A Week of Games and Dancing
It’s been pedal-to-the-metal since arriving in Cambodia, but what fun we’re having! Aside from falling a bit behind on email correspondence and enduring a bit of a sinus cold, this trip has thus far been a smashing success.
Megan, Kris, Jeremiah and I have never traveled together as a group, and each of us had been looking forward to it with a mix of about 80% anticipation and 20% anxiety.
(Well, maybe not Jeremiah; he seems to take everything in stride with his gracious Thai mai pen rai – no worries – orientation)
Megan has traveled to India with Asia’s Hope, so she wasn’t concerned as much with the physical and logistical aspects of travel, but she’s leaving young kids behind, and that’s potentially stressful for her and her husband Jay, who’s stuck manning the home front in solo mode.
Kris is an experienced traveler to Europe, but this trip promised to be more physically demanding with its endless flights, hot temps and long days on our feet. She was concerned about slowing down team members quite a few years younger than her. She’s also not a big fan of seafood, and visions of being served gnarly, needle-boned, heads-on aquatic beasts at every meal provoked a mild case of the squeams.
Kori has done this trip a bunch of times and is unfazed by the transit and the general pace. But her out-of-office email auto responder notwithstanding, she still receives about a hundred work-related messages in her inbox on the average day.
But so far, everyone is thriving. Megan’s husband Jay is killing it back home as a temporarily-single dad. Kris has kept up every step of the way, and has even enjoyed the occasional bite of fish! And Jeremiah has had a blast eating his way through the Cambodian culinary canon.
I knew we’d all get along well on this trip. We enjoy being together, and work well as a team. I wasn’t too worried about the food or the plane flights or the long hours on the road. As much fun as it is to experience Cambodia as a country, the real joy here comes from spending time with Asia’s Hope kids and staff – on the ground and in their homes.
I’ve loved watching first-timers Kris and Megan experience for themselves the people and the places that have captured my heart for the past 25 years. And we got to connect with our dear friends and long-time supporters, Dr. Ray and Deb Sheridan, whose church and business sponsor our Battambang 5 home.
We’ve experienced a whole lot of love over a very short time in Battambang. We’ve given and received countless hugs, played dozens of games, sung songs and shared meals. A wedding, a village outreach, a church service, dinners and lunches with staff and kids – and an epic dance party with more than 200 people – we did it all in less than a week.
And this morning, we wrapped it up with one final game of Simon Says with the sixth-through-twelfth graders of the Asia’s Hope School. A slew of hugs and a couple tears, and now we’re on the road to Siem Reap where we’ll tour the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat before heading to Phnom Penh to round out this portion of the trip.
Jeremiah will be heading to Thailand on Friday. Megan and Kris will be returning to the States in about a week. I wish we had more time together here in Cambodia, but we’re going to squeeze every last drop out of each day together. More pics and stories to come soon!
