Cambodia is amazing but it sure can be overwhelming to be exposed to so many different experiences in a week!  Some aspects of life there are pretty awful.  Like getting  trapped in a rabbit warren of stalls in the “wet” portion of Central Market, walking in sandals through blood and guts, live fish flapping around your feet, people chopping up meat and fish and selling buckets of things that I can’t even imagine eating.  The smell is grotesque and lingering and I was glad to escape without doing something very embarrassing.

However, the people that we have met and worked with there are also some of the most hardworking and caring people we have ever met and that is why we love Cambodia.  We would like to take you through our week and introduce you to a few of the people and projects we are growing to love.

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On Sunday we attended Lighthouse  Church, and were priviledged to be in attendance at their first ever English service.  The church is one of four churches started by Pastor Nora, a single Phillipino missionary who has served faithfully in Cambodia for 13 years.  The Pastor of the this church is a fine young man with a vision to reach the educated and business class so now they have a second morning service in English along with an English language day school.

Foreign Language Training Center

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Sinath is a young Cambodian factory worker with a burden to offer hope to his fellow workers.  He has started a training center in the industrial area on the outskirts of Phnom Penh were he runs four English classes each evening after work, two for adults and two for children.  As a result of the realtionships he has built there, he now has added a Bible Study group on Sunday evenings.  Steve was able to teach the Bible study on Sunday and two English classes each evening allowing him not only to teach some English but also to demonstrate some teaching techniques to Sinath and his fellow teachers.

Cambodia Training Center

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Trully and Dewa are two Indonesian missionaries who came to Cambodia in early 2007 to set up a Bible training center.  They have secured a building which houses eleven full time students and provides space for classes and outreach programs.  Although they follow an established curriculum,  they have to find teachers for each module and organize the scheduling according to their availability.  The first class of eleven young people will graduate this May and return to their villages and work places to reach others.  Steve spent Monday teaching a module on Missions. The students were eager to learn and rewarding to teach. But our week was about to get a whole lot harder.