First few days in country...

Thank you for your prayers, friends, family and church.

We have arrived in Siem Reap all 13 of us safe with our max. 26+ luggages filled with your donations and gifts.

Our first humid day in the city was an educational and eye opening experience. Most people visit the area to see the famous temples in the Angkor Wat complex and to take advantage of the cheap economy of the region.

We were able to experience both. Angkor Wat, orignially bulit for Hindu worship is surrounded by a beautiful moat and is easy to imiagine in its orginal splender. This large complex (1.5km x 1.3km) of which we were only able to see a tiny fraction is now in ruins and is still visibly degrading today. We were told it was meant to last 1000 years yet it only lasted 300 before it was in ruins. What man builds, God will break.

Our team was then taken to see a bit of a "village" a little aways from the city. There are no paved roads in Siem Reap. So our bus ride was quite bumpy in the muddy roads. We arrived to see the brown waters of Tonle Sap lake where locals live in floating houses. Here we literally saw the daily lives of the locals, as they bathed, washed dishes, did laundry and ate meals out in their open houses made of dried palm leaves. There were many small children, in fact i dont think I have yet to see an older generation of people-most we have encountered are young men and women under 30. Children here in this "floating village" are naked or dirty by our standards. Many of the very young ones look at us curiously and wave "hello" in english. And many more of them attack our boat with trained faces of desperation begging for money or a dollar to buy a soda or banana. If I told you of the aggressiveness of the kids, your heart would break at their plight in such a young child. Yet this is what they depend on. The parents sell the faces of their children to anyone who has a heart. We are told that our boat driver makes a wage of about one dollar a day. So you can imagine what a dollar would be for a child selling trinkets. In fact much of the city's economy depends on our tourism. And by "our" I mean anyone visiting who has enough to spare one dollar. It is quite shocking to find how much one dollar is worth here.

All this you can see in a day, as we appraoch the week, I pray that God will show us more depth and more of how He is already working in this land.

Day 2, we were privileged to be able to attend the opening ceremony of the NIBC center of so far, buildings including a preschool, english school, computer lab (thank you for your laptops) , dormitories and a chapel. Many leaders, supporters, pastors and locals alike all were present for the morning worship service. Translations were in three languages as NIBC was founded by the korean university sudents of Han Dong : Korean, Cambodian and English. Even George got to say a few words as we and prayed for the buidings of this center!

Tonight we have just finished our lesson prep for tomorrows first day at school for us. We met with the local teachers and missionaries to discuss tomorrows schedule and we are ecxited to meet the children of Kontrack Village. At the same time, I know that I am a bit fearful at the condition of the children we will see tomorrow. We have been told that the outskirts of this province are in much worse conditions.

The condistions here look very poor to us and it is obvious the country had suffered much through many wars. Yet as Pastor John points out to us. there is much hope here in these young people. They learn fast. ( their english is very good!) And they hunger to make money. It is obvious that there is great potential here. and in these english schools that are built on chirstian foundations with God s firm hand, we are excited to see what God will show us next.

Tomorrow we go the schools with humble hearts. Please pray that we let go of our preconceived ways and trust that God will lead us to serve him in his plan for this country. Today we are more aware of the christians in the world, at home serving as well as abroad and I do not consider oursleves more worthy than you reading this at home. but we go with the gospel hope that we all do everyday and feel blessed to be here.

Thank you for your fervent prayers.