Final Day - Sunday

Well that's it, our final day in Phnom Penh has come and gone. All started off innocently enough with an early morning trip to the Jubilee church building. Their main meeting starts @ 9am which is preceded by an 8am prayer meeting. We were somewhat delayed for the prayer meeting as nurse Hannah, our dispenser of all round sensible advice, spent the second half of the night practising her skills in projectile vomit ting. According to husband Paul she is now quite accomplished. The first half of Hannah and Paul's night had also been entertaining for them as they had the good fortune to find a rat scurrying across their room in an attempt to surreptitiously return to his hiding place under the fridge. Some people get all the fun. Lunchtime was spent with the whole team (except Hannah) and the leadership team from PP and Eden & Faye from Manilla at the local KFC. They have seriously small portions over there. Mind you it did not make much difference to me as I decided to trip up the stairs and throw my lunch all over the floor. Not such a bad idea really - I've had KFC before. In the evening we took Steve and Midge to a tourist hot spot, the Foreign Correspondents Club. All very civil. Unfortunately there was a street vendor outside selling deep fried vertebrae. It was as though he had a Han Na magnet hidden in his cooker. She was drawn irresistibly to the poor man. One purchase later and our deepest fears for Alison were realised as she gamely tucked into deep fried cockroach and beetle. I had a grub - surprisingly tasty but a bit off putting as once you bite through the firm outer shell the squishy inside squirts on to your tongue. Our activities attracted a small crowd of locals who offered constant advice and encouragement about the benefits of our chosen delicacies, although I noticed none of them were actually eating any. No one, it would appear could be persuaded to eat the whole baby frog found somewhere towards the bottom of the bag. So with the cries of 'I'm a Missionary get me out of here' ringing in our ears we make our way back to the airport to start the long journey home.

Day 10 Saturday

Well the news is Paul's radical bad tummy treatment via a vindaloo at the local Indian didn't work. However, we have now managed to go a full 24 hours without Gemma passing out in the middle of the street. So we have some improvement. Han-Na has continued with her challenge to eat absolutely anything as long as it is bought from a dodgy looking street vendor with a moto and bad teeth. Alison is showing worrying signs of joining her in her quest. In the meantime we had a party for about 65 students last night. Many were visitors to the church. Gave testimonies, prayed for healing - brilliant.

Day 8 Thursday

A second day of teaching emglish, computers and leadership training in the morning followed by evening classes for some university students in the evening. We follow the same pattern again tomorrow. The traffic here seems a little calmer than last time we came out. This is very relative and probably to do with perceptions rather than reality. At this stage last time I had seen a number of people have minor accidents on their moto's. This year we have not seen any. As you can see from the photo, the traffic remains manic. There is a strange mixture of large 4x4's - mostly Lexus and Mitsubishi , large saloons - almost exclusively Toyata Camry's, and moto's. There does not seem to be any small to medium sized cars at all. We have a tuk tuk driver who insists on keeping us safe. When we asked to visit a shop yesterday he had to stop on the side of a the main wide dual carraigeway street in the middle of their busiest time for traffic. With the shop on the opposite side of the road he insisted on escorting us across the road I'm not sure why! Maybe it is a health and safety clause on his insurance policy? Or perhaps he has lost too many passengers in the past and knows that once they are squashed they don't pay? Clearly we westerners cannot be trusted to cross the road by ourselves. Mind you most of us would not have even contemplated attempting such a crossing normally. Most of the team have now had some minor upset tummy problems. At lunchtime today Garry, Mike and Paul decided the best option was to take one of the more unusual traditional cures and went for a hot curry at the local indian restaurant. The girls and I politely declined such a great opportunity....

Day 7 Wednesday

Today was a day of taking the team right out of their comfort zone. We started a programme that will take the same format for the next three days. In the morning we went to the church's building. Andrew and Paul held a leadership training session with two of the Khmer leaders - Polly who is a student currently taking 2 degree's and holding down a part time job, and Savath who works 35 hours for the church and also has a part time job teaching English. Alison led a teaching English session with half a dozen or so locals who come most days for English practice. Garry oversaw a session of the computer club with again half a dozen locals who call in most days to improve their computer skills. The afternoon was time for a rest then in the evening we started an outreach programme. The church has invited local university students to spend three evenings attending "classes" run by us! There was a great turnout with between 30 & 40 students many of whom were at a church event for the first time. After a couple of ice breaker games - they love playing games we started the sessions. The classes were each an hour long with three running concurrently over the first hour and the rest during the second and consisted of: Photography - Garry, How to be a gr8 teacher - Mike and Alison, Healthy lifestyle - Hannah and Ha-Nah, Relationships - Andrew and English conversation - Alison. Amazingly enough we all managed to run a one hour session that the students enjoyed and seemed to understand!

Day 6 Tuesday

A very busy day today - out of town to a village. We went to the house of the father of one of the congregatiion of Jubilee church Phnom Penh. We met the village elder and local government official and shared lunch. This was placed on a huge table that we all sat on eating from bowls with our legs crossed. All very unusual for us, but perfectly natural to everyone else. The elder and others told us some moving stories about their terrible life under the Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970's. Hannah held a small clinic for some of the village ladies mostly dispensing vitamin tablets and advice to drink more water. We were able to tell of some of our personal stories and how our faith in Jesus motivates and changes us. We were also able to pray for healing for the wife of the village elder. On the way home we bought some Lotus plant heads the seeds of which are edible and delicious. See photo.The ones that are not edible can be popped against someones head as demonstrated by Alison and Gemma in the video. Later in the afternoon we went to a slum village and met with four of the church congregation. Paul, Mike, Gemma, Hannah and Ha Nah played with the local children for an hour or so then we all went to the "house"of one of the church. This was essentially a two roomed wooden shed built on stilts so that it sat above the open sewer below. We had a great small group meeting in this home and were able to worship, share some stories of God's faithfulness and then pray for about five of the locals. It has been a moving and tiring day - but well worth it.

Day 5 Monday

Today was a day off because it's Monday and the wole of Newfrontiers stops work on Monday- it's the law. The Russian market was hot and sticky.The boys managed nearly 10 mins before getting exceedingly bored. I bought a pair of genuine Ray Ban sunglasses (I know they're genuine, it says so on the label). After a great deal of haggling involving enquiring after each other's health, lifestyle, children and pets I obtained them at the competitive price of US$3.50. Sadly they broke after I had been wearing them for about 20mins. However, because they are genuine and not some back street market knock off from the far east I was able to invoke the worldwide, no quibble guarantee and take them back. After the helpful stall holder was unable to mend them with his screwdriver he tried his pliers.These did not work either so he brought the hammer into play. This did not seem to do the sunglasses much good at all so he was left with no alternative but to seek out his sister. When he had found her she scurried back to the market stall, looked at the now sorry state of the glasses, read the world wide guarantee and imediately exchanged them for a replacement pair.The process took no longer than 90 mins in the extreme heat of a festering covered market during the hottest part of the day. Excellent customer service all round. Sadly the second pair have now also developed a fault. I do not feel able to bother the poor market stall trader again. Instead I shall write direct to Ray Ban head office in USA to berate them for the poor quality of their product and suggest they make an imediate refund to me (at full recommended retail price) and make amends to the market trader who should not have to spend so much of her time dealing with the complications of an inferior product. The girl's bought loads of stuff, but I did not take much notice of what they were showing me, so I am afraid I am unable to report much. Seemed to involve spending money though, so they were happy. Coffee at the Jars of Clay coffee shop proved good after about the third cup. In the evening we had a greeat time with Clive and Rachael and their four chilren. They are members of the newfrontiers church in Camberely and out here for a couple of years working in a local school.

Day 4 Sunday

Sunday has arrived, and so have we. Most managed a full nights sleep, Paul & Hannah and Gemma all chose not to bother with the whole sleep thing and stay awake all night. For those of you who struggled with the clock change last night you may be pleased to know that the meeting here started at 8am and we remained at the church's premises until 3:30pm. During which time Ha-Nah had the joy of leading worship in Khmer and Mike played guitar. What a combination - a worship leader who doesn't normally lead worship teamed up with a guitar player who doesn't normally play guitar all sung in a language they don't normally speak - this is cutting edge out of the ordinary stuff. I spoke three times in the morning. During the last one and half hour marathon talk Hannah and Gemma decided the best way for them to stay awake was to hold a competition watching the rest of the team to see who was best at falling asleep without showing it. The looser was Paul who apparently stares blankly into space before the colour drains from his face and his eyes finally give in to the inevitable and close. The easy winner was Mike, as he manages to fall asleep with great elegence whilst staying upright. Whilst this was something of a revelation to Hannah and Gemma it is a well known fact to those of us who regularly preach at Jubilee. Mike is a practiced and experienced falling asleeper during sermons ... During the morning meeting I was able to tell of Gemma's remarkable healing last October which gave us the priviledge of praying for two dear ladies with HIV. Rest day on Monday - off to the Russian market for the girls to go shopping. I seem to remember there is a good cofee shop nearby so it is not all bad news.

Day 1.75

Ok time to meet the team. Mike you met earlier looking smug. The rest of the team are Alison, Garry, Paul, Hannah, Gemma and Han-Na. You can see photos of them all here. Unfortunately they couldn't all be bothered to wake up so you may need to use your imagination a little.

Day 1.5 Friday

Enjoyed an 11 hour flight and now find ourselves at the airport in Seoul, Korea awaiting our connection to Cambodia. Unfortunately it is delayed by 1.5 hours. Except for Mike, he is booked on a different airline due to depart Seoul 25 mins after the rest of us. His flights were cheaper, his airline has a higher star rating and his flights are not delayed. Hence he is being incrediably smug. We willl soon sort that out!

Day 1, 2010 trip

2 years and 101 days later, we're doing it all again! We have a new team (I'll introduce them later), new technology (I'm doing this on my phone) and a new hair cut (which Hannah says makes me look really bald in photos). We have improved our green credentials by going to Heathrow on a coach. This was only 45 mins late. Garry was particularly pleased when an old lady stuck her bottom into his face in a vain attempt to grapple with her seatbelt. Oh the joys of public transport. more news when we get there.