To get another's perspective on this trip, you should read Andy's blog.

Here are some pictures of our trip -- if you're a FB user, you can join the Asia's Hope page. If not, this could be a great time to start!

It would be impossible to recount all of the past few days’ events even in the scantest of detail, but it should give you some idea of our pace to know that we were in Siem Reap yesterday, Battambang this morning, Phnom Penh this evening and will be traveling to Chiang Mai via Bangkok tomorrow. 

This trip has been much more hectic than most of my others, thanks mostly to the ambitious excursions we planned – all the kids from the four Prek Eng homes went with us by bus to the beach at Kampong Som and all of the five Battambang homes traveled with us to see the Angkorian temples at Siem Reap. We enjoyed so many sweet moments with the kids; I only wish I hadn’t lost more than 200 photos from our time at Angkor Wat. 

I’ve played more games of freeze tag, follow-the-leader and hangman than I can count. I’ve had literally thousands of hugs. Each child is so precious, each director so amazing – I’m at a point of overload. Yesterday we said “goodbye” to the kids in Battambang, including the precious ones from Battambang 1 I first met years ago. It was difficult, but not as much as it was on my first few trips – I know I’ll be back soon. 

Tomorrow we leave the Prek Eng kids and start all over in Thailand, where we will meet a whole bunch of children I’ve never even seen at our new Battambang 4 and perhaps even at the just-being-born Wiang Pa Pow 1. I’ll have to switch from “Chum reap suor” to “Sawadee krup.”

Tonight I had a wonderful dinner at Le Duo with Ted Olbrich from Foursquare Children of Promise. They have more than 100 orphan homes in Cambodia, and lots more experience and knowledge than any of us. He ratified a lot of my thoughts and opinions about ministry here and challenged others of mine. I look forward to many years of ministering with him here in this country.

And I’m minutes away from an evening snack with Joe Crawford a member of my church – Central Vineyard – who is on holiday from his teaching job in Thailand. 

Life is complex. Life is good. The task before us is so daunting that only God could accomplish it.

More later.

It’s a beautiful day in Battambang, Cambodia. It’s been raining for the past week, but today the sun is shining, presiding over a nearly cloudless sky. And, for the first time since I arrived in the country, it’s hot. Very hot.

Last night’s assembly with the kids was wonderful. Andy and I walked away refreshed and encouraged. And to wake up to such beautiful weather, one can really feel the newness of God’s mercy that he promises to send us every day. 

In a few moments we’ll be meeting up with Savorn and going to visit our BB2 and BB3 homes. After a couple of hours we’ll head over to see where some of our older boys are learning the silversmithing trade. I’ll talk with their teacher and try to negotiate some of the details of an upcoming order for our Trade Justice Mission jewelry co-ops.

And then tomorrow, it gets crazy. We’re loading all of the kids and staff into a caravan of mini-buses and heading off to see the Angkor temples at Siem Reap. None of the kids have ever seen the temples in person, but they’ve all learned about them in school. Cambodia is very proud of Angkor Wat, and all of the kids are thrilled to make the trip.

I don’t know what my schedule will be like over the next few days; I don’t know whether I’ll have internet or not. I’m praying that all goes well with the travel arrangements for Chris Ramos, a representative from Back2Back Ministries in the U.S.; he is planning to meet us in Siem Reap, travel back with us to Battambang, then to Phnom Penh, then to Chiang Mai. Quite a few stops, quite a few opportunities to lose track of details. Pray that it all goes well.

Oh, and I’m having camera troubles, so it may be a while before I post any more pictures. But I’ll have a couple hundred to post when the time comes.

Okay. I’m off. Peace.

It’s 3pm on Thursday afternoon, and I’m lying on the bed in my hotel in Battambang. This has been my first rough day of this trip. I have a headache, and I feel a little sick to my stomach. Andy and I spent all morning playing with the kids, and now we’re taking much needed a mid-afternoon rest. I’m beat.

Today I feel like one of Jesus’ disciples on the day He fed the 5,000, pre-miracle. “Give them something to eat,” He said. “How are we supposed to do that? We don’t have anything for them,” they said.

Like the disciples, I find myself forgetting who I’m working for, and what he’s capable of doing. I focus on my own resources and on my own abilities, and I look at the hungry people and start to panic.

There’s never quite enough money. Never quite enough energy. Never quite enough mental capacity to remember all of the little details: names, dates, dollar amounts.

Sometimes I feel very strong, very capable and very much at the top of my game. Today I feel like the game is moving just a little too fast for me. Tonight, I’m hoping to catch up. I’m praying I’ll be filled up. The kids are planning a special assembly tonight. There’ll be dancing, singing, skits and ice cream.

I pray I’ll be fully present. I want to just soak in God’s goodness reflected in the smiles and songs of the kids. I want to trust Him to provide and believe that He is in charge. I want to see Him do some sort of a miracle, some sort of a multiplication of resources. I want Him to take center stage and take both the glory and the pressure.

Amen.

It’s about 8:30 at night in Battambang, but it feels much later. I still haven’t completely gotten over the jet lag. I can get up in the morning and feel fine, but I get sleepy early at night and tend to wake up a lot. That’s one of the reasons I’m not doing a particularly good job at blogging. That, and the intermittent quality and duration of internet connectivity is keeping me from updating as often as I’d like.

I am, for the very first time, not staying at the venerable TeO, Battambang’s most established hotel. Vando, one of our orphan home directors, booked us at a brand new place called The President. For its grand opening, the hotel is offering some kind of promotion, and we’ve landed ourselves in a ridiculously large room for $17 per night. It’s very Cambodian, whilst trying very hard to be Western.

There’s an extensive list of regulations and requests including “Thanks for not using towels for cleaning foots or as a cigarette astray” and “It’s also prohibited to carry out sex trade.” I can’t speak for the towels, but the latter seems to not be enforced here at The President.

At any rate, it’s good to be back in this town. I love the people, and I enjoy the relatively sleepy pace; I just wish they would move it closer to Phnom Penh. The 6-1/2 hour bus ride was grueling, and Andy arrived here feeling quite under the rainy and surprisingly chilly weather. While he rested, I went to our main Battambang campus and enjoyed a large and late lunch with our staff.

I spent the next couple of hours hanging out with the kids at BB1 (sponsored by Westview Bible Church in Montreal), BB4 (sponsored by Wooster Grace Brethren Church in Wooster, Ohio) and BB5 (sponsored by Western Reserve Grace Church in Macedonia, Ohio). It’s been raining non-stop for the past few days -- we’re getting the remnants of the typhoon that has devastated other parts of Southeast Asia – so our campus’ outdoor common areas are now more marsh than park. I joked with Savorn, complementing him on his beautiful volleyball pool.

So, instead of playing giant, unruly games of volleyball, capture the flag or even duck duck goose, I visited each of the homes that share our main Battambang campus and sat quietly with the kids and told them the following things:

1. I missed you all, even the new kids I haven’t met. I think of you all the time, and pray for you day and night. I am so glad that we are part of a family, and I look forward to returning to see you again and again, and I am so happy that we are going to know each other when you have grown up and I have grown old.
2. For those of you who are new here, I want to tell you that you will always be welcome here, always safe, and always have enough food to eat. You will get an education, and you will have opportunities for a good future. Your mom and dad and brothers and sisters love you and will take care of you. When you are sad, you can talk to your brothers and sisters, because their life has been very similar to you. And you can always talk to God, because he loves you and always watches over you.
3. You have many people in North America who love you as well. When I walk into your sponsoring churches, what do I see? Pictures of you! Those churches are so proud of you, and they pray for you all the time. When they have Sunday morning services, they talk about you. When the pastors get together for meetings, they pray for you. And Asia’s Hope has a board and many supporters who pray for you often as well.
4. My wife and kids wish that they could see you. I wanted to bring them this time, but we could not raise the money. But we are working hard to raise funds, and I pray that next summer they will be able to all come to visit. You will love my wife. I am very loud and funny. She is gentle and sweet and has very good hugs.

We joked, we jostled, we hugged. I whooped them up into cheers for this Saturday’s excursion to Angkor Wat, and then I left and returned to the weirdly shabby elegance of The President Hotel to rouse a recuperating Andy for dinner.

I’m hoping that the rain stops today and we can run and roughhouse with the kids. If not, we’ll find some quiet indoor games. Or maybe we’ll just ignore the rain and play outside anyway…

It’s about 11am. I’ve had breakfast, and have gone to the market to pick up a few souvenirs for my kids, and I’m already feeling worn out. I slept well last night – thanks, in part, to the Ambien – but I feel like I’m fighting something. And yesterday, despite the night before’s horrible sleep, I went almost non-stop. So I’m up in the hotel room, trying to get a quick nap before heading out to the school, then the orphan homes, and then an evening out with the staff.

At any rate, I guess the most exciting thing I can think to write about is Pheaktra. As many of you know, he was in the hospital for more than a month with a severe kidney injury inflicted when he fell out of a moving vehicle. Well, he’s home now. And it’s so wonderful to see him up and moving around. 

He’s very thin, and he has a huge scar across his abdomen. But he is in good spirits, and is thrilled to be back with his family. His older sister Srey Ka seems especially happy to have him home, her huge brown eyes glistening with tears when she talks about him.

Pastor Rich Nathan says that we should look at all of life through “the three-fold lens of scripture.” Every situation can be seen through the lens of creation, the lens of the fall and the lens of redemption. In other words, when we look at the world, we can see the goodness of God’s creation – He made it, and it’s got his stamp of identification and, ultimately, ownership. But everything can also be seen through the lens of the fall. Everything is broken, imperfect, damaged. Additionally, one can look at every situation through the lens of redemption the lens that shows us that God is working to fix things, to save people, to make our world new.

And in our work here in Asia, it’s very easy to see all of these principles at work when you know how to use those three lenses. I think of Pheaktra. He’s such a wonderful little child. But he’s been damaged and broken physically and emotionally. But God is fixing him, repairing his body and redeeming his childhood. All of these children are like that – the whole world is, but it’s especially easy to see when you can observe the scars and the recovery.

Mostly, though, in this world it’s easy to see the brokenness. The prostitution, the corruption, the impunity, the poverty – it all screams out, “Something is wrong with this world. This is not how it should be!” I’m praying that as we submit to God’s way of doing things here, we will also get to see a lot more of the kind of redemption we observe every time we visit one of our orphan homes. 

So today – as always – I’m grateful for an opportunity to have a job where I can see not only the brokenness of the world, but God’s plan in action to redeem it and make it all new. And I’m also so grateful for everyone who supports Asia’s Hope with prayers and financial contributions. There is so much work to do, and every dollar makes a difference.

Thank you, God for allowing me to be a part of your redemptive work. And thank you friends for all of your support.

I just heard from Tutu that there's been a flu outbreak at our DS3 and DS4 orphan homes, with 10 kids falling sick. Please pray that they will recover quickly and that the rest of the kids will stay safe.