Battambang

First off I have to apologize for not writing last night when I had a chance (I admit it, I have no excuse, I was just really tired). We're hoping to get some pictures up with this, though, so that might redeem me a bit.

Tuesday Nov 18th

Tuesday morning we got together at the Sunrise Café coffee house down the street from the Holiday Guest House where we spent the night. This coffee house is making a great impact on families in our Battambang church by providing a sustainable income for nine women. After breakfast, we took a trip with some people from the church on little motor scooters. They drove and we rode on the back for about an hour or so until we all reached a pre-Angkorian period Wat (or temple). It fascinating to see this thousand year old Hindu temple that has gone through so much of this country's history. We met a fun group of boys there who were there collecting rhinoceros beetles and trying to pick up a little extra money by being helpful to tourists. Linda, Gary and I (Philip) had a good time meeting some of the boys, and playing with their Rhinoceros beetles. Alan and Pastor Po were able to meet some of the other boys and have good conversations with them about littering, and share the gospel. Later on, after we had already walked through the temple, we stood around with the boys and a local drunk came up to beg for money for alcohol. Alan used this opportunity to share with the boys about drunkenness and how alcohol can ruin a life. A while later, one of the boys threw some trash on the ground and Alan was able to use that to spark a lesson on caring for cleanliness in the earth, and we all picked up some trash around the temple. Then since we all did some work, we were able to leave the boys with about a nickel each for their labor and go back to lunch, again at the Sunrise Café.

Later that day we went down to the "bamboo railroad." Now all descriptions of this railroad tend to leave the listener confused, but with a little photographic aid, maybe you'll get all this. The idea is that the actual train is made of bamboo, but instead of being a full car, the train is really just a small bamboo platform that can run on a train track. When another bamboo train (or once a day when the real train) comes down the line, everyone actually gets off the train and they lift the whole thing off the tracks, and take the wheels off one at a time, let the other train pass, and reassemble the whole thing and get going again. Anyway, we had planned on taking the train out to Pray Svai and meeting with the youth that evening. But the train operator tried to swindle us out of some money, and after showing up, loading up, and actually traveling a couple meters, we got off and drove to Pray Svai.

That night we had a wonderful meal of curry and french bread, eating with pastor Khang and his family. After the meal we had a chance to meet with the youth group and pastor Khang shared his testimony to the group and Nai (a national youth leader of our churches here) helped to translate it for us into English. It was a fun time of fellowship. After the meeting, we got ready and spent the night there in Pray Svai with Pastor Khang's mother and some more of his family. Linda shared a bed down stairs with Nai. Alan and Gary slept in hammocks while I got to sleep on a bamboo bed. We all slept quite well.

Wednesday Nov. 19th

After getting up, we went down stairs and had a leisurely breakfast of cabbage soup, French bread, and dried meat. It was really good, I mean really really good. The undisputed highlight of this trip (outside of getting to know the missionaries and national brothers and sisters, and learning about the state of things here in Cambodia, of course) was this soup. Garlic, beef and cabbage, mmm. Anyway, after breakfast we all headed off with Gary Colfax, Nai, Khang and Mum (Khang's wife) to meet a new burgeoning church in Phnom Basac. Although the workers here do this trip rather regularly, it was a really rocky trip for us. We drove for two hours on roads that seemed impassible only to park and walk for another two miles up a road where the mud was so thick, at times it passed our ankles. It was a treacherous road, but despite coming close, none of us fell at any point (the hand of God was upon us). We enjoyed meeting Jim (the evangelist who is reaching out to everyone in his surrounding area, and leading this fledgling house church.) It was a real blessing to meet these people. We stayed and talked with Gary while they had an Evangelism Explosion training meeting. Gary, Alan and Linda helped some of the village children load a up a silo with dried feed corn, and Gary Colfax and I played some vollyball with some of the village youth. After a few hours, we walked back the two miles and drove back to Pray Svai, and then to Battambang (a little more quickly this time since the roads had a few hours to dry out in the sun.) In Battambang we washed up and enjoyed another wonderful meal with the Colfax family and Michelle. It was beautiful.

Thursday Nov. 19th

After waking early and hurrying to get to the bus, we all boarded and began the long trip back down to Phnom Penh. The trip was largely uneventful despite some minor bowel trouble and small lunches, and we arrived safely. Later, Gary and I took a quick walk through the palace (guided by Hiroa and Chiun Tai, two girls from the youth group), and a slightly less quick walk through toul slang, the infamous Khmer Rouge death camp turned genocide museum. It was a heavy afternoon. We all got together for dinner with the Harveys and the Kuffels, and we had a great time listening to stories and talking about things that wouldn't normally be talked about at the table in the US (great fun!)