Day 10, Kong Pixay

On a mission trip, you don’t usually think about sleeping in, laying in bed, taking a long shower. We got to do that today! It was so nice.

Our final destination for this trip was Kong Pixay, our very first orphan home. The relationship that has been built there and how far it has come since we first came is incredible.

Kong Pixay is unique in that it is a hub of the village and is deeply integrated into the surrounding village. They’ve built relationship with the community around them and the fruit has just spread and spread. This year, I saw kids from the community up on stage leading worship that weren’t involved last year. The whole community came out to greet us and spend time with us. There was so much joy and life there, we could all sense it.

We were able to bless the home with care packages of toiletries, and a whole SUITCASE of shoes! In addition, we provided the mayor of the village with supplies to rebuild some roads that had been washed out by the rainy season. We had a powerful time of prayer together, and we are believing that Kong Pixay will be a center of healing  - both spiritual and physical. 

Tomorrow begins our R&R! That means ice cream, exploring, spas, and adventure. 

Pastor Tim walking to the home with a bunch of orphans who came to greet us on the road

There was a palm tree climbing competition

Charlene and the kids

Playing with the kids in the home and the community

This is the Pastor. He has such a great spirit

Passionate about worship and prayer

This is Savy, the pianist at Kong Pixay. He's been blind from birth, and he is incredibly talented 

Ted and the kids

The whole community pouring in for worship

Peter and a little boy from the village

Melissa and Srey Net

This is a common type of house that you'd see in Cambodia, especially out in the country

Some other common types of homes

This is Sam, our fearless leader, and his fiance Yien. She has an INCREDIBLE testimony that will be shared in March at our Celebrate Cambodia Meeting. You don't want to miss it

Day 9, Steung Somrong

Imagine a place surrounded by jungled mountains and nestled in between fruit trees. Mangoes, cashews, coconuts. You sit underneath the shade of the trees, with some chickens and dogs scratching around, and then a big bus full of sweaty white people that you’ve been praying for and waiting to see for a year roll up in a shaken up bus.

You worship together, pray together, eat together, play together. All under the warm Cambodian sun.

Yeah, it was a good day today.

Steung Somrong is the second home we adopted, and we’ve visited it three times now. I think today felt so much like coming home to an easy, comfortable, family environment.

God has done so much in Steung Somrong, it has come under some serious persecution from some corrupt leaders in the area that have been smearing our Pastors reputation in the community. Last year we came, you could tell the place was under a heavy burden and an almost beaten up spirit. While there is still a lot of warfare going on in the spiritual realm (isn't there spiritual warfare going on in your life?0 , but you could feel the breakthrough as the burden began to lift. The place was cleaner, felt lighter, and the kids smiles came easy. Please be praying for our family at Steung Somrong for we know that where persecution lies, the church always grows. 

Here are some pictures of our team with the kids:

This is one of Pastor Tim's many girls

 Steung Somrong was Mark and his wife, Annette's, first home. They really bonded with this girl,
Ly Na.   It was such a happy reunion! 

They always pray before and during worship. Each child praying individually, at the same time. 

There's a song we sing where we all hold hands in a circle and spread all the way out and then rush in as fast as we can. The kids LOVE it. All I can say, is that it should be a workout on Jillian Michaels. The amount of sweat is unbelievable

Kamera, "...swimming swimming swimming in the Light of the Lord." At least, I think that's how the lyrics go in Khmer

Praying over the kids

If Spot It and Uno every become Olympic games in Cambodia, we're taking all the credit

Adults will flock to $ being thrown in the air. Kids flock to Tootsie Pops. Dee learned this the hard way

Chery has had her birthday in Cambodia for two years now! We celebrated

Sam, hardly able to contain his excitement. "Birthday hats! Oh boy!"

 I found this puppy. I loved her. I named her Flea. Frank objected that I had naming rights, he wanted to name her Precious. So we compromised and called her Precious Flea Chang. PF Chang for short. We hope that's not her final destination

Day 8, Prek Bey and Long Roads

Today we passed up going to Angkor Wat, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, in favor of seeing our Children of Promise. We spent a lot of time on the road to get there, but we really couldn’t justify coming all this way and not seeing them.

Prek Bey was our new home last year that we spent the majority of our time at. It was SO GOOD to see their familiar faces and how they’ve GROWN. Five inches, at least!! It especially impacted those of us who had our first Cambodia mission trip experience last year, it was like seeing family again. Whats also really cool is how the newcomers on our team bonded with them effortlessly.

In our short amount of time together we got to worship, tell them how much we loved them, missed them, believed in them, and eat! We brought bread for everyone and they chopped down fresh coconuts for us. Fun fact: coconuts take five YEARS to grow. So it was really an honor that they chopped down so many for us. They also were pumped full of antioxidants and laxatives which helped loosen up our stiff bowels. It was very beneficial, no blowouts though - don't worry. 

We ran over some people while waiting for the bus after breakfast.

Chery loving on some of her girls at the Prek Bey. 

Ted and the Pastor

The classic Pastor Tim choke-hold/bear hug

Frank having the girls help him catch up on some email

Lina

It's so great, at Prek Bey the older girls always do a traditional Cambodian dance for us

Adam doing Gangnam style dance

Praying over the orphans

All of us at Prek Bey

Frank distributing some amazing bracelets

Pastor Tim speaking life over and encouraging the home

Yes, this is real. And actually, its a baby banana spider. The ones we saw last year were three times the size.

Day 7, Last Day at Chhuk

 When you know you’re time with someone is short, it’s easy to keep them at arm’s length, to stay at a distance so that when goodbye comes – it’s easy. That’s something I had to wrestle with when I decided to come on this trip. “If I don’t get invested in these kids am I really going to make a difference?” I’m really proud of the whole team. We loved these kids with everything we had and didn’t hold back.

We started our day early, packed our bags and headed to the home for church. Worship was led by the older orphans and the whole community was invited to participate and enjoy the meal we were able to provide afterwards. This led to the death of 10 chickens. The meat was so fresh; we saw it squawking the day before, trussed up on the back of a moto.

After the meal we had the chance to prophesy and speak life over and into our kids. This time is so powerful because often times these kids don’t have the role models or authority figures to encourage them, lift them up, tell them who they are, what they are capable of becoming, and the hope of the future they can have. Fortunately, our home is blessed with a phenomenal Pastor and home moms, but we stand in the gap for them on this day. 

The older kids led worship

Kamera translated for us while we gave words and prayed over our kids

Dee giving a word to some boys she bonded with

The whole community came over for Sunday service

I love how the kids go for it in worship

Worship

Pastor Tim charging the older boys with looking after their sisters and mothers. 

At the end of the day we left Chhuk and got on our way to Pursat to visit our other home, Prek Bey. This is one of the many sights we've seen on our travels through Cambodia. These little piggies went to market.... and they never came back.