Last Post from Cambodia

After a four hour drive back to Phnom Penh (during which Amber, Andrea, Tabitha and Jason lunched on wasps and ants), we had dinner with Tim Biscaye and his family. We also met some of the teachers from the LOGOS school. Tim is a member of the Aurora campus, and has been in Phnom Penh as head master of the LOGOS school for the past year. Power outages are frequent, and we were treated to one during the evening. We prayed in the dark.

On Tuesday, we took a two-hour drive to a village in Kampong Chnang. There, we were introduced to the children living at the Child Rescue orphanage and many of the children from the village. They sang songs to us, we met the village elder, and we dined with him and his family (no ants or wasps this time).

We walked through the village meeting families, where the evidence of the draught was easy to see. We saw the bottoms of many wells, and there were people who hadn't eaten because they were unable to grow rice. We prayed with them, asking Christ for help for the families we came in touch with, both believers and non-believers.

The children were extremely affectionate, attaching to team members almost immediately. Through them, and because of God working through the orphanage, we saw a chance for a brighter future for Cambodia.

After the walk, we returned to the orphanage and played with the kids for a couple hours. We distributed many of the goods that were donated by members of the Colorado Community Church. Before we knew it, our times was up and we had to drive back to Phnom Penh.

Wednesday, we visited two Four Square orphanages. We distributed donated toys and sang with the kids staying there. One particularly touching song was at least ten minutes long, and it included breaks in the chorus where the children would pray.

After that, we returned to the village at Kampong Chnang. We only had about an hour and a half to play with the kids, but we filled the time we did have. There was more singing, first them to us and then us to them, and also one song we sang together. Following that, it playtime until we had to leave -- a very emotional time, as most of us will probably never see any of them again.

We took pictures and wrote down biographies of both teachers and the children so that people at CCC can have prayer partners from the orphanage.

Today we visited LOGOS, where we were given an introduction and tour of the school by Steve Fisk. We also teamed with a group of Korean ladies from CHOP (Cambodian House of Prayer) and went on a prayer walk. Our team was split up and partnered with members of CHOP, and we were dispatched to different parts of town to pray for God's character to rain down on the needs specific to the areas we visited (slum, hospital, and a university). We couldn't understand what the members of CHOP were saying most of the time, but we were amazed by the strength and persistence of their faith. They pray around the clock, literally.

The slums were overwhelming. Without actually seeing it, no person can possibly imagine the level of depravation, filth, and poverty observed in the slums. However, the one thing that stood out from being in the slum was that nobody on the team ever felt threatened; any smile given was returned, and there was no begging.

Right now, we're writing from the Mackey household, where we will be packing up and saying our goodbyes to this remarkable family that we will post more on after returning to Colorado.

Week in Kampong Som

For the last five days, we've been working at Cosette's Hope, which used to function as a brothel but will soon be in use as a children's home. Today is Monday morning, and we're getting ready to leave for Phnom Penh.

We started off by cleaning up the grounds, which in itself was a huge task. We cleaned, painted, eradicated killer frogs, evicted rats, fed fire ants with ourselves, and gave a lot of personal space to a small black mamba.

The initial cleaning, before we could even begin renovating the facility, took two days. For the first couple days, some people came by thinking that the brothel was being restored for its old purposes.

The heat, combined with occasional water shortages and a diet of Pringles, Tootsie Rolls, greasy eggs and (this is a luxury item) peanut butter spread with a trowel has sustained us through the project. The StarMart almost every morning was a bonus, with iced cream, juice and just a little snapshot of civilization.

The actual work that was done at Cosette's Hope: gathering up trash and one rat corpse from the grounds, removing the beds from all of the rooms, sweeping and mopping floors covered with trash, pornography, sex and drug paraphernalia and rat droppings, cleaning bathrooms, pulling down trees, removing weeds, scraping rusted metal, tilling soil, pulling out tires (a landscaping abomination), battling fire ants (they won), painting several coats over the buildings, chipping plaster off walls and burning all of the trash in a pit at the back of the facility. At one point, something we threw into the pit exploded, causing our Cambodian pastor (Borin) to check and see if he'd been shot.

Because of the amount of work that needed to be done, we collectively decided to stay here an extra day. Our hosts, the Mackey family (John, Anna and Faith), Borin, El, the translators and the lady who runs the little internet grass
shack have all been extremely helpful.

During free time, after some really hard days, we've been swimming in the pool (we're in one of the only two places in town that has one), trying to kill each other on motos (mo-peds) and walking on a beach that shows one of the most beautiful sunsets most of us have ever seen.

The next few days there will be a lot of travel on the busses. Some haven't been feeling too well, so please pray for the team's health. Please also pray for the team relationships to stay strong, as they have been, over the next week.

Multi-day Update

Hello all,

On Tuesday, we visited the Toul Sleng Museum, a school that had been converted for the purposes of detaining and murder during Pol Pot's regime in the late 70's.

I won't try to reinvent the wheel on describing the prison, as it's a popular tourist route for those visiting Cambodia. Instead, visit this page to read about on writer's step-by-step walk through the facility. Please note that at least one of the photographs on the page could be considered graphic.

After the museum, we went to visit some children at a Catholic orphanage. This particular ministry has been running seven buildings with HIV/AIDS children in them, and recently added the eighth. The children were wonderful. They were affectionate, running up for hugs as team members walked through the front door. A couple of them appointed themselves tour guides and would lead some of us around their home.

Although the visit raised our spirits and brightened the day substantially, many of our team were discouraged when we heard the man in charge of all these orphanages call the children "Buddhist." Apparently monks coming visit the children routinely, and (this is a quote) no attempt is being made to "proselytize" them.

The next day, we took a four-hour ride to Kampong Som. The scenery along the way was more what you'd expect to find in a brochure advertising Cambodia. It was beautiful. When we arrived at the hotel, we were a little surprised to see a swimming pool and relatively nice room. It felt a little too "Club Med."

All thoughts of a nice Southeast Asian vacation vanished the next day, when we finally started working at Cosette's Hope.

From Phnom Penh

Hello there!

We're in Cambodia now, at the New York Hotel in Phnom Penh. We arrived yesterday safely and met up with Keita and John at the airport. It took about 36 hours total to get there, and reviewing the pictures we took from the first flight after landing here, it seemed like at least a week had passed.

The best way to describe this place is just to call it different. We're very green. After arriving at the hotel, a few of us wanted to get out and walk around a little, so we started with crossing a busy street. For those not in the know (as we weren't), the driving in Cambodia is something that makes racing video games look like Sunday driving.

From the airport we went to the Mackey house and met all of John and Linda's children. We were given a brief (but informative) Khmer For Dummies language lesson by Faith and Anna, practical tips for interacting with people, and spent some time talking with God together. We've done our part getting here, and the rest is in His hands.

Later, we had dinner at a restaurant called the FCC. I'm not sure if they have anything to do with radio or television, but the food was very good and it was nice to be out in the open air. The computer this is being written from doesn't look to be capable of transferring pictures from any of our cameras, but we'll work something out when we're able so that you can see some of the things we saw on our first day here -- including the elephant on the sidewalk.

Today we're going to a museum that has, we're told, graphic displays of the handiwork of the Khmer Rouge. It will probably be like nothing we've experienced, and we pray that it strengthens our purpose to do some good while we're here.

More updates soon.

Mission Information

Hello!

This blog will be used by the Colorado Community Church Cambodia mission team to keep everyone up-to-date on happenings while we're in Cambodia, starting March 6th. Updates will most likely not be daily (internet access will not always be available), but we will do the best we can to keep updates posted as frequently as possible.

A calendar with the events is available here.