March Update

It seems like the longer we’re here the faster the time is flying by, this month marked the beginning of our fifth month in Cambodia! We’re following up with a few of the things we mentioned last month such as doctors visits, hand washing, and our quest for clean drinking water. This past week we spent a good portion of our afternoon cleaning all twenty of the water filters the kids drink from. Several of our older boys pitched in and we were able to teach them how to properly maintain this… we will be passing this off to them over the next few months so they will have clean water after we leave.


We do have one big announcement: we are officially partnered with BrightPoint for Children for child sponsorship! The best part about this is that this makes it easier for you to tell your family, friends, coworkers, postman, milk man, barista, waiter, congressman, mechanic, cashier at Buc-ees, and neighbors (future sponsors??) how they can make a difference here in Cambodia. Please partner with us to spread the word: make it your facebook status, send obnoxious forwards, make it your screensaver, tattoo it, leave voicemails, send mass texts… do whatever; be creative! We know many of you share the same passion for these kids that we do, so we know this will be easy.

So, now that you’re excited about telling the world about the needs at Hope for Cambodia, we’ll make it easy for you. Copy and paste the link below:

http://www.brightpointforchildren.org/viewchildren.php?communityid=83

For those of you that committed to financially support us monthly, please don’t forget to send in this month’s support. Thanks again for all your love, encouragement, and prayers.



Love,

Tamara & Lauren

Laundry Lessons

Just another typical Monday… a day I dreaded up until a few months ago. For 17 years it was the first day back to school after the weekend, then it became (generally) the most hectic day of the week to work at the hospital. Around here it’s the only day we don’t leave the house or have anything we have to do… our designated ‘chill’ day. Sleep in, enjoy our typical pancakes & coffee around noon (it’s practically a tradition by now), clean a little, and an opportunity for an extended quiet time.


After finishing up our leisurely lunch of pancakes and coffee (with the company of our littlest Cambodian sisters) we decided it was time to wash our village clothes… the washing machine is broken again (still?). So, we retrieved the giant metal bowls from the balcony and set the water on to boil (we prefer the week’s worth of dirt, germs, & who knows what else that accumulates in our village clothes DEAD). I headed back to my room to do a little reading, thinking, praying, writing down thoughts from the week, etc… After I came to a stopping point and the water had had time to boil I started the first round of laundry. It takes a while to wash with all the water boiling, scrubbing, soaking, and rinsing… sometimes multiple times per bowl. I don’t ever wash clothes in the same order or even the same way. I’m still trying to perfect a method that is the least time consuming, simplest, and most effective. So far I’ve failed at finding even one that meets any of those qualifications. The nice thing about this time consuming method of washing is that it gives me time to do things during the ‘soak’ phase. Today I chose to resume my quite time.

As I searched the concordance and Blue Letter Bible I realized my laundry logic mimics my quiet time habits. … I’m always looking for some magic resource or strategy to give me to that ‘ah ha!’ moment with God. I’d like to have years of knowledge and wisdom pour out from the pages into my head and heart within a matter of minutes. I know there are strategies and resources that help with studying but, I have a tendency to consume myself in the resources instead of God. Ultimately the only way I am going to deepen my relationship with Him is by spending time with Him (and reading my Bible). I spend far too much time trying to figure out the most effective way to study His word when in reality I need to use that time to be in it and praying. So, for the next few weeks my primary resource is going to be time. I’m going to try to use it when it’s available and be more intentional with how I spend it.

I hope your Monday is as relaxing and productive as ours… and that your washing machine doesn’t break.



-Tamara

February Update

This past month started out with the most progress and success we've seen since we arrived in Cambodia -- it's been one exciting month! The kids are drinking clean water, drinking that water out of their own cups, washing their hands before meals (at least when we are there!), learning even more new English phrases and words, and several children are even getting some needed doctor visits. We're so incredibly thankful for what God has done, and we are so thankful for your donations and the team's help to get this all done!




God has been so good, and we know that much of the great things that are happening here are because of your prayers. When many of you committed to support us financially, you also committed to support us with your prayers. We are holding you to this commitment. In the last week, we have been discouraged and burdened about the small staff at HCO. Great things are happening, but there is a great need for more staff at HCO. Although we love this staff tremendously, HCO needs more awesome ladies (or a couple) to help and give the quality care and love for these children. We know that God loves these children more than we could ever imagine. This burden is not just our burden, this is also God's burden.



"When [Jesus] saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.'"



There is story after story of the pain, suffering, and abuse that many of these children have endured. We know that Jesus looks on them with compassion. However, He wants us to be a part of providing for these children. We MUST pray "earnestly" to bring people to HCO -- to show Christ's love to them in a tangible way. We know and trust that you will obey this command to pray for our kids. And even more so, we know without of a shadow of a doubt that God is going to provide these kids with what they need. We are asking, and he will answer.

Life the last month or so...

It would take me forever for me to put into words everything that’s gone on in this last month (and let’s face it, it probably wouldn’t actually happen) so, here’s just a portion of what we’ve been up to on our side of the world recently:


Starting December 27th we loved…

 Picking up our moms from the airport

 Taking them to all our favorite places in Phnom Penh

 Mother/ daughter lunches, coffee dates, pedicures, …

 Picking up the rest of the BPF team from the airport

 Catching up on life over coffee instead of over the internet

 All of our kids having someone to play with or hug at the same time

 Getting 20 water filters from RDI and bringing them to HCO

 Looking around & seeing kids read their Bibles (Christmas present this year)

 Our kids singing, “The Stars at Night…” & a few other songs we taught them for the team

 Hearing stories about what God was doing in people’s lives during the time they spent here

 Knowing people we love, love our kids (almost) as much as we do



Then, on January 7th we dropped our moms and (most of) the team off at the airport… just for the record, it was a lot more fun picking them up. However, it’s been nice settling back into ‘real life’, right now which consists of…



 Hanging out with 66 of the coolest kids ever

 Teaching phonics & making up ridiculous hand motions to songs our kids are learning

 Teaching the kids how to wash their hands… more fun than you might think

 Processing water filters (clean water coming very soon!)

 Catching back up with our friends here

We had such an amazing time with everyone who came! We can’t say thank you enough for everything that was done for us and our kids, we really enjoyed having you all here!!



-Tamara

Perspective

I need a little perspective sometimes. I think it’s easy to get in this self-absorbed bubble where all you are concerned with is your own comforts, your own pleasure, your own concerns, and your own safety that you then become blinded to the comforts, pleasures, concerns, and safety of others. One would think that by living here in Cambodia (even if it has only been a little over a month now) that I would be immune of selfishness in this form. Wrong. It’s difficult for me to be this transparent and let you know, that even though I’m often smiling on the outside, there’s a lot of skepticism and cynicism lurking on the inside. Our first three weeks here were euphoric. Everything seemed to be going perfectly. God has been so good and we have a million bajillion things to be thankful for. And I was (don’t worry, I still am), but last week I was really challenged.

Two Sundays ago marked the first day that Tamara was sick. Maybe sometime I’ll share the long story behind that, one consisting a lot of confusion and stress…finding the clinic, finding the clinic again the next day, coming a third time for blood tests, trying a different clinic…finally, on the fifth day of her fever, we finally found an answer…she has typhoid. A weaker strain (thank God), but strong enough to knock her down for a good week and need treatment at the clinic two times a day for a week more.

So, since Tamara had “the typhoids” (which we renamed because we felt like it was more dramatic J), we couldn’t go to the orphanage last week. We hadn’t been homesick till this point, but since we didn’t have some awesome kids distracting us from Thanksgiving it was little harder to not fall into this pity party. I was worried about Tamara, missing my family and Kevin on Thanksgiving, AND missing our kids. So I fell into this really selfish pity party that I’m not very proud of. And I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that this was just a “moment.” These feelings lasted a couple days. I decided that my solution to my attitude was a change in “perspective.” I did the true classic method of comparing how easy I have it to the true suffering of others I see everyday. Honestly, this method doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t make me feel better; it makes me feel worse.

God’s good though: He’s really great about reminding of us what it’s really all about. I ran across Romans 5:3-5: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and HOPE does not put us to shame, because God’s LOVE has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” When I feel like I’m “suffering” (and we all know I have suffered nothing! I’ve got it good!!), I can often get dragged down even further by dwelling on other’s suffering. There are so many of us that want to be used by God to alleviate suffering, but get so frustrated when we don’t feel like we are making a difference. And then we feel so dumb for being so dang idealistic. But God says we won’t be shamed by putting our hope in Him. In the midst of all the suffering we see in the world, there is still hope in Jesus because of the love of God. We are never without hope when we have Christ. So, to alleviate suffering is much easier than we think. They need Jesus. So many people here need Jesus.

So, we are asking you friends to pray. Pray that we will have opportunities to share Christ with others…so that they will have the hope we have!! We don’t even speak Khmer…and sometimes I feel so clueless and useless, but I’m still expecting God to use us to show Christ to this place somehow (He’s pretty creative!) Tamara and I are yet to doubt that God has called us here for a reason. God has to work over-time with this weak girl if He’s going to make some difference here…but I know in spite of who I am or what I don’t know, He will make His name known.

Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement – we love you guys so much!!

-Lauren

Rain, Roadtrip, & the Riverfront

Due to the possibility of heavy rain today Pastor Sokhom canceled our classes (he warned us last night that it was a good possibility). I’m sure the kids were really disappointed since today (through Tuesday actually) is a Cambodian holiday for the Water Festival. But, since it was only a possibility we went ahead and prepared what we would teach and set our alarms… and didn’t over sleep this time. So, bright and early at six am we rolled out of bed to see what the verdict was on the rain. He told us the weather was, “not good”. Neither was the news on our visas… apparently we got the wrong one when we arrived at the beginning of the month. As a result, we have to leave the country… but, we get to come right back. So, now we have a road trip planned for Tuesday… Vietnam, here we come!! No worries though, he’s going with us and we should have the right visa when we return. I really don’t know what we would do without him… or the rest of the family for that matter. Have I mentioned that they’re amazing? They are!!


So, what do you do at six am after you’re wide awake? Call your friends to find out really important information like…

“What’s going on in Texas?”

“Why don’t you have your phone with you… at all times while I’m here?”

“Where do you buy a flat iron?”

“What street was that really good donut shop on here?”

See, really important stuff… give us a day off and we’re useless. Well, maybe not totally useless. We skipped out on the donut shop and had breakfast at home. We did plan on finding out some information for the team in December but, the place we needed to go was closed… this Water Festival is a BIG deal!! After a leisurely coffee/ lunch/ talking to more friends & family we set out on the hunt for a flat iron and the Water Festival… Both accomplished! See Lauren’s facebook for what the celebration is all about. We had been told there are always a LOT of people there and it’s SUPER crowded. So, with our purses tucked securely under our arms and water bottles in hand we tuk tuked as close to the riverfront as we could before we got out, played frogger, and joined the masses. Basically, there’s these HUGE (hold like 20-40 people) painted canoe like boats from all over Cambodia that come to race… Lveasar even competes but, we had no idea how to find them. In each of the boats there’s a guy at the front that has a horn, giant stick, or some other device to make noise with to set the pace for his team… they we’re our favorites to watch… except for one boat that had a drummer at the back… maybe a story for later. I’m still amazed at how these guys make rowing look so effortless and move these monstrous boats so quickly. After sitting for a while (and taking a ton of pictures) we decided to walk around. We sampled some street food, took some more pictures, got stared at a lot, and watched some more races. I would defiantly recommend checking it out if you’re even in Cambodia during this time. We left from there to grab a few things for school and at the market before making our way home. All in all, it was a great Saturday!



-Tamara

Flying Frogs and Farmer's Tans

We had a tuk tuk waiting outside our house today at 7 a.m. We had debated for the last few days exactly how long it would take us to get from Phnom Penh to Lveasar in a tuk tuk. We don't have a car yet, so this has been the mode of transportation that we have been relying on the last two weeks. For those of you that don't know, a tuk tuk is a moto bike that pulls two covered seats behind it. Conventionally, most can carry four people, but Cambodians love to cram as much as possible onto any vehicle carrying anything, so we've seen many more people than that per tuk tuk. Although we're very familiar with this transportation by now (we can even haggle the driver down to a decent price!), we had yet to take one to Lveasar. By car, the drive to Lveasar is about an hour...and very bumpy. This highway to Lveasar goes all the way to Vietnam, and it is currently under heavy construction. You might say it's the equivilant of driving on a shell road/washboard...yet it is a major highway. So, by tuk tuk, even more bumpy. Even so, we were pretty excited about the idea of "tuking" our way to Lveasar. The ride was definitely bumpy, but only took us fifteen more minutes that usual, making us right on time. Once we turned off the highway, we drove down a small road through a village where the tuk tuk dropped us off on the bank of the Mekong River. From here, we took a ferry (that looks much like it came out of a World War II movie) across the Mekong to Lveasar. Once we made it to Lveasar, a moto bike was there waiting to take us down the dirt road about a mile down through the village to Hope for Cambodia Orphanage. We finally made it! We arrived...and this is our life! From moment 1, we were pumped.

Arriving at the orphanage was probably my favorite part, we were greeted with hugs and smiles of kids that love more freely than many of us can understand. These are kids that have pasts not filled with the love and affection that many of us received as children, yet they are ready to love and receive love so quickly.

Our classes flew by, but it feels like so many things happened...so, I'm just going to hit the highlights:

1. These kids can introduce themselves in English and ask "What's your name?" after today!

2. After the kids left each class, we got exuberant high fives and "See you tomorrow, teacher!" in the cutest accents ever.

3. During lunch, we were directed to our "break room" with two mats and pillows on bunk beds where we can eat and rest...so sweet. :)

4.  After a quick break, we get to play with our kids for almost two hours till their next classes begin. (Lunch break is 11-1!)

5. In the afternoon, Tamara and I got to teach the high school students together. We were able to convert classroom cut-ups into an object lesson. We were teaching commands: "Come here," "Stop," "Turn around," and "Go away." In the middle of Tamara and I dramatically acting out these commands, some (what seemed at the moment) very large living creature came flying in our direction at the front of the class. We both had the normal girlie reaction you would expect of shrieking and running to the nearest wall for shelter. To our relief, there was a frog in the middle of the floor. We all died laughing, except for the two perpetrators who were not-so-subtly hiding their smiles in the back. Tamara and I spent a few moments trying to catch it, while several girls were still cowering on top of their desks...finally we chased it to the back of the room towards the open windows, yelling "Go away! Go away!" Lesson complete.

6. Evidence of just one day in the village? Village feet and farmer's tans. Already...but so worth it.