Sue's crack-up

Sue was looking totally mystified.  Sypho had come into the Healing Home office and asked Sue where the special oil was.  Special oil? - special for what?  'The one to help the patient with their wind' Sypho says in all innocence.  Now Sue is really puzzled - and shaking with laughter too.  What is this special flatulence-inducing oil that we are meant to have??

The story slowly comes to light.  A day earlier, she had anointed Bin, our sweet guy with severe liver problems, with oil - and prayed for him.  He quickly felt relief ....  Bin has returned home now with a bottle of anointing lavender oil tucked into his bag!

 

 

An earlier picture of Bin (far left).  This is his third time at the Healing Home; a long trek from his home in Kratie Province.  The last time he came, we got a phonecall while he was on the bus saying that he was also bringing two of his neighbours too as they really needed help also - was that okay?? He's such a great guy.

NextGen

We're back after a great couple of weeks back in NZ.  Number 1 priority was to get introduced to grandchild number 1 - Judah Gabriel.  He's a pretty excellent little guy who is in a hurry to get on with life.  Sleeping is good - in small doses. 

Time with his grandmum (top) and me in male multi-tasking mode: bonding with the little guy and getting my afternoon nana-nap.

NZ spring-time - outside the window at Kara and Josh's house, the tuis are busy in the kowhai tree.  This is something I really miss in Cambodia - we have such an absence of bird-life

We all had time in New Plymouth too so that my mum could meet her third great-grandie.  Also accomplished - brand new, super-chipped passports.  Our old ones were literally down to the last page. 

24 Aussie hours on our way home gave us enough time to zip up to Toowoomba in time for Sunday morning church and to watch the AB's final with Melody and Dave.  Good friend Adrian joined us around the telly and together we got much older over 90 minutes - not the walk in the park that the French were meant to give us.

It is so heartening to return to the Healing Home and find everything going forward with excellence.  Patients being cared for; staff in good spirits.  Just the washing machine to sort - mousies have got into the control panel and eaten a kilo of wiring!





Toowoomba Times

Long time no blog - which can mean that we have nothing happening in our world or that frenetic is our every day - or both.  And both of the above is about it over the last few weeks.

We've had a happy invasion from Toowoomba - firstly Jason and Julia who also towed David Geoghegan out for his first Cambodia experience; then closely followed by Toowoomba Christian College teachers Chrissy and  Claire together with three Year-12 students (Malita, Ben and Colin ).  Unhappily my pics of the TCC team fell off my phone - very sad.  They had three full days with us; David G had eight days and Jason and Julia - well they know now that 'three weeks is a minimum' to be here.  They leave when the Healing Home is re-painted and the garden fully flourishing, which has a deadline of happening by 2pm Thursday!

David catching up with Dr Mary at the CSI Clinic.  Dave used to work with her in the emergency ward of Toowoomba hospital, so he was most keen to connect with this outstanding lady.  We have many patients attend this clinic and I'm always very happy when they draw the Dr Mary straw.

P'Chum Ben, the annual ghost festival, has also been over this time.  Apart from feeding the ghosts and hitting multiple Wats to keep the good luck flowing for another year, this is a time when the nation slows right up and people head home to the province. 

Keeping the ancestors happy - what gave me a giggle about this particular altar (in the local paint shop - we're painting the outside of the Healing Home at the mo) was the serious stack of fake $100 bills just to the right of the incense. It is very sad tho' how fear permeates every aspect of this culture - hence the endless offerings.  Another giggle - when Dave picked up a handful of lollies on a plate at a local restaurant and was about to scoff one.  Julia tactfully pointed out that this plate of lollies are on an altar, Dave .....

We closed the Healing Home for a bit over a week so that all our staff can have a good holiday and be with their family.  Big floods cover much of the area north of Phnom Penh, so when I phoned Sreymom to check on how her homeward journey was progressing, she answered the phone whilst in a boat!  Moto had been left with an 'uncle' en-route and she was floating into her flooded village - like tens of thousands of others. 

Sue and I took JnJ out to White Elephant, like a motel with a SWIMMING POOL 7km out of town.  Three days of r'n'r and knocking over most of a serious biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer was just great.

Workers are always welcome - Jason on the end of the water blaster as we prepare to paint. Not sure where Julia is - somewhere behind the plant ...

Did I mention that the law has changed? - only two people per moto permitted now.  The driver must wear a helmet ...

Slowing up Susie

My girl has had 'the best of weeks and the worst of weeks'.  The best would be the joy for both of us - little Judah making his belated entry into the world.  He's the sweetest little guy and we are the proudest grandies.  Kara is well and Josh is air-walking.

The worst - that would be the little mozzie that snuck up on Sue somewhere, sometime.  She got very flattened with dengue all last week.  Energy was running at 4%, severe headaches, joint pain, temperatures and a taste in her mouth that was like eating chook manure - not a good week.  Now the rash is out and things are going forward, tho' too slowly for my Sue!

A spotty Sue - a good sign that the bad days are soon behind her.

High place home

After four years and two months living at 8c, Street 460, we have made the move.  Our area had become just too noisy.  The airport-hanger-sized volleyball centre built on the vacant land directly opposite our front door was surely the last straw.  It is nice to sleep at night ...

After a couple of months of looking, Susie spied a great pad - and she found favour with the landlady too.  Nice and close too - two blocks straight ahead, then three blocks to the left.  Now we are half a kilometre closer to the new Healing Home but the same distance from the Russian Market - on a quiet, quiet street!!

The only wee challenge - moving our houselot of furniture into our third-floor location ...

There are few things in life I find as exhausting as moving house.  Neverthteless, onwards and upwards ...

The ground floor is below this pic - we have the top floor, minus one self-contained room where a Korean couple live.  They run a Korean restaurant 14 hours a day - mice make 5x the noise of these guys!

Now that we are in, we are happy campers.  64 stairs up saves us ever having to consider a gym membership and the elevation gives us a lovely flow of breeze.  We have an excellent, spacious guest room with ensuite too!

A great report

Chum Yun has been with us for about seven weeks.  This sweet young mum came to us with a cancerous growth in her uterus.  Over these weeks we have had her two daughters, her mum and her husband coming and going also. 

She was told that she needed three lots of chemo, 30 treatments of radiation and then an operation.  With a little help, there was money for two chemos and the radiation.  Her last radiation treatment was yesterday - and the news has been very good.  The tumour has so shrunk that there will not be a need to have the very expensive operation.

The gratefulness of Chum Yun to our staff and ourselves was very touching yesterday.  She has so responded to love and to prayer and she left a very different little lady.  God has been good to her!

A last hug as she heads home - Chum Yun with Sue yesterday.

Back from Burma

Burma is like no other nation.  Where else can you find a vintage 1961 Vauxhall Velox alongside early 1960's Mazda utes in daily use?  The people are poor but wonderful to be among.  It was such a privilege to return pretty well a year to the day since we were there last.

Sue and I were based in Yangon for the nine days under the care of Pastor Nung.  Nung and I did a quick side-trip up to Mandalay for a couple of days seminar teaching also - overnight buses each way.  It was a full-on time that we thoroughly enjoyed - 20 meetings all up and getting to pray for many fine folk.  Mostly we did Holy Spirit themes as the church of Myanmar has been taught to death by doctrine - but are so hungry and receptive to the presence and flow of the Spirit of God.

Pastor Nung with a lovely young guy in Mandalay.  This boy had been discarded by his family and approached Pastor Joshua (where we were in Mandalay) and asked him please if he would care for him - that he would do whatever was asked of him.  He is thriving in an atmosphere of love!  Pastor Joshua also introduced me to a lovely young Muslim boy who loved coming to church. Dad was so angry that he shaved the boy's head to shame him.  Pastor Joshua bought him a cap!  He's in church every opportunity!

 

 

Yangon accommodation for the millions is mostly in these Soviet-inspired apartment blocks that are as uninspiring as they are ugly.  The basic layout is a living area, a bedroom, kitchen area and tiny washroom and toilet.  It is extremely difficult to get permission to build churches in Burma, so congregations mostly meet in an apartment.  Thirty or so people can cram in - but the trick is not to annoy your neighbours.  One complaint and goodbye church location.  Pastor Nung has his congregation on the eighth (top) floor - the higher you climb, the less neighbours to upset and the cheaper the rent!

Waiting for the 8pm bus to Mandalay, Burma's second to largest city.  Note the wonderful makeup on the lady seller - it resembles a mud-pack that has not been washed off.  I understand it is a combination of mosquito repellant and beauty enhancer, worn proudly every day by pretty well all women and a few guys too.

This guy has eaten one bad apple too many ....

Mandalay - we had 30 or so people gather for two days, tho' that number sure grew when Nung and I started to pray and minister to people ...

Tiki-tour around Yangon on a train (top) and designer top hats heading to market.

Pastor Sompee and his family at a church on the outskirts of Yangon.  He is a magnificent man, just 29 years old, who has managed to build a great little church facility - as a preschool.  He has just completed a state-required preschool course.  This is the guy who we first met last year, who a few months before that had been beaten and left for dead by local youths who had been set up by men higher up the food-chain.