Monsoon heatwave

This is the hardest time of year to function in Cambodia. The heat and humidity wipes Susie and I out most days around 1pm. It gets a bit frustrating as where there is a will, there is precious little energy!

Unusually, the rains are also arriving in the middle of the hot season. They are a month or more early, adding some welcome relief to our day. Early rains bring the possibility of an extra rice crop for many farmers, whilst keeping our bit of grass lush and green at the Healing Home.

Room with a view - looking out from our third-floor bedroom level this evening. When the rain falls, it just saturates - drops the size of coins splashing onto our concrete city.

Grid-search

We have been out house-hunting this week. Our lease for the Healing Home comes up in one month and we are keen to enlarge our facility to double the amount of patients that we can care for.

House hunting is ... interesting. It is in the middle of the hot season here now - 35 degrees plus - so out and about, grid-searching city streets for 'for rent' signs is a warm undertaking. We've looked inside three properties so far, taking Sopheap with us on each house inspection. One is a 'NO'; one property could work and the third one, we're very interested in. Lots more praying and we will keep looking - but expectancy is in the air!

I'm all for trees and greenery, but the paint-job on this new place got a bit carried away ...

Friday 13th: Oh Happy Day

Friday was a mighty fine day for Phanna and for Puss - and all people associated with these unrelated individuals.

Phanna is just a great young guy who is training to become a pastor in our church here. He worked part-time in the Healing Home for us for the first year, before being snaffled back by the church as he was just so busy. I maintain that good ladies outnumber steady, reliable blokes here in Cambodia, which means a guy of his calibre is a great catch for a young lady. Rattanak is the fortunate girl, tho' Phanna would be quick to say that he is the lucky guy!

Phanna's happy day. I'm not sure what he's up to here; likely promising Rattanak that he will forever cook, clean and wash his own clothes.

Phanna and his bride Rattanak.

But there was more to Lucky Friday than marriage. Puss, missing for a month, was found this day. She was seen to stroll out of a house close to where Sopheap lives. A poor lady had renamed Puss 'Jumroon' meaning 'Prosperity'. From the day Puss ran away from Sopheap's home and chose this lady to live with, good luck had come her way. Work started to flow in. Loan sharks had been repaid. Blessing had followed the much-prayed-for cat!

'Prosperpous', pretty skinny but a marvel to our staff, all whom were sure that she had become curry.

Heng's tears

Heng

Yesterday morning was our second day back at the Healing Home. Friday mornings are dedicated to staff training when as many staff as possible gather. We spent the first hour talking about what God had been doing in the Healing Home - and in their personal lives - over the last two months. Heng was a recurring tale in these God-stories.

Heng has now left the Healing Home to enter into a rehabilitation program in the province. When he came to us in September 2010, Heng cried every day in despair and hopelessness. When he left just prior to Khmer New Year in April, Sopheap told us how he wept - because of the goodness of God to him.

A Word and worship man - Heng has taken to Jesus like a cat to kawhai. Every day we would hear him singing and reading the Bible out loud. Remember, he only ever did two years in school, so he was amazed that, when he picked up a Bible, he could read it!

We heard the girls tell us how the organisation was not sure if they could take him. On their third visit to see him, an American man accompanied the Khmer staff. He asked Sopheap if she was a believer and suggested that they pray together. They did - and when Sopheap said 'Amen' the organisation leader said 'we will take him to our program'.

First up, Heng spends three months in a village, receiving massage and fitting in. Sopheap went to see him and bring him monthly support for food and necessities. Here's where the fun starts. Every day, Heng has people from the village come to see him. He's full of the Lord and not ashamed. The Khmer doctor doing the massage is now reading the first book in the Christian foundations course. Further, Heng is out and about in the village every day, getting among the people in his wheelchair.

This story started with Rithy, a trainee doctor who lives with Graham and Sue Taylor and Sue Hanna, coming across Heng in a corridor of a local hospital. Newly paralysed from a construction site fall, and without money or family, he was being left to die. We stand on tip-expectant-toes to see where Heng's story will go from here!

Will the cat come back?

Today Sopheap and Touch are on a Pussy Cat hunt (her name is 'Feisty' but amongst our staff she is 'Pussy Cat'. Amongst new patients, the question often is 'is it a dog or a cat'? 'cos she's a monster cat in Cambodian terms).

Puss went missing in Khmer New Year, when the Healing Home was closed for some days. Sopheap lovingly took her home. Puss, however, did not feel the love and did a runner. Now, she is lost in a big city that is more likely to eat her than to take her in.

There's a bounty on her rat-catching head; $10 alive. We don't do dead cats. The $10 should be sufficient to mobilise children in search parties. Here's trusting that someone has seen a heat-seeking, sleep-loving Siamese out on the town.

The Healing Home is missing a certain vibe since Puss went missing ...

... so I'm taking my comfort in a cuppa Twinings tea (thank you Andrew and Ruth for the Twinings!!) in the Dunoon mug (thank you, Trade Me!)

Bringing back a few essentials ..

OK, we are back, as of Wednesday evening. Our exactly two months away (a week in Toowoomba, nearly seven weeks in NZ, a weekend in Brisbane heading back plus a few nights) has been a brilliant time in so many ways. Now, we've returned, well prayed out from our home church in New Plymouth, and catapaulted out with a haka from the amazing CVT LinkNZ leadership training camp in Waikanae.

Every trip back is a valuable opportunity to load up on a few things for our life in Cambodia. Sue has enough vegemite to last us to the third grandchild ... so here's a few pics of what has been transported to 8c, Street 460:

With honey on top (thanks, Becs!) - books are very high on our 'bring back to Cambodia' list. Here are 9 of the 12 books squirrelled into our 20kg each airline allowance.

So few of the kids we see at the Healing Home have had childhood toys. We love to bring back toys that we can give away. Thank you Denise for most of these - the brown dog and the white teddy are already in the arms of two great kids who are at the Healing Home now.

Bringing back the family - Kara and Josh gave us this family pic for our mantle piece. Securely bubble-wrapped and boxed, this took up a third of my luggage space. A trusty Briscoes wok also travelled home (so hard to get a wok with a decent steel base here), plus a serious amount of chocolate (we made up bags of specialty choccies for our 8 staff to introduce them to a bit of culinary decadence). Unfortunately, my brie cheeses became pancakes in the journey home ... Oh, and there was a decent hand eggbeater too (pancakes are out Saturday morning ritual).