September 2024

While you are reading this, I will be in the UK God willing!
Things here we pray will carry on as normal under the capable hands of our Director Sokheng.    I am looking forward to having a sausage roll, a good sandwich, Ulster Frys and some roast dinners.  I really  want to eat proper chocolate, lots of Tayto Cheese n Onion, drink water from the tap, all those little things I miss.  I am hopefully meeting up with my brothers for a meal, one of them I have not seen in 6 years, so I am looking forward to that.  I will be staying at the house of good friends and will enjoy a nice cup of tea and a wee chat.  I will probably come back to Cambodia 6kg heavier.
Rainy season here has been very mixed, very hot and rain intermittent, I was driving home the other evening in heavy rain and saw a guy on the back of the moto, washing his hair – there was soap suds everywhere, but I suppose he was thinking about the planet and using a natural resource, although he should have been wearing a crash helmet!
The children are coming down with lots of fevers and coughs, I have to stay away from them as my immune system is very low and it would not be good for me to catch a fever especially just before I travel.

We have a very cute two-year-old girl in day care who is like a stealth bomber, she does naughty things so quietly no one see her do them.  She doesn’t talk but she is quick and quiet.
The boys at daycare are very happy as I set up a train layout for them, (which was kindly donated) and their eyes were like doorstops watching it being put together.  None of them have never seen a train or a train-set it was like Christmas for them.  It will be used to calm them down when they get angry, or they are sad and want to be on their own.

Sokheng was giving out food today to families within the village who need help and came back saying four children were out collecting rubbish and hadn’t eaten they had no food, no shoes.  It is so very difficult to see children out working when they should be playing and enjoying a good meal.  We left them rice; noodles and they will now be able to make something to eat.
Adam and I went to the cinema last weekend to watch “Interview with Pol Pot”.  He asked me if I wanted popcorn my choice was hard as you can see – either seaweed, cheese or caramel (you can guess which one I choose).  The movie was well done, subtitled into English but not a movie you want to see when you are feeling down.   It has been nominated as a Cambodian entry to the Oscars.

Sokheng is starting the process of interviewing and visiting homes for the children who will replace the ones who will graduate in October.  The circumstances these children are living in are hard to comprehend but God will provide her with the wisdom to select the right children.   We always struggle with the emotion of the children’s graduation day it is a very emotional time for everyone.  The parents and grandparents who attend the ceremony, are so pleased to see their children in a graduation uniform and hear what the children have achieved.