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