some photos and writing and stuff about Cambodia

hey everyone

reporting once again from the Northern hemisphere, in that little country with so much potential, Cambodia. otherwise known as Cambodge.

I haven't put photos up in so long so I thought that after such a long period of time I would let everyone have a look, sorry everyone for the lack of visual lately. I've just been so busy that I haven't had time. This is sort of a summary from ages ago. maybe a month, although it seems like just one huge day. I found some time this afternoon after teaching at LCDI, so I thought I should grasp the oppotunity while I have the chance. Time starts to merge itself into itself around here. there seems to be a phrase that is continually proceeding from my mouth and that is "there 'just insn't enough hours in a day". We are all working very hard here. Cassie and Sarah were both exhausted this morning, but they battled on. It gives me strength to watch others continue through their exhaustion. I feel fine. I think God prepared me in many ways in the last year for Cambodia. by pushing me to the limit exhaustion wise so that I can cope fairly well over here.

I have some very sad news. My brother Ben has left our presence here in Cambodia. he had to go back to Australia. Its been very good having Ben here with us. When he first came I thought me and him were going to fight a lot. I didn't seem to think that freinds would be a likely thing to happen. He's been one of my best freinds over here, and an older brother. Ben we are all missing you and your antics already over here. I think soon the LCDI kids are going to make me eat life threatening foods. God Bless mate. keep up the good work in Australia.

I'm not the most organised person in the world, people may notice that from my writing style, or if you personally know me, you WILL know that. however I tried this arfternoon with all these photos. I wanted them to be in chronolical order. however the computer didn't agree with my plans, so If you would like to scroll down to the bottom of the screen and make you way up you'll see thing in the order it happened. I think I've written about most of these things anyway. thankks for taking the time to read. please remember this beautiful country and the ecclesia and interested contacts in your prayers. God Bless. I hope I see you the reader tomorrow face to face as we meet in Zion at Christs feet.

Brother Jonno Nutter - enjoy the show

here is a photo of Brother Vitou. he gets heaps dressed up in the regal looking traditional Khmer dress for the grand day, but still rocks around in sport socks. Vitou is a legend. and here is a few of the dormers and Gab....I'm counting myself in with the dormers. and Him and the happy couple with their folks.

and here is the happy couple at the "ceremony" or as we would say in Australia engagment party.

A beautiful message portraited on Saory's back. it says I try to be like Jesus. something so simple and so beautiful. here is Sophea with the wedding umbrella's.

Gab made some very close freinds on this trip. There were tears aplenty when she left from some of the girl dormers. I think it was really good for her to get to the provinces. This is a photo of her and Ren. Ren is taking extra classes with me and Josh. she and her freind Rathyda are both coming for extra lessons and are very interested. They always have excellent questions, and have quite a good knowledge, in comparison to the rest of Cambodia. these girls are the perfect example of commitement to God in this place. They get up at about 530 to attend morning dorm service. dorm service starts at 6.00. straight after dorm service they jump on their bikes to go to work so they can support themselves while they study, they look after children all day. Most mothers will probably tell one or 2 children will wear you out, my mum at 7 and she'll definitely tell you it wore her out. these girls look after kids all day. they finish work at 5 and come back to teh dorms (its about a half hour on bike) they get back home and then quickly have a shower and change before rushing off to study. they study until 8.30, or they get back to the dorms at about 830. sometimes by this point they are too exhausted to even bother eating dinner. after that they do copious amounts of homework. like they study hard, they work hard so they can study hard. So this happens 5 days a week. then on Saturday mornings they look after Children as well. so They've decided to give us their free time, Saturday afternoons is when they study with us. for 1 and a half hours. Sundays they have off, but we've got the meeting to which all dormers attend on Sunday afternoon, and usually something is organised for the morning. pretty hectic lifestyle. but the fact that they sacrifice there little free time for God, instead of just relaxing, like I probably would have if I was in their position is amazing. Its these sort of things that inspire me.

here is Gab loving the coconuts. the other thing about going to celebrations, like an engagment party (yes Dany's folks said yes to Vitou..... A very wise decision, I could talk about Vitou for a lengthy period of time as well, that boys got his head screwed on right) is all the Khmer make you dance. It's insisted upon. I've never danced in my life! it was a bit different coming here and having to start on Khmer traditional. Still not the biggest fan ever.

Here is me with 2 of my brothers. This is the night before Vitou's big day. We went out to Kampong Thom province, which is where Dany and her family live, because Vitou was planning on asking her parents if he could marry her. And here's the graceful bride. you can't really see it in this photo, but she's killing live fish by cracking them over the skull with 2 peices of bamboo. Quite an amusing sight really. Dany cracks me up.

This was Gab's first province trip. and you can see us all getting stuck into fresh coconuts, something you can't get without a price in Phnom Pehn, but here in the provinces get newly cracked open given to you. The folks in the provinces are all so lovely.

This is us in the bus. On the way back from the province was in pain from being squished in so tight, we had 24 people in a 14 seater bus. I think it may have been to packed to pull my camera out of my pocket, so I didn't get a photo. This bus trip was an amazing experience, there I was, feeling like a sardine, squashed up in this little van from all sides. my knees ( and this is not a joke) were level with my neck. It was incredibly hot. and I was stuck like this for over 3 hours, I remember it being close to four. and we decided that focusing on our estate wasn't the best way to cope. So we started following What Paul and Silas did, when they were in a much more oppressive situation, we started singing. It was amazing, we got the whole bus singing. Everyone learnt some new bible songs. It was a really nice experience.

heres my Bong Pro. He always makes the dormers smile. I could talk about Him for a long time, I feel he's very wise and is a really good example for the dorms and for the ecclesia. He loves making people smile, but he thinks so deeply about God's word. and can explain it so well. This the first baptised Khmer brother is just over a year later, well grounded in the truth. I think God has blessed us in giving us the Phnom Pehn ecclesia my Bong Pro.

We caught a few locals buses while we were over there, and felt a little out of place not wearing a crash helmet like the locals. talk about extreme, sky diving, bungy jumping, motorbike riding and taking a bus in Vietnam.

heres a nice photo of the beautiful lush rice feilds of Nam, and Ben with a frangapani stuck behind his ear. hey Girls this tiger is single as well!! for now.

just a couple of nice photos. many many stories, but we don't really have to go into the shenanagins of me and Ben in Vietnam now.

this is my and Bens visit to Vietnam. I just wanted to show you guys a few photos of this so you know whats been going on with all the fieldworkers as well as the contacts.

Heres all the dormers at the party, munching on delicious Corn. and playing games that I had to suddenly organise.

theres a bit of a story behind these photos. its related to the party to invite people to the seminar. Me and Loy bought heaps of food for the party. like mountains of Nom (like a Khmer cake) barrels of softdrink, about four mountanious plates of fruit and another four of Nom. and these weren't by any token small plates. these were huge. This food was devoured in a matter of minutes. I couldn't believe how quickly and effectively it dissapeared. Me and Ben were a little bit worried that after everyone finished eating, if there wasn't a program everyone was going to leave before the final words were said. so we jumped on the moto, raced around like chickens with our heads chopped off trying to find some food to buy. eventually we found the corn lady. and bought a stack of corn. we then raced back to the party, and distributed the food. We were told that everyone was going to be going if we didn't do something, I was meant to be organising this party, and the way I had invisioned it is something similiar to a BBQ in Australia, where everyone sort of talks and eats slowly, this wasn't the case, and I didn't want everyone dissapearing. I made everyone jump up and play games. It was good fun, and sort of seemed to solve the majority of the problem. at least I'll know for next time. the reason we had the party was because the Hewitts were to be leaving Cambodia a week later, and we wanted all the contact to say good bye to them. Josh and Sarah and Grant, Penny and Cassie had just arrived as well. So we wanted to introduce all the contacts to the new feildworkers, and pass them from the Hewitts to the noobs (newies). I also had a alternative motive. I wanted a seminar the following weekend, So I also wanted to invite all the contacts to the seminar. I was the MC so my voice was completly shot afterwards.

Here is another photo of the same sunrise. I thought it looked really cool so I thought I would show everyone. here is Sophea. I really like Sophea, him and another boy, Boren are going through for baptism. This isn't an overnight sort of course. I want to make sure they understand. I'm getting them to prove what they believe back to me from the bible, and I'm having quizzes for them as well. They both really seem to love God, and are really trying hard to understand the bible. and they are both doing a terrific job. I went through the rich man and lazerus with them last night. I love just watching smiles spread over their faces as they understand exactly what the bible is trying to tell us. The rich man and lazerus isn't an easy parable to understand, and many people use it to prove theirs an immortal soul. I went through wrested scriptures with them last night and now they can clearly prove to me that this doesn't show us that their is an immortal soul, and what the parable is actually talking about. our lesson starts at 10.00 PM and is meant to go for an hour, but sometimes takes an hour and a half. I really admire how keen they are that they will study even though they are tired, and still get up on time for dorm service at 6.00 the next morning.

here is a beautiful sunrise, as we awoke after the nights bustling activities. dancing (which I'm not the biggest fan of) and just spending time with the dormers, such as this photo of Channa (Meng Him's little brother, also one of the dormers who is doing individual lessons with me) showing me how proud he is that he cut the chickens throught so now we can pluck it, cook it and eat it.

We and heaps of the dormers went to Kampong Speu (pronounced Kampong Spew, pretty gross I know) for a celebration because rice harvest had finished, and they all really wanted us to go. So Josh got in early before we had to dance, to practise his traditional Khmer dancing styles. getting into the groove in this photo. Sarah felt that her stomach wasn't adequate for the food, and started feeling the illness coming on straight away as you can see in this photo. Me and Josh didn't worry about that sort of stuff. we just kept ploughing through the delicious spread Samrachs Mum (one of the dormers mothers) put on for us and the dormers.

But us westerners weren't the only ones loving the food. Veasna is a eating machine. here is Brother Veasna, Brother Chantoun and So Chet.

here is a typical village scene. I love the provinces, they're so peaceful and quiet. I'm a bit of a country boy, so I'm not a huge fan of the bustling city. I love the provinces and the lifestyle of the provinces.

Here's some photos from Kamong Speu province when i went there with Josh and Sarah. The roads are incredibly dusty, I go Khmer style and buy a doctors mask instead of inhaling all the dust

a shot passing by on a moto
a typical province road

one of the dormers with his family. This is So Chet. I call him "my" which in Khmer means mum because he's so hospitable. he really looks after you when you go to his house. nice family picture. all the dormers say (and I definitely agree) that he's very interested in studying in the bible. If he can't make it too a lesson he always asks me if I can do a seperate one with him. I like So Chet. infact I like all the dormers.

Josh and Sarah getting in with the family. This is their first province trip.

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