Backpacker) so we could sing. i had brought music and lyric sheets for the kids. as we were singing "God of Wonders" in harmony (the kids really sang beautifully), I wondered what the lady and her family next door thought of our music, since all windows are open and there is no privacy to speak of.

there were some pretty emotional moments during sharing (both from adults and students). a few astute observations by the kids. one student commented at how vigorously the Khmai worship, when they seemingly have nothing or little to be thankful for, and how many of us barely move our lips while we live in luxury. how true. i'm also hoping that this trip inspires the kids to give more to organizations like compassion international, world vision or kiva. hopefully this will breed a lifetime of concern and involvement for the poor.

gotta go.