SOME MIGHT CALL US CRAZY, and maybe we are, but my husband brought to our attention that not only has our family been in three different parts of the world these past two weeks, Nathan in Costa Rica, Zac and I in SE Asia and Val and him in the USA, but starting today, three of us will be traveling to different countries alone at the same time.  Please pray!!!! Nathan left earlier today for a quick trip to Guatemala. At 1pm today, Thurs, your time, I put Zac on a plane to fly from Cambodia to South Korea to the USA and about 11pm your time tonight, I will fly back to Thailand (with Faa). Zac arrives home on Friday afternoon, I arrive back in Thailand 4 am in the morning your time on Friday, and Nathan returns to Costa Rica on Saturday.  Yes, please pray for all of our travels. I leave next Wed to begin my journey home.

IN OTHER NEWS, Tuesday, March 21, we caught a bus from Battambang to Phnom Penh.  This is always an interesting trip. You just never know what can happen along the way. Thankfully, nothing catastrophic happened on this bus ride.  I’ve seen crazy things like people exiting a burning bus, busses on the side of the road with blown tires from the heat or broken down, and I’ve been told (thankfully never seen) accidents where the front or the back of the bus was totally destroyed.  That’s why we always chose seats in the middle of the bus! 

We arrived in PP after seven hours.  I noticed three years ago when I was here last, that the construction going on here is crazy.  This year it is even worse.  Cranes everywhere, high rise apartment buildings replacing what once were humble neighborhoods. All of it is from foreign money, mostly Korean and Chinese.  I tried to inquire about how this is effecting the economy.  Are the displaced people able to afford the new housing, or are they pushed out to more affordable places?  How are some of the people able to afford to live in new neighborhoods of million dollar houses and fancy cars? Most of the residence in one of these neighborhoods are government workers who don’t have big salaries. Of course there is corruption; that might be contributing to some of it.  We are staying in a new hotel in town.  The 12^th floor overlooks the city.  There are pockets of the city that are beginning to look like Shanghai or Ho Chi Minh. I believe in 10 years or so, the whole city will look like this. I’m still trying to get a sense of the economic growth. Is the money trickling down? Is pay able to keep up with the high inflation?  I’m not sure.  I still see a lot of very low income places.

Yesterday was a full day of meetings for us. We met two people from an organization called EMI (Engineers Ministry International). This Christian organization is in 70 countries helping by developing plans for building.  They have some full time staff who prepares short team trips for organization needing their help.  So there are engineers, architects, graphic designers, surveyors, etc who volunteer their time to go where there serviced are needed on short term mission trips.  They work with local construction companies and also offer internships to locals who want more experience in this field.

 

We also met with a man from a ministry called Hagar.  They are involved in helping to create a foster care system in Cambodia.  GROW would like to expand into Cambodia in the future, so this meeting was very beneficial as we learned a lot about the legal side of operating in Cambodia. 

Then we met with Pheakdey, an old friend of both Faa’s and mine. We met her in 2010 when she worked for Asia’s Hope.  She now works with another organization in PP and has made arrangements for us to visit and to learn more about it this morning.  Pheakdey remembered how much Zac likes pizza and ask if we would like to have pizza last night.  LOL, we had a great time catching up and reminiscing about past times we were here with her.

Today, we will meet with the director of Daughters, another ministry here.  Our goal in meeting with all of these ministries is to learn what we can from them to take back to GROW what we find beneficial for us.  After Daughters, Pheakdey will pick us up and take us to see her ministry.  Then, it will be time for a little fun with Zac before he heads out.  Watch FB for pics!!  That will leave us an hour or so to check out the market to see if there are things I might want to bring back for GROW.

I apologize again for not adding pics on the blog.  It’s a lengthy process for me and the equipment that I have.  So please, check out my FB.  I post and repost pics from others often.

LAST THING! I will be visiting the coffee farm where GROW gets its coffee.  If anyone would like to order coffee, please FB message me or email me.  I will make sure you get what you would like to have.