On the Move...

Well...moving day is almost here.  We are hoping that by this time tomorrow morning most of our things will be loaded safely onto our moving truck and covered with tarps to keep the rain off.  After we send the truck off we'll have a few errands to run and then we'll head off to Battambang in our truck.

Pray for Chris as he manages the moving company tomorrow morning and pray that the truck makes it safely to Battambang without any problems.

Pray for us as we have a farwell dinner with our church leaders tonight and then try and get a good night sleep so that we aren't totally exhausted for the drive tomorrow.  AND pray for our truck to make it safely there as well.  This will be the first LONG road trip we've taken it on...and as it is an older vehicle you never know what to expect along the road.

We'll be staying in a hotel for a couple of days while we get things organized in the house and then we'll be moved in.  

Here's a pic of the front of our new house.  It is one of the older cement houses that was built after the end of the Pol Pot regime.  It is bigger than we thought we would get, but the back of the house will be used for the CAMA office.   We'll have two bedrooms, a living room, office and kitchen...and the large area out front for Aiden to run around in (he's gonna love it!)

As you look at this picture please pray over our house.  Our landlord is Buddhist and he does have a spirit house in the front out near the gate.  Those renting before us were not Christian either so just pray for the Holy Spirit to be present in and around our entire house and for no evil thing to be allowed in.

SO...our next post will be from Battambang!  YEAH!!!

Tex-Mex Meal

Left to Right:  Chris, Julee, Chenda, Aiden and Socheata

(Chenda is Chris' tutor and Socheata is mine)

Today we had our teachers from the Khmer School of Language over for lunch.  My tutor has been asking me for several weeks to make them some 'western' food.   I told her I would but asked for suggestions as to what exactly to make for them....as many Khmer don't like anything but Khmer food!

I asked other foreigners here what they have fixed for their Khmer friends and no one had a positive story to tell, one even saying that she fixed a large Khmer meal (Ginger Pork and another stir-fry style dish with veggies) for some church leaders one time and at the end of the meal one of the women exclaimed "WOW, American food tastes okay too!"

Needless to say I have been wracking my brain for several weeks on what to fix for them.  I wanted them to get a taste of the kinds of food that Chris and I grew up on, but I also wanted to fix something that they might actually like and eat ;o)   So....I went with good old fashion tex-mex!  I made fajitas, spanish rice, beans, and pico de gallo and to top it off I made a chocolate wacky cake and added some cinnamon to it for fun.

When they came this morning I had already made most of the food, all I needed to do was cook the meat and veggies for the fajitas.  As I explained to them what kinds of food we were having and told them the ingredients in all the dishes I could tell they were a little unsure as to how delicious this meal was going to be, but they were still excited and ready to sample it all.

I am proud to say that they seemed to enjoy all of it...though the beans were probably the most challenging for them.  I was really unsure about the rice.  Unless you are making traditional fried rice here you really don't mess with your rice...plain white rice is just the staple of the meal, so I considered making an extra pot of plain rice in case they didn't like any of the food and needed to fill up on something else.  I didn't end up having time to get that done but it was okay as Chris' teacher finished off her first serving of the spanish rice and then took another large serving and finished it all off!

After lunch Chris put Aiden down for a nap and while he slept we played Qwirkle together.  Now that was a challenge trying to explain to them how to play a game in Khmer!  But we succeeded and really had a fun afternoon with them here.

It is sad to leave these relationships behind as we prepare to move on to Battambang, but we hope to try and keep in contact with them and meet with them when we do make it down to Phnom Penh in the future.  Pray for both of these girls as neither are followers of Jesus.  Pray for them to have a continual flow of strong Christian students in the coming years and that they will some day make the decision to become followers of Jesus.

It's Official!!!!

YAHOO!!!!  We are very excited to be able to share with you that as of today we have officially been assigned to work for the next 1 - 2 years in Battambang!

This past Monday-Wednesday we made a crazy last minute trip up to Battambang to talk with David and Doris about what the future is going to look like for all of us and also to do some house hunting (just in case we did move to Battambang).  On Wednesday morning we all came to agreement that Battambang is the place for us to be for this next phase, and we are all at peace and quite excited about it all.

We also were able to find a house to rent....which was a double blessing since it all happened SO quickly!  Unfortunately everything was so rushed that we forgot to take any pictures...so you'll have to wait on all of that.

The house is an older one and needs some work, but the landlord was agreeable to do a few things for us.  It is a cement house with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, living room, office and kitchen.  What is great is that we will only be using the front four rooms and the kitchen and then the spare bedroom and the "garage" area will be used as the CAMA Office so its a great deal for all of us.

Thanks to those of you who have prayed for this, we do now have a yard area that Aiden can run around and play in and our part of the house is only one level so we won't be having to climb up and down stairs with two kiddos.  The extra bonus is that this house sits directly across the street from David and Doris's house and is also quite close to Sharon (our Filipina teammate's) home so we will have a sense of community with our teammates which will be extremely helpful as we welcome baby #2.

An update on that situation - It looks as if Aiden and I will be traveling to Bangkok during the second week of May (need to be there by the 14th) and then Chris has been told that they will allow him to head that way on May 25th, which is 2.5 weeks ahead of the due date.  SO, pray that this baby doesn't come before the 25th!!!

Once the baby is born we will have to get him a passport and then work on his visa to get into Cambodia.  Please be praying that this part of the process goes smoothly and quickly so that we can get back to Battambang and settle into our new life there.  Pray for Aiden...there are lots of transitions coming his way and we need wisdom to know how to take care of  his needs.

Chris and I are so grateful to God for his blessing and guidance in this process.  It has been a long and at times stressful wait, and we know there are rough times ahead with transition, but we trust in God's goodness and rest in that.