Update

Well, since it's been 2 weeks since we've posted, not counting the photos I've just posted, I thought it was time to give everyone an update.
It's late here and I've finished grading and need to get to bed, but I really want to get this done, so it'll just have to be a late night! I can't seem to get it done any other time, so I'll go for it.

Our first, and only, parent teacher conferences this year went very well for both Tim and me.
We had a great turn out from our parents. :) I had my TA there to translate for non-English speaking parents. It was interesting when she would translate for the Korean speaking missionaries. Most of the Korean parents could speak English, but some couldn't, but they could speak Khmer (because they've been missionaries long enough to learn the language). So Chenda, my Cambodian TA could translate for me and the parents. Neat huh?

Teaching is going well. It's hard to believe we are well into our 2nd quarter and will be on break all next week. It's Water Festival here. Many people will be coming into Phnom Penh, so most of us are leaving for a few days or for the whole week. It's nice that this holiday happens to fall during American Thanksgiving break. :) Of course Tim and I won't be eating Turkey. There is a restaurant here in the city that will be serving a roasted turkey meal though, even mashed potatoes! But we won't be back by then. We'll be eating seafood most likely. We going to a little coastal town, very quiet and relaxing. It's called Kep (pronounced Kype). Google it to see pictures. There's lots of green and hills. There's also the ocean. There's Rabbit Island about 45 mins by boat, where there is a beautiful beach. We'll go there. In Kep, they have a crab market on the beach where you can get crab, shrimp and fish. Yummy, we'll be there for sure! There's also a Pepper Plantation (pepper trees) we hope to go see. ANd of course hang out by the pool and relax. We leave Mon a.m. and get home Fri afternoon. So, we'll have the weekend before and weekend after to rest too here at "home." We're looking forward to getting away.

We are enjoying teaching. The students are so wonderful. The most challenges you'll get here is getting kids to remember to bring homework back, reminding students to raise their hand and then there's the occasional wiggly boy who just can't sit still! Can you believe that! LOL yep, that's it folks. We are going to be sooo spoiled! Tim, who's never taught in the States, will never know what hit him when gets back! I remind him though, that I had great experiences teaching at small Christian schools there. :) And I remember that last year teaching middle school special ed students and wanting to quit every day!! Yes, definitely getting spoiled here. Oh yes, you also get parents here who ask why their children are not getting more homework. Imagine that! What a shame! Isn't that just horrible? Yep...I'm spoiled....

Life here is becoming more "normal" for us. Crazy traffic...don't stay out too late past dark...wierd food....not quite getting what you ordered on the menu...etc, etc. Things are settling down. Then there's the abnormal that happens every now and then that just reminds you exactly where you are and that you need to praying every day for safety. A couple weeks ago, the elementary principal and his wife were heading home from a concert and they had stopped at a red light. They got attacked! Young men throwing bricks through their windows, hitting hammers on their doors, etc. All windows crashed in; glass was everywhere, bricks on the floor, but only a minor injury on my principal's hand where he was trying to protect his wife. The only thing they can figure out why these guys did this was: the principal and his wife had just been in an accident involving their car and a moto. Since they don't speak Khmer enough to discuss money, etc, Dean gave the guy the school's address and phone number and told him to come to school on Monday (the next day) to discuss the money. Even though it was the motos's fault, the "rich" white guy with the car will have to pay. That's the just way it is here. Anyways, they think that maybe these kids saw this and thought maybe that since there was no money handed over, that the white people were trying to get away and not pay. Who really knows? Anyways it was quite scary for them and for all of us to realize there is no right and wrong here, it's all about power and money. Even when the cops showed up they did nothing. The boys of course started running away, but Dean even pointed the kids out as they were running, but the cop just shrugged. Anywasy....keep praying for our safety. So far, we've had no accidents, but realistically we know that most likely it'll happen soon enough. It's just matter of time everyone says. Praise God we are safe thus far!

Well, don't mean to end on a sour note, but it's late and I need to get to bed! So, all for now!
Love to everyone and thanks for your prayers and support! We miss everyone!!

Remember back when...?

Remember back to our "Flood" story when Tim fell in the sewer hole? Well, we finally remebered to take a photo of that sewer hole. Now remember this was all covered up with about 2 ft of water. So he didn't see the hole, the pipe or the thick cement cover. He could have hit his head on any of this. He just walked right into this and it's deep! After his feet landed in it, the rest of his body just kind of fell forward. It was gross! The foot below is just to give you a size perspective. And it's actually bigger than it looks here.

Open Air Restaurant

Photos of the food we ate at the open air restaurant. Really cool place. You order your meat and they bring to you along with yummy vegys and you cook it up yourself on the little burner on your table. The lime sauce photo is lime with pepper - very good to dip your beef or seafood in. Delicious!

Cambodia Traffic.

Tim Here! This is a video of an intersection, not a big one, just a small one. Most of the bigger ones finally have lights....although, how that whole system works is another story, all by itself; and yes, they have had almost 5,000 deaths over the last several years. Life is cheap...but in a way that makes it infinitely more precious! Like I said before, there is really no safety net over here like in developed countries. I am realizing just how important God is for a society. Withou God, Everything....and I do mean Everything, breaks down into its depraved and selfish little parts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS3PZELMVYs

Here is a typical traffic stop. Usually you never get off your bike, and usually they don't even fake writing a ticket, they just wait for you to pay....but on $30 US a month, a guys got to feed his family. Meanwhile, the rich get richer. http:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwCnRwgyOSs

For those who are FB friends, I posted a video that my good friend Bob found. It is like the freakin' wild west out here! grab some popcorn, sit back and enjoy the FB post: It has it all, good guy, bad guy, corrupt cop, insane homicidal driver, off the chain military guy trying to kill an SUV with his semi-automatic handgun...SUV vs Motto (Motto loses miserably) SUV steals motto and drag sit to death. Man chasing SUV down the middle of the street, police officer watching it all and doing nothing. I'm telling you, somedays it is just borderline chaos. And yet, watch the people who live here....Everything is normal...Jeeepers! This is social conditioning in action. I looked at this for the first time and thought, "Yep, this is something that would happen on a morning comute to work." If it weren't for the social custom of not showing anger visibly, and making sure not to embarass anyone, this place would fall apart. THere is rage, it is just kept plitely beneath the surface. Kind of simmering until something sets it off. This place needs God Really, REALLY Bad! Here is the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9wKVzP_Av8&NR=1

Keep praying, as the adveture continues...

PS. I also loaded a video on FB of some flooding that we have been talking about. Our Yamaha has continued to perform like a champ...above, in, or partially underwater. Thank You God! Here is a short clip that is so typical of life during the rainy season. Really, you just get used to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pvPzPC2eek&feature=related

As close to Autumn as we'll get!

Wow!! What two beautiful days we've had here in Phnom Penh, Cambodia! Absolutely gorgeous weather!!

Yesterday was Parent Teacher conferences all day. I had my classroom door and windows open all day. Lovely strong breeze blowing through the classroom and did not need the A/C on at all!

Today, Sat., I put on shorts as usual and Tim and I got ready to head to the corner store for milk for breakfast. I opened up the door to the balcony and wow, it was beautiful! I felt cold, so I went and put on my capris instead. LOL. Now I'm sitting on my couch typing and the cool breeze coming in from the wide open windows and the wide open door feels delicious on my skin. There is light cloud cover and a light mist now and then. I feel refreshed. Thank you God for this nice surprise.

I looked up the weather on the BBC and it says we're supposed to have a high of 75 degrees F and a low of 72 tonight! Wahoo! I can even wear jeans tonight!! Funny how we get excited about the strangest things. It is usually too hot and humid too ever wear jeans here. It'll be closer to 80s the rest of the week, but this is nice for now. :) It is supposed to cool down here, especially in late Nov, Dec and Jan. Of course, "cool down" is relative. LOL
I say it's kind of like Autumn in Tucson, AZ. :) :) We never get winter here....

I have a Japan test to grade today and some planning to do, but not much. Started a good book, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson. There is a series of 3 books. Very good - a murder mystery, financial intrigue, and family saga all rolled into one. This book is well read in the States. I'm borrowing it from a fellow teacher. I watched "Letters to Juliet" last night. Another teacher friend bought it at the market. You can get DVDs, CDs here for about a $1.00 at the markets. What a sweet romance. :)

Well, not much for now. Just wanted to give ya'll a quick update. Love to all our friends and family.

Cynthia here:

I thought I'd get a photo of my report cards. I mean how times do you see this? In all the years I've taught, I've never had a report card say "Kingdom of Cambodia". Wierd huh?

The report card goes into the brown envelope; the parents get to keep the report card and the brown envelope comes back to us signed and dated, ready to be used again for the second and third quarters.

It has a been a very busy week, crazier for Tim who has 6 classes and about 120 kids. Tim and I are glad that report card time is over with. We still can't believe over 9 weeks of school has flown by, yet we feel like we've been here for about a year already! :) I've heard other new teachers say that. We're not sure why that is; maybe because we're so busy and so much goes on here. Tim and I have been in Phnom Penh for 3 months now.

The weather is cooling off now. We THINK rainy season is over with. There's been not a clound in the sky for 2 days now. In December it really cools down, which probably means 70s in the mornings and evenings. LOL kind of like Tucson, AZ where we used to live, except with more humidity, even when it doesn't rain. :)

We have a week off in late Nov, during the week of Thanksgiving (for the States). We're trying to decide where to go. Probably the beach, since we haven't been there yet. Well, we'll see.

Well, I'm going to see if I read for a bit, then see if I can get my husband to go to Diamond Island where there's a food festival going on. It's like a little island in the big lake here. You take a ferry to it, I think, or maybe you can drive your moto over a bridge to it? No idea; we'll find out when we get there. It's right here in Phnom Penh. I think there's just markets there. I'm not sure what's it like, never been before. I'll let you know!

Over and out...

What's wrong with this picture

O.K. It is a well known fact that at most Restaurants in Phnom Penh you rearely get everything on the menu. Below is an Example of what this restaurant did... Pick out something from an American menu that someone saw. It looked Cool so they put it on their menu to be hip and attract all the Westerners in the city to their restaurant. Problem is, their all day is obviously,,.. Not All Day! This particular place advertises 12 types of hot tea! WOW! 12 types, Way too Cool. Actually they have never carried 5 of the varieties they advertise in the menu. They have reprinted the menu at leas twice. The same items they DONT have go right back in the menu. They just smile if you order it again the next time and kind of look at you with an expression of..."Don't you remember we don't have that...WE'LL NEVER HAVE THAT! but no, they actually smile sweetly and just say "No Have" It's all part of the service with a Cambodian Smile. You as a customer never get upset at any of this because they have no idea anything is wrong... Load the menu with 40 items you don't really carry, or serve. As long as you order something they figure they have made money. Last night we ate here and my meal arrived a full hour after Cynthia's. There were only 6 people in the restaurant, including us. That is normal and nothing to get upset about. Just make sure you don't have anything planned for the evening. This place will teach you patience, or it will drive you crazy. Better to just go with the flow and "let it go."

Hey all...It's October, feels like the day we got here! LOL

Look closely at the signs wording combination for this interesting restaurant....they can't figure out why NGO workers and westerner won't eat here... I don't have the Cajones to tell them!

Tim here. It is Wednesday night and my grading is completed. Finished about 6:30 tonight. Came home with Cynth on the Motto and we stopped off at the "Total Mart" (Chinese version of a Quick
Trip or 7 Eleven) We celebrated our first semester by indulging in comfort foo; 10 Oreo cookies, some marshmallow cream pies, one bag of Vinegar and Sea Salt Kettle chips, and one bag of the rugular Salt kind. At the checkout we spied a familiar sight....P-nut M&Ms. They went in the hand tote, 8 bioflavinoid single serving yogurt containers, and one liter of lowfat milk. We feel positively decadent tonight, but Ohhh how tasty. We are also giving ourselves 3 hours of air-conditioning in the room while I write this blog and Cynthia reads. Yes Folks.... we consider this a HUGE blowout celebration in our neck of the woods. I even found a Raman noodle soup to split with Cynthia.... YUUUUMY!

Cynthia Just whacked me and made me come back into the post and let you all know that she is not eating all of this food TONIGHT! So There.... I have let you all know, and successfully navigated a delicate marital hurdle. Hey, its all about survivin' and thrivin' over here. LOL! 26 years of marriage, we still act like kids a fair amount of the time...Laughter is Sooo Good for the Soul!

Flooding in Phnom Penh!!

Check out this link below. This is the flood Tim talked about! It didn't rain all day today, so we thought that would help clear out the water, but now it started raining tonight and is still raining now! Please pray! We actually had many students and teachers late this morning because transportation stalled in the flood. Tim and I made it ok. Didn't know Yamaha motos could float. LOL.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010101143906/National-news/floods-take-toll-on-phnom-penh.html

Rain, Rain Go Away.....Not bloody likely!

Tim Talking - We had a pretty good downpour yesterday at school. Rained pretty much all day long. Black low hanging clouds. I told my seventh graders at one point during the class that it looked like "IT", the dark evil presence from the book "A Wrinkle in Time" was outside and heading this way. Since we are reading the book and had just watched the movie, every seat emptied to plaster themselves with Squeals of delight and feigned horror at the approaching black clouds. Could not have asked for a better visual if I had ordered it from Hollywood itself. Anyways... it poured down all day long, which is odd. Usually only in the afternoons hard, and then lightly into the evening. This was a hard rain and everything flooded. Cynthia and I of course have the Motto to ride home on. The streets were up to a foot deep in water and cars were stalling out in water that was over 2 or 3 feet deep on the roads. It was semi-organized chaos as everyone was trying to find ways around the flooded streets, many of which were still impassable today. We finally arrived home after several detours and many close calls with typical crazy Cambodian drivers. I was soaked up to the knees,but no further, thanks to my trusty paper thin plastic poncho. Cynthia was, of course on the back holding on like a trooper. She just has to listen me as I repeat my frustration expression as we have near death experiences every several hundred feet, or so. My term is "Freak" I borrowed it from a good friend of mine in Wichita, (Thanks Steve T) and it just fits when some Lexus blows by you and completely drenches you with absolutely no remorse. I know that in Cambodia, the natives just brush it off as nothing.... but I am not a native yet.... working on it, but not yet! So I periodically yell into my visored helmet "Freak!" and then I feel a little better.... I know God just looks down and must shake his head and mutter something like "Yeah, and I'll keep sending rain storms and people to drench you until you stop Yellin out "Freak" every time someone tries to kill you on your Motto!... Well, that's kind of the relationship God and I have.... I yell "freak" at someone in frustration, and God says... I'm going to Keep working on you Tim, because I love you. Good heavens I feel like I am just starting out again in life some days. But I am much more honest with who I am, so I feel that this gives God something much more mouldable to work with. I will try to get some pictures tomorrow, because everything is still flooded. You have to see this insanity to believe it really happens. Not only that, but it is weird walking into a staff devotions at 7:30 in the AM and seeing many of your fellow teachers with their pants rolled up past the knees, wet, bedraggled, and barefoot. Just the start of another day of school in Phnom Penh. Last year they actually closed one day when water was coming into the first floor classrooms. If I return to the states to teach, I will forever be ruined with hearing someone complain about not being able to get to school ever again.... I'm sure I'll just look at them and mutter something like, "Freak,...they have no clue." Then God will do something to modify my attitude yet again. I am so glad God is patient with me and lets me learn in my "Self Paced Program" of life. Anyways... Cynthia and I are healing well, but you really never get over the cough thing in this city. I think there are just too many germs all over the place and airborne. Maybe after a year, or so, we will have enough antibodies build up to stay healthy for an extended period of time. Until then we continue to develop the most amazing antibodies known to mankind. And we have learned that you cannot heal and get better, even with medication, until you stop everything and sleep. That seems like the only way to really beat the bugs. I feel like I have been here for a year already... I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but at least I am feeling at home here. We are able to order most things and make our wishes known in Khmer (Cambodian) and we are finding ourselves responding in Khmer without thinking about it with everyday expressions. It will take a while to get fluent, probably at least a year. The good thing is no matter where we go from here, we will probably be able to talk to each other and not have anyone know what we are saying! LOL. That could be fun. We are debating weather to go to the coast for a short break in November. We would also like to go to Viet-Nam...Expensive for a visa, but cheap while your there....$8 hotel room $4-6 for a dinner for two at a nice place. you can rent a motto and just motto between cities and towns. The people are friendly and seem to speak a bit more English than in Cambodia, so you don't need to act quite as much like a fool trying to communicate.

We will try to blog more often now that we are finishing up grading and the first quarter unit exams etc..... Love to everyone. We covet your prayers and know God is protecting us in so many ways, while letting us ramp up our learning curve over here. Keep praying that God will soften and reach the hearts of these students with His love. I am having many opportunities to share, counsel, guide and lead them by modeling Christ. I am just being my same -old weird self and the kids have accepted me for who I am in a way that only kids can.

All for now, I have to look for some really cool Medieval Japanese videos to spice up some teaching for my 8th graders, so it is off to YouTube and other places to hunt for some interesting teaching material. Thanks so much for those who are partnering with is with prayer and financial support. The Bibles Y'all helped purchase are still a huge hit with the kids. It is so encouraging watching the little ones open the Word of God and be thrilled to read about our Lord and His love for them.

Stay strong int he Lord and the strength of His might! Tim (for the both of us)

Thank You Innovo!

If you have not read a previous blog (I think it's 2 blogs back) titled "Bibles" you may want to read that first to get some background.
The following are pictures of my class holding up their thank you notes and their Bibles that Innovo, our home church in Wichita, KS helped me to buy for them!! Thank you Innovo!!

God Bless You! :)

The Grand Birthday...but the best is yet to come...

We found this little hole in the wall Indonesian restaurant here in Phnom Penh - Warung Bali, which means Bali Restaurant. I wanted Sate Chicken (chicken shiskebobs with peanut sauce). It tasted just like they do in Jakarta, yum yum! The owners are Indonesian and have lived here for 16 yrs. I spoke Bahasa (Indonesian)with them - that was fun! :)

Here I am at Warung (Restaurant) Bali. Notice the Indonesia Islands in the picture?

Tim with the picture of traditional Indonesian puppets in the background.

And to top it off Tim took me to Boston Bookstore! This is the 2nd floor - lots of used books. And the best part is they had a sale going on, all the books I bought were $1.50 each - wahoo!! What a grand birthday!!

The downside of the day was we got pulled over by police twice on the way home - our first time. But we knew we had done nothing wrong. We stayed on the moto and Tim handled it very well. We smiled and showed him what he wanted and were ready to NOT pay and ask for a ticket if he tried to tell us we had done something wrong. They'll try to take advantage of foreigners just to get a bribe. Each time they only asked us for the moto card (kind of like registration) and Tim's license. Thank God we were legal and had just purchased our car licences - more expensive, but a car license is good for a moto and a car and we figured we may end buying a car anyways...so better to buy one now then pay for 2 later.

To top off a good birthday, I get to Skype with my youngest son, Jonathan, and his sweet wife tonight!! Yea!! That's going to be the best part!

Bibles!!!

Blessings to Innovo Home Church! Your support went towards helping to purchase Bibles for my third grade students. They will use these Bibles at school all year and then get to take them home at the end of the year. Thank you very much! :) What a blessing. The picture below is of Tim and I on our moto bringing the Bibles home. :) :) We bought 23 Bibles at $6.00 each. The bag Tim is carrying is holding about 8 and the rest are in the box I'm carrying. You can't really see here, but the box is on it's side so it can fit. And it was sticking out on either side. LOL
Hey this is nothing. The Cambodians can fit a whole family of 5, or more, on a moto. I've seen pigs, chickens, a t.v., etc all carried on the moto. Very versatile and handy vehicle for carrying items around. ha ha ha
Above is my "moto man". Well, I can't very well say motorcycle dude, because it's not a motorcycle. Still... can't resist a man on a moto - he he he. This is our 2010 Yamaha Jupiter. Cool huh? Don't you just love Tim's darth vader-looking helmet? We found this moto in the local paper for a steal of a deal. The guy just bought it in June 2010, so it's ver low mileage and you know for sure that the mileage is correct, cuz it's so new. Yes, they do turn back the odometers when selling the used motos. :) You gotta love Cambodia. Corruption at every turn. We haven't been stopped yet by the police, but we have our Cambodian money ready just in case. You always keep small change in one pocket away from the other area where you keep your dollars, so when you take your money out to bribe them, they don't see your dollars.

Well I thought I'd share pics of our moto and Bible self-delivery!! :)

Cynthia, over and out, here in sticky, wet Phnom Penh. It's raining right now, has been for about hours.

Weekend Trip to Siem Reap!

Our bus for the 5 1/2 drive to Siem Reap - it's airconditioned and has a bthrm

Our hotel - yea! Hot water and a bathtub - luxury!! :)

On the ride out to Ankor Wat temples

Comfy seating huh?

"Foot massage" - fish nibbling dead skin off your feet. Didn't hurt, but didn't feel good either; these were bigger fish. Next time, I'll only do it if the fish are very small. I've heard they even remove corns on your feet! Our feet felt smooth after this - only 10 minutes.

Worshipping Buddha - Music and food being offered. The following pics are at one of the famous Ankor Wat Buddhist temples - mainly tourist attractions now.

Ankor Wat - temple ruins

Huge area in the temple ruins - this was most likely a pool

Tim and Gideon, 5th grade teache

Sun setting, heading back to the hotel

Really neat shot I got of the setting sun through the doorway in the temple ruins.

Nice shot of temple with puddle in front and temple reflection in the puddle

Neat restaurant we ate at before coming home on Sunday. Sculptures everywhere.

Same restaurant - cool tables and couches

Another part of the same restaurant - notice the geometrical decor

This shot and the following few are photos we took around the restaurant in the previous pics. Really neat, relaxing, snazzy place. :) NOt what we were used to!!

Some cool swinging couches :)

The sinks were amazing!!

Crazy, Insane place!... I'm driving a Moto!

Tim Chatting.

O.K Jeepers... I went and did it now! Cynth and I went and bought a MOTO! Yes, for all of yo who know me it is a complete SHOCK! Yes, Tim now drives around with his dear wife clinging to him like a barnacle on a ship. In all fairness, I am still getting used to the shifting without a clutch and sometimes.... (O.K. .. maybe more than sometimes) It is a little jerky. At those times my dear wife's helmeted head (She looks just like speed-racer from the cartoon), kind of slams into the back of my own helmeted head. This causes a hollow "Klunk" to resonate inside my helmet. Cynthia then mumbles something... or is it yelling that is being muffled by the visor of her helmet. In addition, she is hiding the expression of numb disbelief that clearly indicates that her husband is currently one of the most inept drivers in Phnom Penh...maybe in all of Cambodia. However, there is an up-side! Other drivers kind of "scatter" when the see the crazy old white couple weaving side-to-side like the driver is having a brain anurism and is going to keel over any second. Add to that, the sight of our helmets klunking together as our Moto lurches forward, ...... then kind of Chuga-Chugs to a stop,.... and then lurches forward again, like a confused thoroughbred at the starting gate. And then, away we go, yet again....with more Klunking of helmets and muttered words of..."encouragement" from my wife. I refuse to turn around as clarify exactly what she is saying to me.

Ah Yes, it is at times like these - as the dust is clearing, that my faithful wife, and companion of 26 years, yells at me, "Honey! Are you O.K.!" with which, I simply nod, (without looking back, or losing my death-grip on the handlebars), and re-engage the road with grim determination....as once again there is an expectant hush, as people nervously look at each-other. You can see by the amused looks and hands politely covering their mouths so I won't see them laughing, and you just know they are thinking... 'Surley he is not going to do this again! this man should NOT have a license to drive!' But wait!..... I do not have a license to drive in Cambodia. My replacement license hasn't made it over here yet from the USA. I think it may be lost in the mail....so being a good wanna- be Cambodian I went on-line and managed to print off a fake international drivers license that says I am from a U.N. Delegation. Yikes! at least it was free! The thing is... the police don't really care about the license, as long as they get the money from you in order to send you on your way. Not having a drivers license will probably cost me a bribe of about 75 cents (3,000 riel) - driving my MOTO... Priceless. I smile beneath my mirrored visor as I realize I am truly in a fairly lawless culture and city where anything can happen, and nothing is really safe at all! You really learn to trust in the Lord and the strength of His might, and wisdom, to guide and lead, you and your loved ones.

Soooooo...... we got home from school in about 7 minutes, which is when I realize that one of the reasons I might be having some of my "Issues" in traffic is because I was zipping along, on several occassions, at a faily decent rate of about 40 kph. Well, we made it home. I look at Cynthia who is doing surprisingly well, and didn't even slug me when she dismounted from the Moto! We don't really even talk about it, but just kind of look at each other, and say in unison.... "Why don't we walk to get dinner tonight." Then we drop our stuff off inside our flat, and as my hind-end begins to "un-pucker", we head off, on foot of course, to seek out some dinner. of course we cannot hold hands because that is a PDA - "public display of affection"..But we do hold each others pinky fingers when no one is looking. (this is one aspect of Cambodian culture could really be helpful in America)

As the sun is sinking low, and the familiar smells of sewage and garbage waft through the air... well, it hits me... this is my new home. And I smile! And in wonder I look at how God worked everything out to get Cynth and I to Cambodia. And I am beginning to live how people in this new place we call home live: One crazy life-and-death-filled day, at a time. But hey! we are down to about 20 bucks a month for petrol, vs the $100 for the Tuk-Tuk rides to and from school. In addition, I have cut the driving time by a third.

(Oh yeah! remember our Tuk-Tuk driver! he took things surprisingly well. Although he did try to get us to continue riding with him by offering to drop our rate by $1 for the round trip. I'm tellin ya, you just gotta love this crazy country!)

In all seriousness, I think I am getting the hang of "reading the traffic" and actually am becoming fairly adept at driving my motto. It also gets about 120 mpg. I think Cynthia was kind-of proud of me! However,.... please don't stop praying for our safety. Also, please pray that we will be faithful to these precious children, staff, parents, and so many others whom God has given us the privilege to love and serve. Simply pray that God's sovereign will may be done daily, on earth, just as it is in Heaven.

Also, if any of you out there in Blog land have a desire to get rid of any extra money that possibly is burning a hole in your pocket, there are many things that we would love to do to help out the students here, but do not have the extra money to do so. So... if you want to team up with us, and assist in financially supporting the ministry over here, drop us a line at jonesworldwide@hotmail.com and we will let you know how you can help.

Thanks again to all, for your friendship, love, prayers, Skype calls, pics from home and abroad etc... Bill, thanks for being our Stateside Manager for everything! To Innovo, thank you for your love, support and friendship! Until the next blog post God's blessings to all!

School Photos

My neighbor class and friend - 4th gr teacher, Mrs. Beck

4th gr classroom

the open air cafeteria - beautiful!

Tim's posters

Front of Tim's classroom

Tim's classroom

Tim's posters in his classroom - don't you love the Excuse Limit sign?

I love this poster :)

Tim in his classroom

Cynthia in her classroom