Cambodia 2009!!

Next May I am leading a team of 7 girls to Phnom Penh, Cambodia for 3.5 weeks.  I have had difficulty communicating with the missionaries, so no details are confirmed, but I can assume this trip will be much like my trip to Cambodia last year.  We will be teaching English in various schools, working with the 7 students at the Bible College, and visiting small churches in the villages where the Bible College alumni are now pastors.  I have never had the opportunity to return to the same location on a missions trip, so I am really looking forward to returning and seeing familiar faces, and worshipping again in the same churches.

I am still very nervous about all the responsibility of being the team leader, but I feel like I have a really good group of girls... and we're going to use our strengths to cover each other's weaknesses.  I am really anxious to begin weekly meetings as a team, and getting to know the girls.  I believe there are 3 freshman, 3 sophomores, and 1 senior, and no one knows each other!

I just got an email this afternoon from Julia in the World Impact office (the missions organization at IWU) and she that an IWU film crew is requesting to follow our team through Cambodia, and create a movie.  I think their main purpose is to raise the awareness of missions, and Cambodia was likely chosen for it's unique culture, Buddhist traditions, and possibly for sex trafficking being a huge issue, yet so overlooked.  That will definitely add an interesting... something interesting to our trip!

This was one of our last nights in Cambodia.  We treated our new Khmer friends to s'mores, and they treated us to baluts (fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell.)  Notice we are using forks to hold our marshmallows over the fire HAHA.

This is a good group of guys at The Blue Pumpkin, a restaurant in Siem Reap.  From L to R: Missionary Tim Gallant, Pastor Vandy, Cheret our van driver, and Pastor Chamnol. 

 

This is the wedding party at Pastor Mandyt's wedding.  I can tell you that Pastor Mandyt (the groom) is in the suit in the middle, and his parents are on either side of him.  Khmer weddings are very different.. very strange.