Brian: From Cambodia

Greetings everyone!

I'm actually kind of sad that this actual trip to Cambodia is only 8-9 days and I won't be able to update you all that much...so I anticipate maybe like 3 or 4 more blog posts when I'm here. Not to say my experiences in Canada won't be just as awesome, but there is something exotic about where I'm blogging right now.

I'm sitting in an internet cafe on my third day here in Phnom Penh, and our team has already done so much. We landed on Saturday and spent much of the day at the orphanage with Marie Ens, the woman who runs Place of Rescue Orphanage and hired us to build a Transition Home, as she took us all around meeting gramma's and orphans. Man, all those stories I've heard about friends and families who have interacted with little kids on missions are so true - they were so happy to see us, had no inhibitions asking to be carried, and generally were pining for attention the whole night. Unfortunately, I was so preoccupied with the kids that I didn't really pay attention to Marie as she laid out some structural and engineering concerns at the orphanage. So we'll see how useful I am as the week progresses, lol.

It was also amusing to see how bad of a dad I am on pace to become. I actually suck with kids, so their willingness to play with me and approach me made it a lot easier, but I still had some Brian moments (embarrassing moments). A particular moment occurred as I was walking around holding a kids hand. Leon, who is the brilliant structural engineer I work with, is a father of 2 and so knows how to do all the kid stuff. He had a boy on his shoulders and messed with him, making him think he was going to fall or spinning him really fast. Since the kid was having so much fun, my kid wanted to experience the same thing. I was like "Ok," but I had no idea how to get him on my shoulders. What you normally want to do is lift him by his armpits in front of you and allow him to make his own seat on your shoulders. What I did instead was squat down and have him crawl up my back to get on. The kid didn't really know what I was doing, but tried it anyways and he and i got tangled into some 2 man monstrosity that required help from other team members to get us apart.

Leon to the left

Our team went to a church service yesterday geared towards young adults, and the worship was awesome. It was entirely in Cambodian, but the fervor and passion I see in the worship team (identical to an American setup: guitar, elec guitar, singer, drums) and the congregation is something I can't say I see every week back at home as I go through my normal motions. They played How Great is Our God in Cambodian, and I was just so happy, not for Chris Tomlin and his name, but that it's so cool to see a culture across the world sing out in resonance with what we're singing (literally). It's the same song!! To think people are singing the same thing all aroudn the world... that's a beautiful image.

The day got more serious after church as we visited Tuol Sleng, the most notorious interrogation prison of the Khmer Rouge back in the 1970's. This was a converted high school, and in the rooms were walls and walls of pictures of victims, paintings of torture methods, and ankle-links and metal bed frames seemingly untouched since the place was vacated. About 15% of the nation was destroyed in those 4 years, and to paint a picture of the horrors, some torture methods that I am disgusted with included the officials pulling out victim's fingernails and submerging your head into poo-water to shock you. It was very hard to respond to witnessing the remains of a mass genocide, and I'm still pretty speechless when our team discusses it. I'm convincing myself that I just don't allow myself to believe it happened, but I honestly hope for a more emotional response (we're actually visiting the killing fields later this week) because I'm constantly questioning if there is something wrong with my heart... the fact that I''m not openly bawling or something.

I have quite a few more stories but I'm running out of time...to keep you updated, construction and design will dominate the next couple days (its not just orphans and tourism). Some things I hope you guys can pray about:

- That I can really embrace the role of a servant to my team and to the orphanage
- That God will really begin to reveal himself to me in this place
- Writing meaningful things here that you can sort of relate to

Below are 2 pictures of the orphans. I don't have any pictures with them because my teammates took those...I'll have them later. The boy on the left is the one I talked about above...the girl below is apparently super shy...but she really was comfortable with me and held my hand everywhere. I'm happy to have been her friend that afternoon.