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Hit The Ground Running

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Well where do i begin?

Perhaps the flight to to Cambodia?

Ok we'll start there.


I traveled with my best friend and Gi Don Moi (cousin) Jonno and his lovely wife Ren who was excited to be visiting her home town. We left the Gold Coast QLD airport at 12 (only 5 hours late taking off! good thing we had a 16 hour stop over in Kuala Lumpur). I wont bore you with the details but the short of the story was as follows:


• Landed in KL Airport… the "not so nice" one (large shed with security guards

and duty free alcohol dealers)

• Couldn't find a hotel anywhere so we slept on the tiled floor and took sifts to

watch the bags as there were some sinister looking characters eyeing off our

bags and checking on us every now and then

• By the time we boarded the flight to cambodia i had received the collective

total of 5 hours sleep over 49 hours


Opposed to how the trip sounds so far i was having the time of my life!! I was super excited and nothing could bring me down.


The flight to cambodia from KL was 2 hours and we were the flights entertainment as the only westerners. We amused the people around us as Jonno and Ma (Ren) taught me new words and phrases. Lots of laughing (it could have had something to do with our lack of sleep too)


We arrived in Cambodia!!!! We walked (after visas and bags) straight into what seemed to be a movie set. Ornamental roof tops and coconut trees everywhere. There where people and vehicles everywhere. We were meant to wait for David (a bro from the BEC) to pick us up but we were early so we jut mounted a tuk-tuk (brightly coloured carriage pulled by a moto) it was a little bit of a squish as we had a mountain of bags. The tuk-tuk would fit 4 westerners comfortably but it's normal to see 14 Cambodians on one.


Ok so my first tuk-tuk ride was great! It's seriously too much to take in! Weaving traffic (mostly motos and tuk-tuk but also cars, trucks and cows). There were mansions and slums cramped in together. If I was to describe phnom pehn in two words I would say "colourful and cramped" I feel like a tortoise in a nest of ants.


Arrival at the BEC (after a flat tyre and going the wrong way) was very loud and friendly as it was Sunday school. All the kids were either singing, shouting or popping balloons. I met too many people to absorb any of the names or even faces.

The BEC Is great! It's big and has mock marble floors and a rooftop balcony it has 5 floors! It's In the heart of the city of Phnom Penh. Coming from the the mountains in SE QLD where we don't actually have house keys it's quite suppressing to see the lengths people will go to for the purpose of keeping others out (eg. razer wire on the veranda). The BEC is as secure as a padlocked titanium bird cage in Alcatraz.


I spent my first week learning the ropes with David Toddy, an intelligent gentleman (From NZ) who has been here with his wife Anna for quite a long time Holding the BEC fort through the storms and calm. The dorms that we visit each tuesday-friday morning and evening are filled with 20 boys, 20 girls with a small, young family of 4 to host the students.


My first 1/1 student was Daren. He's 21 and speaks and reads English well. It's great!! I really enjoyed talking to him and he is very interested in learning. I do a lot of drawing and charades to explain things to him. I now teach 3 1/1s throughout the weekdays. the other two are Bross and Sokunna.


Bross is a bright young guy who is studying banking but has a passion for design. he is already learning first principles with "Bong Him" (the dorm host) so we are having design lessons and creating biblical diagrams and promo posters for the BEC. We are "killing two birds with one stone". It is a phrase that had Bros in stitches laughing when i explained it's meaning. ??

Sokunna is once again a young man with great english. he is learning with the bec and has a background from another christian religion. he is very studious. He quickly understands the finer points of doctrines and accepts that we must live our lives doing all to the glory of God. What more could you ask for?






Thats a quick one from me and i'll post some more details soon.

I will have to wright in bite sized pieces because theres just too much to tell.

Province trips

Wedding Celebration

broken island

the nest of monkeys (that like to kill kittens)

the moto rides with jonno

my moto rides and accident (ouch)

bible school

LCDI

ah the list is endless and new things happen every day.


Hi Woodford!!! (if anyones reading)

Grace, love and peace


Steve M

Comments

Anonymous said…
awesome post son, loved it. really good, I'll give Woodford your love. God Bless with everything, your doing an amazing job, told Jess & Sally all about it yesterday.

Love always
Jonno and Ren
15 January 2012 at 7:00 am
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