Working towards Wonderful Healing Home

We are hugely gladdened by the encouragement that we have received since we have signed the lease on the healing home. June 22 is the date that we are working towards for the dedication and launch of the house. At this stage, Chris Lee, our pastor and very good friend from New Plymouth, is set to come out for this time. Toowoomba City Church are pretty certain to send out someone from their leadership too - how exciting is that!

We've had three really productive meetings over the last few days - a lunch meeting with Pastor Jesse and his wife Soar, time with two people who run medical missions teams into the provinces from New Life Fellowship, and then a great hour with the pastors of New Life this morning.

In everything, we are speaking the same language. The medical guys were so excited, as constantly they are faced with huge needs, and simply no-where to take people. They shared hospital horror stories and dismay at the lack of caring, competent facilities. We are making it very clear that this is not 'our baby' - but that we serve in this vision under and as a ministry of New Life. We want the healing homes to be Cambodian, not ex-pat.

The guys were great to be with this morning. Here they are - minus Samdy who is up in Battambang this week.

New Life Fellowship pastors - Pisit, Johnny, Jesse, Mara and Samnang

They have set me up with a translator for this Friday, when we go back to the home to finalise a lot of details. Then we have beds to organise (maybe bunks too - as family members nearly always accompany the sick), bedding galore, big cooking pots, washing machine, office set-up and many other things that we have yet to think of!

A visiting ministry is teaching on Jesus Our Healer for a whole week in early June, so this is exciting too - and ideal timing for people to follow through and become part of the volunteer team in this work.

Reception area at the front - yes, the bed will have to go!

Part of the preperation is within us - that God may put something fresh of His life and refreshing. Next week we are heading to Jakarta, Indonesia for a 4-day conference. This was Susie's doing - she had a real sense that we were to attend a place of refreshing and went on an internet search. For those of you in New Plymouth who remember Jill Austin, she will be one of the eight ministries there. We told a friend or two who told a friend ... now seven of us are going, including Mark and Jo, Pam (who is a part of our Sunday night homegroup) and Marion Fromm (the Aussie legend who has raised up the dried fruit business that emplys landmine amputees).

From Toowoomba to Darwin on a spider

During the three years that we lived in Toowoomba, one huge difference we experienced was the sheer size of Aussie. One thing that used to always give me a giggle when driving from Brisbane back to Toowoomba was the signposts. Warwick - 70km. Sweet. Toowoomba 101km - not far now. Roma 455km - hmm, that's getting further. And then underneath - Darwin 3411km. By road!

I noticed that my trusty Spider motorbike has clicked over 3500km plus. The little machine has taken me further than from Toowoomba to Darwin - and all that around the streets of Phnom Penh! Well done little moto!!

Wonderful!

While I was down-country on Tuesday (leaving Susie at home to continue her labour of love for Hagar) some pretty amazing news came through. The house we loved and lost is available again! The contract had fallen over - were we interested? Is the pope a Catholic??

Today we signed up for our first Healing Home. We shall call it 'Wonderful', because central to our heart in all this is that the name of the Lord be honoured and made great ('His name shall be called ... as per Isaiah 9)

It is a funny thing, walking through a 'was dead and is alive again' day like this. We know that it was right to lay the property down and wait. Equally, we are sure that it has been given back for this vision. We have signed a three-year renewable lease and take possession on Monday 16 June.

Remember this photo? We are catching up with Pastor Jesse (in the blue t-shirt) for lunch after church on Sunday too - and look to work out lots of details about this Healing Home being a part of the ministry of New Life Fellowship here in Phnom Penh.

Downstairs open waiting room area.

The big bed-room. Susie reckons we will get eight people in here. It was two rooms but there was an alteration ... We are negotiating on being allowed to do our own colour scheme. Pink and Kim do not agree! There are two other bedrooms across the passage downstairs - and another seriously large one upstairs (that we want to become two rooms)

The mango trees have really grown since we were last there two months ago. They give great shade and also act as a natural attraction for the resident mosquito population! The property is kind of 'best house, worst street' - a narrow, potholed dirt road running behind and parallel to a road that gloriously floods in the wet season. It was pouring yesterday and my trusty spider moto never missed a beat thru' some very exciting road flooding. That's Phnom Penh - major street flooding occurs all over the city in the wet times.

A real bonus is a house-lot of furniture - in fact, too much furniture. The main sticking point in our negotiations was the landlord's dilemma of what he will do with the stuff we will not want. We return next Friday to finalise all this. Most important will be the agreement to remove the mother of all spirit houses, now mounted on a concrete pad at the front gate.

We have started planning for the opening and dedication of this home through the weekend of June 20-22.

On the road with an orphanage

I was most privileged to be invited on a 3-day outing with 'Centre of Peace' orphanage. One bus, 70 children and 25 adults headed south to Sihanoukville on Tuesday for just the most exciting outing that these little guys have ever known!

Getting ready to hit the road

Woopsie, seems like the road hit us. Everybody out, as the rear wheel busts thru' a poorly concreted drain cover. The bus boys were great - 40 minutes with the jack and we were out of there.

Bophal and her team are just great in the organisation department. A local hotel-come-guest-house happily packed the kids in, six to seven to a room. The kitchen came with us, with gas cooker and the mother of all rice-cookers. Cooking for 100 twice a day is a well practiced skill for this team!

One serious rice-cooker - 20 minutes and 30 children fed!


Lunch time on Wednesday

The beach was just 50 metres away. Sand and surf is the ultimate international language! It was hilarious watching like 50 bouncing kids in their yellow t-shirts, playing in the surf. And could they play - my arms are nearly ripped off!

Where there is sand, there is a hole ..

A day-trip to a local river and water-fall

Darra nibbling on his breakfast. This great young guy gets on a motorbike every Sunday morning and drives 50km into the countryside to run a small group for one Christian couple - the only Christians in their village. Dara translated for me too for devotions one evening.

Nurse Sue

Sue is spending a couple of days a week working on setting up medical clinics for the various centres of Hagar. Hagar have many effective arms, including the Women's Shelter (victims of domestic violence), House of Smiles (children with disabilities), Aftercare (girls rescued from sex trafficing) Foster Home (neglected and abandoned children) and Hagar Soya (a hugely-expanding soya milk factory). The childrens work alone covers 400 kids!

Dr Kamrang sitting in what is morphing into Clinic 1

Up to now, medical care for people in Hagar care has been out-sourced. However, in an effort to pull things together more effectively, Hagar have employed a very capable doctor, Dr Kamrang. Dr Kamrang has just come on staff. Sue has been preparing the way for her firstly in planning medical rooms at each centre and secondly in interviewing key staff bosses to establish a process for medical care.

Dr Kamrang at a medical provider - scoping out the best deals to set up the clinics.

Yesterday Sue and the happy doc were moto-ing around Phnom Penh on a 'search and buy' mission to stock the medical rooms. Sue took the opportunity to set herself up with her own mobile medical kit too. She came home very pleased with herself!

Happy Hodgies

We had a delightful surprise on Wednesday when answering the phone. John and Helen Hodginson, parents of Alastair (who with his wife Marion used to lead the youth at CityLife Church and are greatly loved of our kids - and us!) were in town. They had come on a missionary visiting trip to India, Cambodia and Malaysia, representing their NZ church denomination. They were staying with the Hagarites (Sue Hanna and the Taylors) down the road, and when Sue Hanna mentioned 'these New Plymouth guys who used to pastor in New Plymouth', the proverbial penny dropped.

So, it was a great catch-up. We got to do dinner together and then I had the pleasure of taking them around Phnom Penh for a bunch of the day yesterday. We did the Toul Sleng genocide museum (a hugely tragic place to go), Orussey Market (a big Cambodian market in a poorer part of the city - I offered them $5 for every white fella they saw and came out with all $ still in my wallet!) lunch at the Riverside and the Royal Palace (my first look-in there). Then it was home for a coffee and a tiki-tour of our kiwi castle.

Watching and waiting

We continue to be very keen to establish a first healing home. We're finding waiting harder than doing!

The house that we looked at just prior to returning to NZ in late February really had won our hearts. However, we just could not get a God-sense to proceed, as much as we asked the Lord to say 'yes'. More praying upon our return, and then I inquired again about the the property. It has been taken. Bother! It's a disappointment, but then we trust it is actually a blessing. The grounds of this property are just the best that we have seen, but perhaps the house itself would prove too small. Who knows? We walk by faith ...

So, we are watching, waiting, praying, exploring. I am enhancing my moto skills - becoming more like the locals, looking around everywhere but the road as I get round the city now! We have looked at a couple of other houses over the last week, but they fall well short of what we seek.

The benchmark - if not this, then what, Lord??