AIDEN has adjusted to his new surroundings quite well and is described by all the Khmer he meets as being a very 'slote' (long 'o' sound) baby...which means he is a pretty easy going fellow! He has taken very well to the Khmer and when someone wants to carry him around he seems to look at us and say "See ya later, mom and dad!" That of course can be good, but quite nerve wracking at the same time also! He is adjusting to the heat, as are we and his favorite time of day is bath time...which happens at least 3 times a day...even 4 or 5 times now that it is hot season!
Our HOME-STAY was a great learning experience...stretching at times, but overall it went quite well. Probably the hardest part for us was parenting through it all! The Khmer parent quite differently than we do, allowing their babies to do much more than we do, so we found ourselves anxious at times, but God carried us through it all. The family we stayed with was wonderful and we hope that our relationship with them will be a long-standing one! There will be more blogs to come as we process this experience with you!
Yet another amazing blessing is our NEW HOME! We had been told by several different families (CMA and otherwise) that they h ad to look for several months to find their homes. With that in mind, we were not looking forward to the process of finding a home to rent. On our first Sunday in church (during home-stay) we met a Khmer woman who knew of a house that was for rent. She told us she could set up an appointment for us to look at the house and to meet the landlord. So, that afternoon we went and looked it over, and the next day m ade an agreement with the landlord to rent it for the next year! SUCH an answer to prayer! It is a small cement house in a small neighborhood, just like what we were wanting! Our landlord lives next door (a very big bonus!) and there are lots of children and families around for us to get to know. We are now in the midst of getting moved in and purchasing the things we need to make this house our home.
We have also begun LANGUAGE STUDY at a school named KSL, or the Khmer School of Language. We each have an intensive hour with a private teacher at this school, and then we have an hour and a half of tutoring with a tutor that has been used by CAMA for several years. We are then required to put in at least 3.5 more hours of study during the day...which consists of some book study and lots of practice with our neighbors and in the markets. God is blessing us by helping us to remember some of what we learned when we were here before so we are on our way to becoming Khmer speakers!
As you can see, its been a whirlwind of a month...life is already busy and we are just getting started!
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