Far bigger Christmas party

Sue with her mum just eight weeks ago

Sue's mum has been so looking forward to having Christmas with the NZ family this year. Sue's sister Kaye and her husband are over from Perth together with their daughter and her brand new shiney husband Dan, so this year is extra special.

A few days ago Sue's mum realised that she was just not well enough to make it to the party. Jesus had something far more special in mind for her. She had a really well day yesterday with lots of family and visitors - and gorgeous weather. Then she headed off to the party of all parties 4am-ish this morning - peaceful as.

We've booked to come home to honour one neat mum and be with family and friends. We leave here on Saturday and arrive in New Plymouth Sunday evening. Our three children will be there, having already planned a Bonnevie kids late Christmas reunion on the Monday. We'll get to gate-crash that as well!

For all those that have visited Keitha, prayed for her and been so gracious to us through this time - thank you so very much. God bless you each one!

Christmas party

That's Phanna nicely positioned at the front in his white shirt. We sat on low cushion squabs and it was fun. Yes, Susie could not resist footsie with Bonna opposite her.

On Sunday evening we headed to the Khmer-Thai restaurant for a dinner out with all our Healing Home staff and volunteers. We were 14 people - and just three whities in the group. We had such a fun night together - and for some this was their very first time ever at a real restaurant.

After dinner it was dessert time at Donnie and Sophea. The Khmer just love party games and little Sophea had asked me 'would you like some games - I have some ideas ...' So we kicked off with the old 'stomp on the balloons' before introducing our friends to the wonder of coke-floats and fruit salad Kiwi-style - together with ice-cream and cakes.

Susie cheating - as you all know that she does ...

The icing on the cake surely was the presents. I had a heap of fun with them as Donnie and Sophea's gift was reasonably large and all the other gifts were small sized. I explained that married couples get big presents and that next year we were hopeful that there would be many more large gifts. Our folk love to laugh and there were hoots and glances sideways ...

Pressies! Chantol and Bonna.

The laughter went up several notches when the Uno cards were brought out. The cards are the same, but they play differently - in a way that has them in constant hilarity! We had such fun watching our great team enjoy themselves so thoroughly.

We've been on the receiving end of some real generosity from friends in NZ and Australia. As a result, we have been able to honour our staff and volunteers - and we are so glad for this and grateful to you. Many, many thanks.

Uno - like I never did know

Team Toowoomba

The team (less Jiaren the photographer) - Stephane, Edna Will, Yew Meng, Andrea, Elana, Benjamin, Jason, Patrick, Andrix and Seng Yee.

Yew Meng and Elana, our good friends who lead a church-based ministry to international students in Toowoomba, arrived with 10 great folk last week. Most of the team members are uni students in Toowoomba. They are an international bunch - Singaporeans, Malaysians, Bruneians and Chinese.

In their five days here they ventured where no teams we know of had gone before - out to three provincial churches in the Kampong Cham area. Village outreaches are very different to here in the city, and they experienced the fair dinkum mckoy - booked into a rowdy Cambodian outback bar (they moved!!); an open-air Christmas outreach meeting at the end of a outright scary track that their van-driver charged into like a death-wish ... and more. Their prayer lives appear to have improved greatly ...

Their first few days were around town. I tagged along for their orientation morning with Karen Hanna (an amazing Aussie girl who organises the schedules for visiting teams) and discovered lots of stuff about the the church and various ministries .... after 18 months of being a part of the place!

Elana - a one-woman evangelistic dynamo. Her last words to me - to get follow-up sorted for the van-driver because she led him to Jesus the day before!

It was a full-on, unforgettable experience for these guys and we just loved having them! Now we are a bit wiser too about what to expect in village outreaches ...

Daa

Chantol massaging some special stuff into Grand-dad's feet. Our girls are such treasures!!

Grand-dad came to our home two weeks ago. He is 83 years old and has never, ever been to a city before, let alone such a big city as Phnom Penh. Further, he has never heard of Jesus; has no knowledge of Christians or our faith.

Daa (Khmer for grandfather) was suspicious at first. He could not understand why our staff and volunteers were so nice and caring to him.

Last Wednesday Chantol shared on the love of God at devotions. Daa got it. The penny proverbially dropped. He has become a big fan of Prrayer Ong.

He is such a character! The folk here are regularly hooting with laughter over his stories and his witty comments. His grand-daughter Channey brought him to us as he had 'itchy skin'. We reckon that she really just wanted her dear old grand-dad to hear about Jesus.

Straight to the poolroom

Jason and Julia Hamilton-Smith have arrived for three weeks. Julia was here at the same time last year, while her husband was in government service in a distant land.

They came with a good-sized suitcase each laden with children's supplies and other stuff - and a big mystery cardboard-wrapped parcel. This went under the Christmas tree (well - beside the tree, seeing that it was about the same size!) 24 hours and I just had to know ...

My very precious picture - so much colour and character!!

Julia had done three extraordinary things rolled into one.

1. She remembered how much I miss vibrant colours in this nation. Often I'm wanting to get colour into our world as we live in a city dominated by grey concrete.

2. She remembered the time last year when we happened to find a great art gallery with paintings by a resident French-Canadian artist.

3. She had a certain picture, taken by herself in the local vege market.

So, 1, 2, 3 - Jason and Julia got an artist friend to paint a stylised rendition of the photo in the style of the above artist. This is the result - an awesome picture that now has pride of place in our dining room. Walk into our living room and your eye will now be automatically drawn to this great splash of creative colour. Thank you, guys!!

Daughter Melody is not so generous in her 'Christmas-come-early' policy. Her gift to us also arrived in Julia and Jason's luggage ...

Watch this space - Jason and Julia are farmers and avid gardeners. They have done an impressive amount of research on tropical vege gardens and have a detailed plan of visually transforming the Healing Home land into a productive haven. Bring it on!!

Jackfruit jackpot

Dtouch and Bonna with the jackpot

Our fruit trees are beginning to produce the goods for us! The big mango tree in the front is giving us a great supply of fruit now and the girls picked two delicious jackfruit on Saturday. Eight more of these beauties are hanging high in the branches, to be harvested over the next few weeks!

Mangos every morning ...

Good-byes and hellos

We waved good-bye to the great team from NorthCity Church, Christchurch, yesterday. They have been here in Cambodia for two full weeks. It is always hard to say 'good-bye' when you anticipate the arrival of good friends for so long.

It appears that aeroplanes are dodgy disease-carrying machines that we need to take better into account. It is pretty common for people to develop good bathroom-seeking skills after they have been here a bit - but quite a few of this team arrived with bugs picked up en-route. Matt ended up spending his last two days in a medical clinic with a fever that spiked over 40 degrees and all kind of stuff showing up in a blood test. He literally walked out of the clinic and took the plane home. He was looking a heap better tho'.

Sue checking Matt's temperature before it really took off. Matt was raised by missionary parents to PNG and just thrived in this culture.

Donald Scott, the church pastor, sharing at morning devotions at the Healing Home on Tuesday. Chantol does great with her interpreting. Tana and Katerine are the other two team members in the pic.

One of the team members, Jan, is a trained school teacher. In her last two days she found her stride in teaching English language teachers in teaching creatively. This was great - as there is very little of this kind of 'outside the box' kind of training to be found here. We are always discovering new ways of serving and blessing the people of this nation. Well done, team! We totally look forward to your ongoing, purposeful and fruitful relationship into this amazing nation.

It was back to the airport the same evening to welcome Yew Meng, Elana and their team of 10 mainly students from Toowoomba, Australia. The neat thing with these guys is that they are all Asians studying in Australia. We have Singaporeans, Malaysians, Chinese and two folk from Brunei (Bruneiarians??) in this team.

They got introduced to Phnom Penh properly - gridlocked in magnificent traffic chaos in tuktuks on the way back from the airport. They have since been watered, bedded, orientated, involved in street-children outreach and last heard of, trying to find a tuktuk that had a remote idea of how to get them back to their hotel. To any members of the Christchurch team reading this - you know just exactly of what we speak ....!!

Tomorrow Jason and Julia from Brisbane hit town for over three weeks. We also have Nicole Willinks from Palmerston North safely arrived last week and with us for two months. I know, I'm blog-behind. Christmas will not be lonely in 2008!

Big day out

We went a long way on Sunday. It's a long story - about a very sick man in a village, whose son asked if he could come to the Healing Home. He sounded to be far too sick to move, so Sue kindly offered that we would visit. He just happened to come from Bonna's village, so she got a nephew of the sick father to take her out and we followed. Bonna said 'three hours - two if you drive fast'. We drove fast. It was over three hours each way - on roads that roughly translated into one hour tarseal, one hour gravel with potholes and dust and one hour not a road at all.

Crossing the Tonle Sap River by ferry on the way out - a pleasent 15 minutes before the rough roads kicked in. That's our staff girl Bonna with Sue. Bonna's pink helmet was my signpost for six hours!

It was a very interesting day, so far from the now-familiar life we have in Phnom Penh. Little ponies pulling wooden wagons replace the tuktuks and pick-up trucks of the city. There were some vehicles, but mostly everyone else moves on the trusty motor scooters, bouncing along roads that have potholes big enough to swallow bulldozers (... almost ...)

Dtou's father was indeed a very sick man. It was very hard to get any definite information as to diagnosis. Sue is of the opinion that he may have Aids. The evening before we arrived we had word that he had actually died, and folk had gathered from all over in expectation of this. So we were pretty surprised to come to a village house with people galore gathered.

After spending time praying for him we went a few houses down the road where Pastor Mara grew up. Mara is an awesome man who is one of the pastors in the church here. This happens to also be his village. While we were visiting with his sisters and rellies he phoned in (yes, the village abounds in pigs, coconuts and mobile phones!!) and was real happy that we were in 'his place' looking at his wedding pics on the wall and meeting with his whanau.

Then it was back to Dtou's dad and more prayer followed by lunch. Bonna got to spend a wee bit of time with her parents too, much to her joy. Her folks run one of the three little eatery places in the village. Her dad starts work 3am seven days a week, getting the noodles ready. He works through to 10pm closing. Do the maths ...

In Mara's village home - some of his nieces who came to meet us. Not many pics sorry - left the camera at home and just used the phone camera.

Our latest report is that the dad is doing better. When he has gained some strength we will look to get him to the home. This is what we believe for.

One of the real benefits of this day in the province was to get a feel of what Healing Homes could look like in villages. Bonna is still a village girl at heart and it sure was a privilege being on her home turf and hearing her heart for her village. One day ...

As for Susie, she was an absolute champ. We were both a bit worried at what we had gotten ourselves into, but she handled the moto marathon real well. There was just one time when I felt her wriggling around and then seeming to disappear off the back seat. 'Whatever are you up to?' I asked her. Her cheery reply - 'I'm just farting'. It was a challenge to drive a straight line after that one!

Raining kids

One of the things we are getting to is to run a kids club out of the front yard. There are so many little mites everywhere and to love God is to love kids.

Yesterday our devotion was about Jesus wrapping his arms around children whilst the disciples were trying to chase the little ones away. We talked about learning to have a Jesus heart instead of the predominant hard religious heart.

Part of the first wave this morning.

Literally this morning, I saw a little hand reach thru' our gate and undo the latch. In no time we had 15 kids running in our yard, kicking a soccer ball around, checking out the fish pond at close quarters and giving the garden swing the time of its' life. Their timing was great, as this also is the day that the Christchurch team is coming to run the first childrens program. So I let them run riot for 20 or 30 minutes, then sent them off with instructions to return at 3pm.

Donald Scott and team were here at 2pm for the 3pm launch. We talked in terms of having 20 kids come. Pause - Tui ad. Not less than 50 kids and two dogs poured thru' the gates

The team did great. They kicked off with Danny and Caitlin singing Maori action songs. A couple more songs; then the boys hit the soccer pitch (NZ vs Cambodia) while the girls did face-painting and hopscotch. Some of the little girls had even arrived in their best clothing, such was their excitement that there was a neighbourhood happening.

Cambodian striker in action

Danny spreading a little love around

Jan leading the hopscotch

Jan led a lively dramatic retelling of the Prodigal Son after the games. We had the dad, the sons, the party boys, the pig farmer - and squeals of laughter coming from ... outside the gate. This was a neighbourhood event and we had a good crowd of parents peering in from every vantage point!

Watching eagerly

The Christchurch team in 'My God Is So Big' song mode. Donald was taking pics.

Covered in kids

David and Tana making a literal pile of new friends at Centre of Peace orphanage this morning

I am purring through this week. We've got a great team of 10 Kiwis in town led by Donald Scott, a pastor and friend from Christchurch. It thrills me more than I can say to see a pastor lead a group of his congregation out to Cambodia, to put into this nation in a purposeful way.

The team have had a full schedule prepared for them by the legendery Karen Hanna, an Aussie who wonderfully administrates the coming of teams into the church. Yesterday they were involved in the Joytime Club - an outreach to street children around the Olympic Market area. I got to pop up for 15 minutes and found Donald on security duty. He was a happy man. He had been watching his team cleaning the kids and washing their feet. His comment was 'it does not get much better than this - seeing our young people washing the feet of the street children'.

Donald's eldest son Jono horsing around with the boys

Today the team are in a slum area. Then tomorrow they hit the province for a Christmas outreach. Next week includes taking everybody at the Centre of Peace orphanage to the beach for two days/one night. That is 70 kids and 10 staff/adults. No wonder the kids there are so full on boisterous today. They are excited out of their little skins!!

Srourn's long road

Srourn - such a lovely guy

Susie and I went across town yesterday to visit our lovely friend Srourn. He is the man who has a bad bone infection in his leg. He had been put into a Khmer hospital with a view to amputating his leg - but happily his leg is still with him. The doctors have carved a big hole in his buttock where he also has bad infections. Susie had a peek and her face was enough to persuade me not to even think about it.

The hospital room was maybe 10 metres square. It had 18 beds in it - quite a squeeze but manageable. Overall it was pretty clean. Srourn is in good heart but he must be bored out of his brain. His daughter Sinart is with him too. We'll keep in contact and expect him back at the Healing Home in the future.

O happy day

Today was a great day. I got pulled up for going through a red light. Now in my defense the light was green as kiwi grass (as opposed to Australian grass which can be many colours but seldom green). But, there was only five seconds left on the traffic-light counter-downer and by the time I got to the cops 30 metres the other side of the intersection the lights were, in all probability, as red as an Aussie desert.

Anyway, I digress. This was a great day. This would be the very first time in 18 months of living here that I have seen the police attempt to inforce a farely well known rule: if the light is red, then please stop. I was pulled over together with a couple of young ladies on their bike, who appeared to be stunned beyond words, and a Khmer bloke who most definitley ran the red. He paid the 5000 riel ($2 NZ) and was away.

The girls remained flapping mullets, stunned. I was initially peeved but then became so happy. On this day, at one set of lights in this city of 1.5 million, one group of local constabluary are pulling over red-light runners and white boys who are close enough to call it 2 bucks. Great! I eventually offered the 3200 riel or so that was in my top pocket (which seemed a better scheme than admitting that I had a wallet in my pants pocket) and continued with a happy heart :-)

Sunday big day

This last Sunday was an eventful wee time at the Healing Home.

Loading up tuk-tuk Vannat's chariot - complete with wheel chair. The rest of our people were carted off on the back of motorbikes.

The day started with an evacuation at 6.45am. Every one of our six patients and three family members wanted to head out to the first service at New Life Fellowship (7am start; second service is at 10.15am). I kept the cat company until everyone returned - then headed out to the second service, followed by expat cellgroup lunch and meeting at Mark and Jo's.

3pm and we had a friendly invasion from four great American girls, who came to spoil our people. They made up blankets, did the hand lotion massage thing and generally loved on and prayed for the patients.

Thanks girls - you were great!

Meanwhile, we were getting inundated with young people. A couple of cellgroups from New Life were having an end-of-year break up party (please tell me that this is not the end of 2008 ...) and we were the favoured venue. We hosted 30+ great young people.

Their specialty dish of choice - 'baby duck'. In the Philippines I knew this as 'balout' - boiled duck egg with a fully formed, feathered little ducking inside. Knock off the top of the egg and there is the little guy, bill up and cooked to perfection. Not today, thanks ...

My party lowlight - kebab sticks galore. They were great - and I have been doing loo runs ever since ....

Where there is food, there are teenagers ...

Big-hearted Hartley's

We have been spoiled again this week. Our very good friends, Kerry and Angela Hartley, flew in for three days as part of a missions trip that also takes them to Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. There is a lot of happy history between us. Kerry and Angie have been married 26 years - and I was there with the wedding rings in my pocket on the day.

I went hunting for Angie - and found her in the kitchen, quietly teaching little Douch our cook English. She did a bit of a language exchange too, and came out of the hour or so with a good little Khmer vocab!

It was a good week to have them here. After closing for the Water Festival week, the Healing Home has filled again rapidly. Tuesday was actually chaos day with neighbours in the yard, a very sick lady turning up un-announced and generally working through lots of stuff. Currently we have six patients in the home plus three family members, so all beds are taken. We'll introduce the new people later. There are some pretty huge needs.

Back to Kerry and Angie - they arrived Wednesday and departed today. Kerry took a great devotion teaching Thursday morning and followed that up with our first staff training session on Friday morning. They got to have time with friends mark and Jo over dinner at our place Friday night. Last night it was out for dinner with Donnie and Sophea - a belated 'thank you' to them for overseeing the Healing Home in our absence last month. Coffee with Colleen (Asian Outreach - from Tauranga) this morning was another relationship connection too.

Kerry is my legendry 'can-do Kiwi' example. Here he is fixing our water pump in the front yard - and yes, the water flows again! He also healed our overflowing water tank at home. I was as helpful as Dennis DeVito in 'The Castle' - passing tools and making happy noises.

Fruit of the land

Jackfruit coming on stream. This is delicious - and each fruit can weigh 5kg or more.

We are watching our fruit trees with anticipation. So are our neighbours - in fact they watch our mango tree near the front gate with long poles in their hands when they think we are not watching! I put that down to sowing and reaping from my childhood ....

A nice little bunch of mangos - these are a little safer from our neighbours as they're in the tree outside the kitchen.

These fellas we still have to be introduced to. The tree looks like a pawpaw but I think that they are a bit different.

Intrepid Kiwis

Annette from Manakau and Marion Beamish from New Plymouth, at the Healing Home. We know Marion from before Sue and I were married ... and that was in 1977!

We had a lovely visit today from a couple of kiwi girls who have come to Cambodia through a combo travel deal. World Vision link with Intrepid Tours to give these lucky ladies a cycle tour of Cambodia combined with a visit to their sponsored children and an additional day viewing World Vision development projects.

There has been such a response to this that World Vision put two tours, one week apart. The cycling takes them from Siem Reap in the north to Sihanoukville in the south - in nice, easy 80km per day stages ....

Road rivers

Sue and I had such a delightful evening over dinner with Peter and Bev van on Saturday evening, together with their friend and fellow-worker, Katherine. Peter stole the show with his hilarious rendition of his 60th birthday pressie from the kids - a parachute jump over Queenstown. He was so funny with his detailed account of how he missed all the sure signs that this was not going to be fun - like the glazed, dazed looks on the faces of those who had just completed their jumps, or the question 'have you ever suffered heart complaints'?

Peter and Bev; Susie and I. Sure the temperature has dropped a bit here now - a very nice 28 degrees by day - but Bev is wrapped up because of the air-con.

It was a fun night together and an excellent, relaxed catch-up. The fun did not end with the dinner, either. We were aware that there had been 'some rain' during our meal time - but a little surprised to find no visible road when we were looking to head home. Our dinner together was far from our home, right up in the north of the city, so we had a cross-city journey to accomplish.

The view from the footpath - pretty useless pic I know; one really has to be here to experience the vibe

So, we started the journey home by hitting the side streets in a totally unknown part of the city, navigating first past the lucky couple and their guests who had chosen this night for their wedding reception in one of those 'set up the tent in the middle of the road' affairs. All good; dry ground so far.

A k or so on and there appeared to be a bit of a shimmer ahead. A bunch of boys who u-turned gave a hint of what lay ahead, but real men don't u-turn. Besides, Susie is home now so I have a praying wife right behind me. Between her fervent prayers and her helpful advice on where I should be positioned in river road, we got thru' just fine and had a pretty clear run the rest of the way home. Phnom Penh is like that - rain all over but particular localised areas that just get inundated.

The Vans are back in town

We have Peter and Bev van der Westhuyzen in town for five days. Peter was here about four months ago, making initial contacts for translation work for 'Generation Ministries'. Peter and Bev are amazing folk, pioneering a ministry that trains childrens church teachers throughout Asia. Over the last 15 years they have developed and sourced extensive teaching curriculum and resources and travelled constantly, training workers across Asia. Much of their work is in very sensitive nations. Now they are wanting to have this hugely valuable material translated into Khmer.

How amazing - this is a couple whom we have loved and believed in for one-and-a-half decades and whom our home church have supported since they began Generation Ministries - and here they are, preparing to be a blessing into Cambodia. Life has so many unforseen connections. Another connection for you long-toothed CityLifer's in New Plymouth - Peter and Bev co-lead a church small-group with Peter and Rhonda Mountford in Pakuranga.

Bev made contact a couple of months ago and said that she was keen to run a mini ladies camp over a Friday and Saturday. With Sue away, Colleen has been chief organiser. With so many people away for this holiday week she has done well. We were hopeful of having our staff girls attend but they are in holiday mode in the provinces this weekend.

Anyway, we've filled the Healing Home with a ladies camp - and brought in a bloke to do the cooking and all bottle washing. Hopefully we'll get a dinner with Bev and Peter tonight or at least a coffee together tomorrow - as Peter has got meetings stacked up for almost all his time here.

The girls at breakfast this morning (above) ... note the vegemite (thanks, Annie!) and the gourmet omelette - and Bev with Colleen's girls (below)

Susie is home - and straight to the Koffee Korner

Sue is back, safe and well. She is navigating Asia with good skills now, fully informing the taxi driver that he was lost in Bangkok (for when she had to stop over the night). I am like totally and utterly lost permanently in Bangkok - it is a hideously-sized city. Anyway, the long missing wife is back in Phnom Penh just fine.

My trip to the airport to get her was marked with hilarity. An intersection on the way used to be so much fun, but has since been ruined with the introduction of traffic lights. This night, the lights were out and people were flooding into the city for the boat racing during Water Festival. The chaos was utterly glorious - gridlock to the max.

I used the time to observe new records - 12 adults and a little child in one tuk tuk; five teenage boys on one motorbike. It took perhaps 15 minutes to get thru' the intersection. Two hapless police with glo sticks and whistles were barely visible in the midst of everything. They may as well have been twiddly-winks players - the louder they blew their whistles, the more completely they were ignored.

The resident kiwis were well aware that Susie was back. Coffee on Thursday morning was the go with Colleen, Grahame and Sue Taylor and Sue Hanna - all NZ'ers and all living in our area. Susie supplied the choccy goodies.

The legendry, humble Pineapple Lump - world famous beyond NZ

Floaties

I was reading an article about Phnom Penh's water supply a while back. A bunch of work has been done to pipe clean water thoughout the city. This article claimed that Phnom Penh had been recognised as now having the cleanest water in the world. I want to see that claim emblazoned upon a Tui billboard ...

Algae floaties straight our of the tap

At home, we buy our drinking water in 20 litre plastic containers for $1. All good. At the Healing Home I was doing that but have shifted to two water filters - a simple but effective system that filters water through a big clay pot. I also use heaven's own supply, capturing water from a roof run-off and into 20 litre bottles. As long as I allow the first 15 minutes or so of a downpour to wash the dust and atmospheric grime away, the 'from above' water is great.

Rat trap came back

I've been clearing out an overgrown piece of garden - and lo and behold. We have reclaimed the walkabout rat trap, a full five metres away from where it was set. I've already met the rat that most likely did the walkie with said trap sconed on it's head. He's the size of a full-grown dog (as in chihuahua) and comes visiting from out of a drain 6pm-ish in the evenings.

Another year another Water Festival

Water Festival is almost upon us. This is second time around now for us - the beauty of living for more than one year out here. Big waka canoes take to the Mekong for the boat races, and Phnom Penh swells by an influx of some one million people. The vibe is already happening. I took a trip to riverside to pay the power bill and meeting with a local pastor. It is bedlam already out there; you can feel the weight of people already arriving into the city.

There is a wee problem this year, tho'. The wet season is meant to be over. Blue skies should be overhead. But ... neighbouring Vietnam has turned into a giant swimming pool and the rain continues to pour down here too.

Meanwhile, the Healing Home exodus is all over. Three patients and their families headed back home on Sunday and the remaining two patients, Sak and Ngeit, left today. All of a sudden we have gone from overflowing to empty. We're keeping busy tho' - always stuff to clean and do before the holiday week kicks in next Monday.

Chantol riding my steed, taking Ngeit and little Dtouch back home. They live in a village an hour out of town - "a very little house", Chantol reported, "with six children at home - and they all have colds". Ngeit is due back after the festival.

Grumpy old men

I found myself becoming one of these guys for a bit this week. Was it Wednesday?? - anyway I arrived at the Healing Home to discover that visitors were, well, now camping. The Healing Home was becoming a marae and I still have too much pakeha blood in these veins. Silly stuff really - it's most likely set back my sainthood a year of two.

We try to have a 'one patient may have one family member' policy. Not two family members and two kids - one person. Read my lips.

Sophea and Donnie - who live upstairs and help me to keep laughing through my wifeless days. Sophea has discovered my love for passionfruit - and knows the one stall in a local market to source these beauties. She gave me half a dozen yesterday - yay for Sophea!

Part of the fun at the mo is navigating the public holiday system. Cambodia has over 20 public holiday days - I kid you not a bit. This Wednesday and Friday were holidays; then Monday week followed by Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for the Water Festival. Our staff have happily agreed to take a full week off over Water Festival and I'll owe them a day in the lieu thereafter.

This means that the Healing Home will close for a week from 9 November. It is not actually a problem; people want to be with their families and a number of our folk were plannng to exit anyway and come back afterwards. Susie is due back in the middle of that week (12 November). I'm trusting that I'll be grump-free by then!

Ngeit's tale

'Ngeit' is fun to say. You put your tongue into 'ng' as in song, and then say 'night'. The girls correct me every time.

Ngeit was one of our new patients whom I was introduced to on my return from NZ. She has been diagnosed with arthritis and has been in a lot of pain through her body, arms and fingers. I did not know so much about her until I sat at her bedside this week, together with Chantol, to pray for her.

While praying, I kept having an impression of a verse that says that 'when you pray, if you have anything against anyone, forgive them ...' So, we stopped praying, dug out the verse and talked to Ngeit. She started to cry.

Ngeit and her little daughter Dtouch (we call her Dtouch number 2, to distinguish her from our cook!)

Ngeit told us that she had a major falling out with her village neighbour. The animosity escalated. The neighbour went to a local witch-doctor and paid him to curse Ngeit. After that, she became sick.

We've got Ngeit on a new medicine. It is called 'blessing those who curse you'. Now, before we pray for her, we ask her to pray blessing on her neighbour. These are her steps to freedom. She testifies that the pain level has truly decreased these last two days.

I have a dream

Actually, I've got a few of them on the boil.

The dream in the heading is not such a spiritual one. I'm keen to get to making a calendar to communicate with the world just what a motorbike's life can be like in Phnom Penh.

This happy moto I snapped on the phone camera as we were pulling off some traffic lights not far from my house.

Srourn's neighbourhood walk

Srourn is the delightful, placid guy with a horrendous bone-eating disease that has gone through his leg and up into his buttocks. Last week his treasure of a wife came to visit. She brought a wee grand-daughter too.

Srourn's wife is hugely lovely - a wonderful smile, a vibrant faith and just an incredibly grateful heart. She was so thrilled to spend the week with her man and so happy too at the degree that his weeping sores have been managed through his regular visits to the CSI clinic and the care of our girls.

CSI says that his leg must be amputated to save his life. Sopheap translated as I carefully told him what the doctors say - and the miracle that we are believing for. Srourn had such big sad eyes as we talked. His wife is a champion. She so loved on him and encouraged him that, leg or no leg, he is her man.

Waiting for the van pick-up - Srourn with his wife and grand-daughter.

Walking out - a huge step for Srourn. With him is Wayne, Frank's (from Hagar) 'brother' who has worked at the Healing Home for the 5 weeks I was away. He has been a huge gift to us - and sadly returns to Aussie this week. Actually Frank does not have a brother - but I only discovered that after getting back here ....

Srourn has happily gone home for three weeks, and will return to us after a big holiday festival in mid-November. We had to get him to the outside road for pick-up. No way was he going in the wheel-chair. He determined to walk the 60 metres - and that he did. It was a great exercise in neighbourhood exposure.

Now, our neighbour opposite has made an approach about a sick family member. Brilliant! We are beyond full at the moment tho' - new people mean every bed is filled and a few family extras are on the floor.

Only mad dogs and Englishmen

"Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun" is a classic line attributed to Rudyard Kipling. It was written, I believe, from his observations of life in Burma - which is just a few borders away.

It's still 30 degrees or more here - in the shade. Humidity is constantly in the 90's. I had to pop down to the local market a few days back right on midday and spied the mad dog's mate. Here was a white fella clad in running shoes and shorts, shirt off in all his hairy glory, cracking a smart pace through the heart of the midday market. Unbelieveable!!

Long finding his legs

Long has been hugely happy these last few days. Firstly, I picked up a bucket of building blocks for the little guy. He has been industriously creating ever since - and very excited about it all.

Secondly, Long has hijacked Srourn's walkie. Yesterday Srourn was stretched out on the outside concrete seat in the late afternoon, as he does. Next thing, Long snaffled the walkie and was away - and with the biggest grin you have ever seen. He's been zipping around much of today too. It is like someone has given a kid wings - he is that excited about being out of mum's arms.

Long this evening. I can put my thumb and finger around his right shin and literally not touch his skin.

Long has a horrible disease that works a bit like HIV, in as much as it attacks his system. We've got him on extra high-nutrition drinks and good big meals as we seek to build up his reserves. I was so moved yesterday too when I got him some ointment - and watched his mum pray over him as she massaged the cream into his sores. The love of a mum is an inspiration in every culture.

While Long is finding his legs, Rin is finding her voice. Rin, remember, is the lady who came to us about 12 weeks ago, curled into a catatonic ball. Upon my return, I find a Rin who sits in the wheelchair, head high and now feeding herself like a front end loader. She still will not talk or respond to anyone when she is spoken to, but she will randomly break out into song. She's got the blues and the neighbourhood know it. The content is apparently a funeral-dirge type lament about her children that she misses so.

My belief is that, for two years, Rin has shut off from this world and formed a world within her imagination. I think that she has made some suspect friends in that world too. Now, as her body becomes stronger, we have the work of bringing her back into our world. She is a work of grace in progress.