Thursday, August 5

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JONAH! I missed both of the kids birthdays on this trip. However, I have an Asian dinner plan for a celebration after I catch up on my rest. I have 3 recipes to try out:) This morning the teen girls needed one more short trip to the market so four of us ate an early breakfast and took a tuk-tuk to the market for an hour. The Asia's Hope van was waiting when we returned so we quickly changed clothes into painting garb and headed to the school. Along the way we stopped at the newly opened KFC, yes KFC - only rice is served instead of mashed potatoes and gravy. Jenna did find out that potatoes were available upon request. She was a happy girl. Most of the team has reached the rice limit as have I.
Knowing that a paint brush is a weapon in my hand, I brought all of the teaching gear to work on during the painting time. I sat in a small gazebo on the school grounds for over 3 hours. The director's wife and I cut and assembled several phonics games. The school kids were all sleeping. I am not kidding! They come to school at 7:30. They break for lunch at 11:00 and then ALL of the kids nap for an hour. There is something about the heat, the humidity, the dust, I don't know what all - but you really are ready for that siesta or rest when early afternoon rolls around. No rest for us today, however. When the kids got up we all spent the afternoon outside working on English with the games we had assembled. Of course there was play and a return of the wonderful banana chips that we sampled yesterday. The children leave school at 4:00. Some ride bikes and carry a buddy on the back of the bike. Some go in the school van. Sometimes there are tuk-tuks. We followed the kids home from PrekEng 4. This home is sponsored by a family from Brandenton, Fla. We only had about 45 minutes to spend with them but we had a wonderful, wet time. We filled around 100 water balloons, gave minimum directions and the balloons started to fly. What a hoot! It was over in a few short minutes - many wet hugs and goodbyes. We repeated the same sequence with PrekEng 3. This is Vista's (Dublin church) house. Neither of these groups of kids had ever experienced water balloons. They have now been initiated! We had to rush back to the hotel, shower and dress and walk to a nice restaurant around the corner from our hotel. We treated all of the house directors and their wives to dinner. It was very nice. I shared with them that I remember how special it was when Bob and I had the occasion to slip away from our three children for a quiet dinner. I can't imagine how nice it must be for these couples to slip away from their 25 children for a couple of quiet hours!!
It is time to go to my room and pack. We leave the hotel at 8 am on Friday. We arrive in Columbus sometime Saturday afternoon. So, that's a lot of flying and a lot of time hanging out in the airports - LAX and Dallas. Thank you for prayers for our flights, luggage, safety, etc. God is blessing the people of Cambodia through Asia's Hope. He has blessed each of us as we've had a chance to watch this organization in action. Thanks for sharing this journey with me.