what an amazing day. we have bathed the past 10 days in prayer, and God has met every need. he even heard evan's prayer this morning (evan is 10) when we were ready to go to the orphanage for our last day and the van would not start. we knew we needed to pray, and because evan is always so willing to say a blessing for us he went ahead and simply told God we needed our van to start. "in Jesus name i pray, amen", he said... and the van started ;) we all cheered, and cried. it was one of the greatest moments today. God used something so simple to get us trusting in Him for the day. feeling so defeated knowing we had to say goodbye to 35 of the sweetest faces, He showed us evan's faith in Him and we were able to praise Him for it before we started our last day here. this morning during our devotion we encouraged each other through reading God's word and we were reminded all the ways God provides, even in our desperate needs to start a van so we could go to the orphanage. He will continue to provide for these children after we leave them, and our prayer is that the burden we have for them will never go away. we pray this burden spills over to everyone around us, and they will be taken care of, and visited.

i have never been given so many gifts! we brought things for the kids to make themselves bracelets, and necklaces but they insisted on putting them on our necks and wrists. they made us cards and pictures all day. one of my cards says "i love you the strongest". God is so good and he shows us His love through children. i will leave here with the memory of little hands reaching for mine, hearing their voices sing in their beautiful language, and the laughter from the one's who would not even look you in the eye the first day. i also have this team who has supported one another in huge ways.

we make our way to siem reap tomorrow to ride some elephants, what a great way to end such a life changing trip. may God be glorified through everything we do.

It's currently 11pm and we have an early morning tomorrow. We're leaving at 6am to take the kids on a 5 hour bus ride to the beach and I'm thinking we won't get back until close to 9pm. Since I should probably be sleeping by now, I'm going to try and keep this a little shorter than my last entry.
As I think everyone might expect, we had another amazing day with the kids. Highlights from today:
-An epic soccer game with the older boys that ended in a 3-3 tie. We were not intentionally trying to end without declaring a winner, but decided that we'd best stop the game after an errant kick sailed high over the fence and broke a piece of protective shielding on driver's side window of the church's relatively new van.
-A sock-puppet show detailing Jesus walking on water that was masterfully narrated by Lacey and puppetted to perfection by Heidi, Elizabeth and Evan. The show was so well done that we are going to have an encore performance on Thursday so it can be forever captured on video. I'm sure this will be a YouTube favorite.
-The children painting wooden crosses as one of the arts and crafts projects for the day. It is simply a gift from God to watch these kids become so enthralled in simple art projects. And it's even more inspiring when you realize that you are watching a child paint a cross in a country that is only about 4% Christian...and knowing that these young hearts understand Jesus's love for them.
-Lacey attempting to throw away a small painting that she was using as an example for another art project and one of the girls (Srey Mom - and for those of you on the trip last year, this is a new child sharing the same as one of the other girls) insisting that she be allowed to keep it. Lacey then painted the words I Love You on the canvas and received an incredibly tight neck hug. And Srey Mom has a very tragic story about how she ended up in the orphanage and has been quite shy these past couple days, so it is a huge blessing to see her opening up.
-Us asking the children to draw a picture of someone they trust and having sweet Polin draw a picture of Elizabeth.
-The kids running around with my camera for a good part of the afternoon taking pictures of one another. They absolutely love it when you take their picture and then show it to them, so watching them be able to take the pics themselves and see their reactions was so priceless. (And I haven't actually looked through my camera yet, so I'll have a wonderful surprise waiting for me when I finally go through my pics.)

I'm sure each of the team members would have numerous details to add about their day as well and I just wish I could capture each and every detail to share with you.

When we returned for the evening, Joe and I were treated to ride around Phnom Penh on Sarith's scooter - Sarith is a great friend to all of us and is a member of the New Life Church (he was also with us last year). We had driven around the city before via tuk-tuk (I guess best described as an open air taxi with a roof), but experiencing it on just a scooter was something that I will never be able to explain. Every second of our ride was a picture-in-waiting and even though I had my camera with me, I didn't take it out because I was too overwhelmed by everything I was seeing and simply wanted to soak it all in. Sarith took Joe and I to one of his favorite road side restaurants where we were treated to a meal of frog and duck eggs with a cold mug of sugar cane juice. Ánd as my good buddy Joe always reminds me, 'Hey man,when you're in Cambodia you have to try new things.' And he's 100% right about that. Couldn't think of a better time to have tried all these foods than on this night.

Okay, I think I need to call it night - and I guess I lied when I said I was going to try to keep this brief. We'll do our best to try and post something tomorrow, but after a long day at the beach and 10 hours round-trip on the bus, might be lacking in blog motivation. I will tell you that we are hoping to meet up with the two other mission teams that are currently serving at orphanages in other areas of Cambodia. If we do meet, this will be the first time that all of the children will be together.

Thank you again for your continued love and support for our mission and for these beautiful children.

God Bless,
Alex

i'll be honest i did not read all of alex's blog, i'm just too hot. you just sweat all the time here. i'm sure he did an amazing job capturing our day for you, i'll give it my best but you really need to come experience this for yourself...

yesterday was awesome, meeting the children at the orphanage for my first time. they were so grateful that we came to them. i tried my best to swallow the huge lump in my throat, the sight of them is beyond emotional. they are beautiful. after i saw them tearing up i couldn't hold it in, it was a really sweet time. they have already given to us more than we could ever give to them. i'll tell you about today since i'm sure alex covered most of yesterday ;)

our team is trying to keep morning devotional as a priority before we leave this place every morning. after that, in the van we went! the ride to the orphanage is something new everyday. it's a thrill just driving with all the traffic here, NO stops signs, lights, OR rules... i love it. i will also not be complaining the next time someone fails to use their turn signal on 285 ;) as we pulled into the orphanage the kids come running out, smiling. we started the day with some games, then some crafts, a story about jonah, then it was time for lunch. this time before lunch moved me to tears... again. i have never seen more patient, well behaved, grateful children. they stood in line in a special order and after removing their shoes (which they rarely wear) they step up onto their eating area. it goes girl, boy, girl, boy... rice and a vegetable go into their bowl, water in their tin cup and then they take their usual seat, in silence. they wait until everyone has their food and then they fold their hands and sing a sincere prayer thanking God for their food. i was humbled.

after lunch we spent some more time painting, listening to music, playing ball, swinging. i cannot remember the last time i played this hard. every moment of this trip has been spent laughing, crying, consoling, praying, singing, and lets not forget experiencing new smells ;) my favorite part of today was when i saw one of the boys sitting with his Bible opened and wile every other kid played around him, he sat and read out loud to himself for at least 30 minutes. no one asked him to do this, he was craving God's word and took care of it right there in the middle of the chaos. i will try to upload this photo with some others as long as the internet service here will allow me.

thanks for taking the time to read this, i see a monsoon in my future... should be refreshing.

"He called a little child and had him stand among them. ³And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.⁵"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me."

matthew 18:2-5

Hey everyone. After causing a family member to strain a calf muscle with an attempted Skype call, I've decided that I need to relieve Heidi of blog duties for tonight because I don't want her causing serious injury to any more of our faithful blog followers. (You all can thank me later.)

So now it's up to me to try to catch you up on what has been an amazing two days for our team. The most important detail to share (and one that I will come back and revisit in more detail in a little while) is that this morning we had our first opportunity to experience the true purpose behind our mission - spending time with the children of the New Life Ministries orphanage in Phnom Penh. Having been on this trip last year, I knew it was going to be overwhelming to see these wonderful kids again, but the love and affection they showed to our team was more than I ever could have expected. Although our visit today was brief, the impact of those two hours was monumental.

So before going into more detail about our orphanage visit, I'm going to try and share some of the details about our last two days.
Our Saturday morning started with a very emotional visit to Choeung Ek. I won't go into a history lesson on what the country of Cambodia suffered through during the late 1970s, but the grounds we were walking are better known by the name 'The Killing Fields' and this was a site where over 17,000 innocent victims were brutally executed during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. The grounds today appear to be nothing more than a quiet area with dirt paths that weave through a beautiful section of land just outside the city of Phnom Pehn. But as you walk the paths, you pass by countless large trenches that served as mass graves. And two large trees in the area have signs recounting the nicknames by which they are better known - The Killing Tree and The Magic Tree. And even though the word 'magic' might seem like it would possibly denote something positive, nothing could have been further from the truth. We knew going into our visit that this was not going to be a uplifting experience, but I hope that the rest of the team would agree when I say that it gave us a valuable insight into Cambodian history and is a visit that will remain in our memories forever.
Saturday evening we were treated to a sunset boat ride on the Mekong River. Our ride lasted for several hours and I would venture to say that the highlight of the ride was not watching the sunset or rejoicing that the boat didn't actually tip over at any point during our journey, but was the brief portion of the trip that took us by one of the many small pockets of dwellings that are located on the river. These 'houses' are a far cry from the lakefront properties that many of us are familiar with and were another humbling example of level of poverty that surrounds us.

We began this morning by attending service at the New Life Church in Phnom Pehn. We attended this same church last year and at that time we were given a tour of the new facility that was currently under construction. Although the entire building is not yet complete, construction on the actual church was done about a month ago and we were guests for just the third service that was being held in this beautiful new facility.
After service, it was time for us to make our initial visit to the orphanage. As we pulled onto the small dirt road that leads to the orphange, we were greeted by a sight that absolutely made my heart go into my throat. Instead of waiting for us inside the gates, the children had lined up along the final short stretch of road leading the orphange and were waiting to greet us. Immediately after the van stopped and we opened the doors, the children swarmed us and I knew that our mission was truly beginning. We made our way into one of the small classrooms on the grounds where we did a brief introduction of the team - and then the children did something that immediately made nearly all of us break into tears. On our final day at the orphanage last year, we presented the children with a banner that featured the handprints of each member of our team along with a very brief personal message. (In addition to myself, there are two other members of our team who were here last year - Carol and Lacey.) So as we're standing in front of the children this morning, several of the older boys who were seated in the very back of the room stood up..and they were holding the banner above their heads. I think it goes without saying that we were stunned to see that this banner was not only still in tact, but also that these children so clearly remembered our team. Just an amazing testimony to how God's love impacts us all.
After composing ourselves, we spent a couple hours playing with kids - various games like basketball and soccer and also 'manicures' for many of the girls. (And, yes, the girls did decide that us boys needed them as well. So I'm currently blogging with bluish glitter polish on my nails that also features little purple crosses on my right hand fingers and A-L-E-X spelled out on four finger on my left hand. Who was I to deny beautiful little Srey Nath her fun?)

So there's the recap of our last 48 hours. We are all anxious to begin spending full days with these children and can only imagine the amazing things that God has in store for us over this next week.

Again, your prayers for our team are appreciated and please be sure to also pray for the health and well-being of these wonderful children.

Thanks to everyone who is taking the time to follow our blog. We truly appreciate your love and support.

God Bless,
Alex

Hey everyone we made it to Cambodia. We will update soon but if I type much now it won't make sense (delerious). We had smooth traveling. It's late here so couldn't see much. Going to the Killing Fields tomorrow, doing some sight seeing before we start the week with the kids. Thanks for your prayers! Good night, good morning...... I have no idea ;)

Almost time to go!

Hey everyone, I'm Heidi and I am honored to be a part of this amazing team traveling to Phnom Phen, Cambodia in just 3 days!!  Thank you to everyone who has joined our blog already.  We hope to update as much as possible, and hopefully post some amazing pictures.  Please join us in prayer for the children we are going to serve.  Pray for their needs to be met and also for our safety as we travel.  

Thanks again!!