Goodbye to our little guy

Kov, our bouncing little helper, moves to 'Rescue' tomorrow. It is fully five months since he came to us, so sick and sad. He's a totally different little guy now.

Party in the front room - a good choice of location as the rains came just as we sat down to eat.

Susie organised a party for him today with the other six patients, one family carer and our staff all invited. Dtouch cooked up a feast of fried fish and chicken and Susie made him a birthday cake and bought him a set of building blocks for a pressie. It was high excitement for everyone, complete with masks and blowie-noisy things!

Blowing out the candles - it's not his birthday (as no-one knows his birth date) but this kid has never ever had a party in his honour before.

Charles and Margaret

We have really enjoyed a 5-day visit from Charles and Christine Newington from Brisbane, who have been Jason and Julia's pastors for three years. They and the church they lead have shown genuine interest in both the Healing Home and Centre of Peace orphanage. En route to Turkey and England, they came out of their way to spend time with us in Phnom Penh.

Praying their way through our staff - and then all our patients. This is Dtouch our precious cook that Charles and Christine are praying for.

Kids love to have fun - three of the 73 great kids at Centre of Peace. A highlight was having lunch and a quality two hours with Bhopal, the amazing director of the orphanage. Charles and Christine were so heartened by the heart quality of this little lady

Inside Orissey Market, located in the Chinese heart of old Phnom Penh.

Shoes come in all styles here - this is a great line for my Sue ...

We had not been down to 'Riverside' for a few months. Now, all the mud and mess has gone from the flood control project and a wonderful wide walkway has been put in. This city is really starting to scrub up good in some places!

Heavenly language

Many days here seem ordinary. Today surely was not. It was a God footprints day, hugely!

Kov, the young guy whom we have become so fond of, comes from the same village as Heng, a great young guy who works in the Phnom Penh church. He has such a genuine heart for his village and for Kov's family. Dad is an abusive drunk and the whole family is a story of tragedy.

Kov's dad and mum and three of his brothers. The youngest is still being breastfed. I also met a sister (aged 15) and another brother who looked so thin.

Today Heng and I took the 90-minute trip to his village to ask again (Donnie has been previously) that the family sign Kov over to a ministry that will love and care for him. Dad was rotten drunk when we arrived at 10am - but at least he was mostly happy drunk.

Quickly we realised that God footprints were all over this day. Kov's mum said 'last night I had a dream'. She explained her dream - that Kov was playing in the village and he went close to a big hole, like a deep well. Suddenly he fell in. She ran to the edge and cried out again and again for help. In the dream, Heng's father came to her and said 'do not worry, I have already rescued him'.

The dream ends - and now, in the morning, Heng is standing in front of her. Mum instantly understands - this is the rescue. Amazingly, this is also the name of the ministry Kov will go to - 'Rescue' run by Marie Ens.

Heng at his parent's house today. On his own initiative and cost, he goes each month to run an outreach meeting in his village. Heng is mild mannered and soft - and I'm encouraged to see such a genuine, sacrificial young guy among his people.

With the village commune leader, signing the paperwork. Kov's mum has no literacy so everything was explained to her and she signs by the mark of her thumbprint. The commune leader was more than happy as he knows the issues surrounding the father. Dad was too drunk to be present for this time

Mice are nice - it's been a while since I've eaten well outside the usual menu. For lunch today there was rice, pork, fish - and mice. These little critters get zapped as they brush under an electric wire en route to the rice field. Heng's little brother collects an average of six per day of these little critters. They taste just fine, as long as you think some far away happy thoughts as they go down ...

We will take Kov to Marie's next week. He will start school there - in a class with one other girl (aged 15) who also has never been in school. He will join 100 kids at Marie's community. He has been rescued by our mazing God who has already spoken to him (remember a former blog? 'Do not worry about your liver any more. It is now healed') and spoken to his mum in a dream.

For nurses eyes

Sue is on a mission to save Soy's foot. Soy has diabetes and his foot is a shocker. He's been given a week before the axe literally falls. Today was that week - and the progress has been so excellent that an amputation is being postponed ...

My girl is not a happy camper tonight tho'. Soy started getting a fever this afternoon. A bit of digging uncovered that he had not been holding to his antibiotic course because the medicine made him feel sick. Sue firmed up a bit on that one. She told him feeling sick was better than being dead.

His blood sugar level is half of last week's readings and his purple toes have regained colour and feeling. Sue has taught the girls how to do the foot dressings and she has been hacking away with her scissors, removing dead skin. It's just so frustrating when our lovely people go and do dopey things!

I get no respect

We've been left holding the baby - baby car that is. Pam has gone back to the UK for up to 6 months and her Daewoo needed babysitting.

Her wheels do nothing to lift us on the motoring pecking order. In a nation where the law is measured by a complex equation of wealth and size (a Lexus 4wd trumps a truck), driving a Daewoo with a motor the size of Sue's electric toothbrush gets us no respect at all on the roads.

Behold the wheels, tucked into a third of the garage. Note that even the Spider moto has tyres of greater consequence!

Embracing the humility of it all, I've been out and about these last two days. Sreyda had a hospital appointment and today I went with Bonna and Susie to visit our girl Sreymom at Marie Ens community. I've got the pic so I'll get a posting on that visit done soon.

Happiness is ....

We have not yet been so brave (or foolish??) as to buy our meat from the market. Fruit and veges - yes - but meat hanging on hooks all day long (and wasn't that piece of beef there yesterday too?? ...) - no thanks. So, we do meat at Lucky Supermarket. 99.3% of the time it is either beef mince (if you got to chew a piece of the local water buffalo, you would quickly understand why we only do mince!) or plucked chook. That's pretty well our meat menu - mince or chicken.

Therefore, it was an event of considerable excitement when Sue Hanna announced that a leg of lamb had been purchased for our homegroup to knaw on in celebration of Graeme Taylor's birthday yesterday.

A picture to be framed and hung in the office - the smell wafts past me even now!

I'm in a girls missionary world here - Libby from Queensland, Pam the Pom, Colleen Banks from Tauranga, Sue Taylor (Te Awamautu) and Pat (Auckland). Missing from the group pic is Sue Hanna (also Te Awamutu) and birthday boy Graeme Taylor. These are the folk who meet as a homegroup weekly Sunday evenings at our place.

Kratie

Kratie is the name of both a province in Cambodia and the main town of that region. It is about 160km to the northeast of here by carrier pigeon, or precisely 348 km by the main highway that does some serious tiki-touring to the east before turning northwest. There is a third alternative route - head off up the Mekong River. The town is delightfully situated on the banks of the Mekong.

I had headed up to Kratie for two reasons - to make contact with our patient, Sreyda's, family and also to scout out this part of Cambodia. Sreyda has actually no living direct family, just her mother-in-law and mum-in-law's family. Tracking them down was not too difficult; maybe 20 minutes of door-knocking the suburb and they had a white stranger outside their door.

Talking to Sreyda at the Healing Home for the first time, mother-in-law openly wept. I gather that the dear lady thought that Sreyda had died, as she had been basically abandoned as a paralysed lady with hideous bedsores in a hospital. Now mother-in-law's son has contact phone numbers for two of our staff.

Sreyda's home, at the top of the nice wheelchair ramp. It is actually spacious with two large rooms, and very clean and tidy.

Bucketing down - the rains have reached Kratie about ten days ago. Sellers in the open market hopefully wait for customers (yeh, right!) above, as some of the local lads are rained off the job (below)

In the years ahead, we desire to see Healing Homes planted through the provinces. Kratie is a region that has really got my attention time and again over recent months. Sue and I are persuaded that much of what God is doing in Cambodia is happening under the radar in provincial villages. I plan to do more scouting in the future.

Mekong sunset with a boat heading across to Koh Trong, an island about 5km long by 500 metres wide across from Kratie town. The Mekong is a seriously large river!