Table tales

One of the areas we want to be involved in is bringing people and ministries together. Cambodia has a huge reputation for suspicion, division and offence - less than a true representation of 'one faith, one body' ... To bring people together, one needs a good table and a good cook!

I remember a vivid dream I had just before coming here - of sitting around a big table and actually counting how many were seated around it. There were 12. So, the hunt was on for a 12-seater.

I answered an ad and got to meet this great couple - Bill and Heather Forbes from USA. They have been here 7-8 years with World Vision and are about to return to the States - hence the table sale.

Heather asked me what Sue and I had come out here for - and in the conversation I said how we were keen to open our home to a couple of Khmers, especially students. She got quietly excited and said that she had two great people for us - Lina (mum) and Sopheak (son - 15). Darra, the daughter/sister had been living with them this last year. She is 23 and in year 10 at school. Bill and Heather had come to know the family when visiting the beach at Sihanoukville, 230km away.

Lina made fruit, bangles, bracelets ... and Darra and Sopheak would sell the stuff on the beach. Another long story including sickness and going backwards - Darra had opportunity to move to Phnom Penh and finish school and Lina wants to keep her family together. I will tell Lina's story of a mother's devotion to her children through huge hardships in the next blog.

Heather, Sopheak and Darra - around the table

Sopheak moved in with us yesterday. He is a great young guy - very open personality, capable and good initiative. He is taking a computer class during school holidays (July-Sept; restart Oct)and extra studies to jump him into Year 8. Lina arrives Sunday - she is just getting her stuff stored with a rellie. Bill and Heather made arrangements for Darra before we were on the scene. In a city of 1.4 million, her place is same street as us, throw-the-tennis-ball-distance away! She and Sopheak are real close - and she is so happy that he is close by that she says she wants to cry. No doubt she'll be around our table lots, too.

Oh, and at a squeeze, and pulling out the extension part - the table will do 12!

Weatherwise ....

She was a hot little country when we first arrived, but thankfully most days and evenings have dropped back a little. At night we run a fan all night; maybe our one and only aircon gets a 20-minute run too. It's probably around 32 degrees by day; 29 by night.

We are in the rainy season, which means that maybe four days a week we get a good afternoon downpour. Today was one of those days. I timed my run home from an afternoon meeting today impecably, leaving in a light drizzle and scootering into the tornado ...



It can pour for hours but mostly it blows up with a wind, pours and then clears in 40-60 minutes. We live on a dirt road so that good news is that the dust is well settled. Here's our Rue 460 from the balcony.

Of course, it quickly turns into 'slush alley' in the wet. Kids run out from their homes and splash in the puddles, happy as pigs in mud!

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Sokhun and family

Great - having established by 80 steps that the ding-dong was not our donger ... back to an update on Sokhun. She is doing well mostly, tho' emotionally it is real hard for her being separated from her children. She gets lonely and too much time to think I guess - but she is doing well. Susie said that the cancer on her breast has noticeably decreased in size and a lump dropped off 2 days ago. We keep praying for her and over the manuka-honey dressings that have been given to us for her.

Susie stocking up on bandages at the local chemist. The new girl 'shaved our heads' (ripped us off!) on this lot - hey; another day another head-shave.

Today we had a grand old house invasion - 3 scooter-loads of Sokhun's four children, the foster mum and dad, a brother-in-law, a sister and I think a Hagar worker in the mix. They scootered 80km from Takeo. On Wednesday we will go out to the family in a Hagar van together with Sokhun. The little ones have really been received into their new home and obviously they are responding beautifully to the love that they are receiving. Of course this too is hard for Sokhun to observe - please do pray for her.

Family photo - foster parents are in the back; mum far left; dad in the middle

This last week

It is written 'bodily exercise profits a bit' or words to that affect. Happily, Cambodia is my place of daily profiting. By strategically locating ourselves on the top floor I have a daily guarantee of multiple heart-rate increases and muscle toning.

40 of the blighters up, and yes, 40 down

Apart from daily exercises, this week has been really interesting. The highlight was taking our little scooter for its first trip out of town to meet the amazing John Tucker. John used to work for a hospice in town that cares for AIDs patients. In his work he kept on coming across children who are HIV-infected. He has now established quite an amazing setup in a disused hospital wing 15km out of the city.

Children with HIV are treated here from all across Cambodia and even Vietnam. Many other ministries have spun out of this core: orphanage-clusters (one hut; eight children and house-parents) are in the process of being built for 200 children. There is day-care for HIV mothers so that the mums can keep working and a sewing room.

John is an ex-insurance salesman from USA, 58 years old, hugely passionate in what he does and a committed Catholic. He's had the prime minister - twice - and Bill Clinton - once - come visit the work. His pet hate: 'fundamentalist Christian groups who come out here to plant their flag and who only work with the healthy - they refuse to work with the sick'.

Sue with John (above) and the running stats board; how many patients by province

I did not take any pics in the hospitals as it would have been a bit invasive - but saw maybe 12 HIV children (of the 300 they are treating - once they are stabilised in hospital they return to the province and have ongoing care and follow-up) and perhaps 50 children with denge fever on drips. There is a denge epidemic here at this time.

We are getting ready to receive our little Khmer family - mum Lina and 15-year old Sopheak. I'll tell you more about how they get to come here in the next blog, when I have some pics too. Just to say that we are looking forward to having them and it is fun setting up their rooms too.

Cane delivery a la trishaw

Two beds and two mattresses on the back of a moto - he carved a magnificent path through the bedlam of Phnom Penh traffic!

Language learning continues. Enough said. Susie has the superior brains in this department so far . I've told her that we could do a 'Moses and Aaron' - I could be the man and she could be the mouth. She says - 'nope'.

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Sokhun soldiering on

Sokhun is doing well. The swelling in her arm has noticeably gone down and she is responding well to love and care. Carers from Hagar have been coming and going and we fill in the gaps. There is good praise music going constantly in her room now. We picked up a cd of Hillsong in Khmer (I kid you not) and a good worship album led by Pisat, the church worship leader. Susie went to talk to a doctor today about pain relief for her also.



The big step today has been with Sokhun's four children going into foster care. They are such great kids; really lovely. Here's a pic of Scooter and siblings as they were leaving - happy and excited they were too.

Sokhun will get to see her children next week at the foster family and they will come in here on weekends. It's encouraging to see her comfort level increase with the swelling going down - still got the rotten cancer to contend with tho'.

Navigating Phnom Penh

This city of 1.4 million is pretty well contained in an area 7km by 5km. Officially it is more like 13x9 but the inner city proper is really pretty small.


Getting a handle on what is where is not actually too bad. There are four main north-south streets and four main east-west. In between these main drags we have streets that go by numbers; even numbers east-west and odd numbers north-south. The numbers don't always add up; they can jump 4 or 8 or 10 a block sometimes and don't always appear where they 'should' but basically you can navigate the city off these.


The real fun is with house numbers. They are totally random, like no system. Zilch. We are 8c - as in five houses together numbered 8a-e. Easy. We are opposite number 45, of course. And the new place being built next door is ...

...252e. I'm intrigued both by the 'e' and the '252'.

To add to the fun, there is another number 8 down the other end of street 460. This is very common - never despair if the wrong people are at the address you have been given; just look for the same address down the road.

So, when giving an address it needs some kind of grid; like 'number 8c, Street 460, between streets 123 and 105 (OK, so there is a gap of 18 in our north-south block). That way people still get lost but hopefully not as lost!!

Language learning

Nimol is our Khmer language teacher. Don't be fooled by her sweet smile ...

... she is requiring our tongues to go where linguistically they have never gone before! We've moved to morning classes for July; Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We have fun and we have pain ...still working on getting new words in without yesterday's words falling out. Anyway, merry niat mien crrew-sa harr-rin-will to you all.

The days in between are pretty necessary for practice and revision. Sue and I work on this together

It's fun using what we learn out in the streets. I did some brilliant stuff today and I could see that it never even occurred to the nice lady that I was speaking her lingo ... which I'm led to believe could be the norm for the next year or three. Susie turned a few heads yesterday with her 'somtoh' (sorry/excuse me) as she squeezed past someone in Psar Toung Tom Pong (the local market). Polite is noteworthy out here!