Communication and kindness

I'm of the opinion that we just cannot over-communicate out here. The number of times that something has fallen over because the 'communication loop' did not actually fully loop ... ahh, it has been many, many times. Now I often text and phone too much, just to really make sure.

In the Healing Home we really encourage the girls to think ahead and communicate what we need - before we need it. Do we need soap? Please tell us before we have been running a soapless ship for the last week. Rubbish bags? Tell us while we still have a couple - not when the rats are feasting on uncovered food.

Sreymom has been doing great on this. She often gives me a list for shampoo, floor cleaner, toilet duck and all the other stuff that keeps the home supplied. Her note yesterday tho' had us all in a giggle.

A Sreymom classic communication posted on the fridge on good kiwi notepaper kindly left by Robyn.

Here is another living legacy from Robyn's time with us. Robyn came to the Healing Home on Thursday afternoons to do crafts with our patients. Sreyda has hooked into necklace and bracelet-making like you would not believe - and she is selling some too! Soon she will leave us, and for her to have the capacity to earn an income while in a wheelchair is a very big challenge. We are so thrilled at how she has enthusiasm and creativity for this and all the potential craft-making may have on her future.

Home almost alone

Good-bye good friends - Robyn may have the hydration essentials but Marty has a Cambodian treasure in his arms there - a superb piece of hammock!

Three months can fly when you are having fun.

Marty and Robyn headed back to the subtropical sunshine of Taranaki yesterday morning after being with us since late July. With this being their third time in Cambodia, they have established a real network of close friends here now - and lots of these friends are Khmer. It's been a neat time and they have been of huge value to different ministries and people here in their willingness to serve and to bless.

We are almost alone - Supei the Taiwanese lady from New York now gets the superior suite on the second floor. She will be gone before my good mum flies in on November 18 for four weeks with us.

Our staff

I am sometimes asked if I miss being the a church pastor. Of course our lives are very, very different here compared to life in New Plymouth - and it is a very fair question.

The short answer would have to be 'no'. I am so glad that Sue and I let go of a life and a people where, mostly, we had tremendous years and sack-fulls of happy memories. The letting go process was difficult but as I look around at the people and the opportunities that fill our life now, I am so glad that we now live here.

One of my greatest satisfactions here is the wonderful opportunity we have to focus down to just a few choice young people and to purposefully build into their lives. One of the very first words that I felt God speak to me when we came to Cambodia was about how the future of this nation belongs to a new generation who carry a different spirit. We get to build into some of this new generation. How amazing that is!!

Here are five of the nine staff that currently work for us at the Healing Home - bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning. I run a staff Bible-based training hour each Friday. Today we focussed into the subject 'beware the leaven of the Sadducees and the Pharisees' - all part of raising young people who are real, not religious!

OK - introductions: Sopheap our mercy-hearted little responsible carer and Sypho who has just joined us - one very fine lady. Front row is Dtouch our weekday cook who is so hungry and growing so well; Sreymom who is structured, quick to learn and a heap of fun, and Bunthorn who teaches the neighbourhood kids.

Missing are Bonna (she works Mon, Tues and Fri afternoons and all day Saturday), Neth our weekend cook and Sarah who is on deck Sundays. We also have young Rin who volunteers two days a week and sleeps at the Healing Home. With two staff sleeping over every night, there is a roster of all the girls that rolls along amazingly smoothly.

Tioman

Sue and I are still purring after a great break away. It turned out that we made a smart move by taking our first four days at Tioman Island, two hours boat ride off the south-east coast of Peninsula Malaysia. We were pretty tired, so a spot of island time was just delicious.

Room with a view - we stepped out of this simple bungalow, a few steps onto the beach then waded knee-deep into the water; flippers and facemasks on and the tropical fish were literally there. We found Nemo but happily not Bruce.

Restaurant with a view - life is very much laid-back island style at Tioman. One evening we went into a simple beachside restaurant and waited and waited ..... Despite open doors and billboard outside, there was neither cook nor staff to be found. We gave it 15 minutes and wandered down the path! Another time Sue had almost finished eating the iceblock from the outside icecream freezer before the shopkeeper showed to collect the loi.

Not wanting to be breakfast - around the wharf a serious school of these little guys were being preyed upon by a few garfish. Where Sue and I snorkelled there was an abundance of tropical fish - a bit like swimming in an aquarium. There was a huge variety too, but nothing bigger than 1kg, except for the little blue-spotted stingray.

Growing trees

New Life Fellowship has begun what they call 'Growing Trees'; an internship-come-Bible school. It is an opportunity for young people to really grow in God over an 11 month course. This is a first for the church here - and sadly, it appears to be a first for in-house training within Phnom Penh churches.

12 people have signed up for what is the inspiration from Jason Prosser (a great Canadian guy who, with his wife Angie and now three kids, have been here six years) and Chris Foster. Chris and Rhiannon are Melbourne Aussies and for Aussies, are real good sorts.

Here are four of the students, plus a couple of stray legs from some others. Veasna (centre) used to volunteer at the Healing Home when we first started two years ago.

The way the program has been set up, students are in a classroom setting Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays and working within a church ministry on Wednesdays and Thursdays. I'll get to introducing Rin to you soon - she's in the class and she has been snaffled by us for those two days. Also in our class is Neth, our weekend cook. She's growing so fast!

I've had six hours with these folk over the last two weeks, doing stuff on character. She's very much a different ball-game in this culture, approaching this subject. It would take a few pages to explain - but there is something about generational transfer in a culture, where values are adhered to and understood in an over-riding sense.

That simply is not the case here. Say the word 'truthful' and you are not on the same page at all. What I understand and what is understood is like playing with the remote control with the tv. It takes patient explaining and many daily life examples to begin to approach the same channel. They are great young people and keen as to learn - but no longer am I fooled by bright smiles and nodding heads. I continually ask questions and draw out responses.

Chris and Jason are pioneering something very valuable. There is a lot of input from the Khmer church leaders too, so this is not a foreigner-dominated thing at all. It is always good to be purposeful in equipping the young generation!

Skills

Skills is the name of the most hard-case little fox terrier you will ever meet, who has established his home base with Dave and Melody in Toowoomba. His name came to mind the other day as I sat in the middle of the best bit of traffic gridlock that I have had the pleasure of encountering for a very long time.

I was scootering back from a dropoff of a patient and his daughter at the CSI Clinic. Street 271 is a main ring-road, commonly known as 'Dike Road' as it has been elevated a little, lifting it out of flooding chaos in the wet season. Dike Road is wide single lane each way, wide enough for three lanes of traffic to jostle in each direction in a busy period.

The view behind me (top) and coming the other way as things start to slowly move ...

The fun started with a concrete truck sitting in the middle of the road for a while, as it slowly positioned to reverse onto a building site property. This is where local skills kick in. The obvious way to get past a blockage is to go around. When that starts to block up, one just keeps going wider and wider ....

Of course, this works both ways. As the truck slowly manouvered into position, the scene was hilarious plus. We now have traffic six lanes deep on both sides of the road facing each other. No kidding, no arm-pulling. Susie has seen these same skills on a bridge spanning a local river - rush-hour, blockage and wall-to-wall traffic in a head-on standoff. It really is fun.

Within 15 minutes we had some action - a lonely policeman and his trusty whistle. Happily, he was blowing it on my side of the road. By sheer lung-power he opened up a 400mm gap. Hallelujah! I eventually slipped through happy in the knowledge of two things: some days all people are created equal (there were 200 Lexus 4wd's in that mess!) and that it would take at least an hour before the next concrete truck could get in position to create the very same skills-enhancing situation over again.

On Patrol

Marty has been so helpful in so many areas since he and Robyn joined us for another 3-month stint here. One of the things he has done has been to give Donnie the thumbs-up on a machine that has been designed with Cambodia in mind - a 1993 Nissan Patrol 4wd.

Here is Kunn, a lovely young security guard who is posted 12 hours a day outside the church, monitoring everyone who comes and goes. He gives a duplicate ticket for every bicycle; every moto that parks. Lose your ticket and you have a most serious problem. I got him to pose with the little Patrol that gets to be parked outside the church by day - and inside the church by night (honestly!)

Donnie got some funding from a couple of guys he knows in Canada to buy a vehicle. This has long been a desire - to get a machine that will pull sick people out of provincial villages any time of year. Donnie has been flat out for the last three years or so, so Marty and I did the homework and turned up this beast. It has a great history and is ready for more!

I've had a couple of drives, including the delivery trip through rush-hour traffic. Talk about a quantum leap from the baby Daewoo - with this animal even the Lexus boys show you respect!! What a huge blessing, now to have the means of better serving the precious poor people of this nation.

We've turned up another way of strengthening Donnie too - by working to get him free of the never-ending admin tangle. Sypho will start work for the Healing Home on October 11. Half her 32 hours per week we are giving to Donnie, as his PA. In her job description we have called Sypho up to a 'left brain' role (get stuff organised and functioning) and 'right brain' function (figure out ways to do the admin areas differently and better!)