Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas, and we wish everyone a very happy and blessed New Year!
We are busy preparing for a lady from Scotland (Valerie) to join us for a few weeks mid-January. She was a nursery teacher so her knowledge will help the staff to learn more about children and she will be another pair of hands to guide our children. We would ask you to pray for her as she prepares to come out, that she flights will run smoothly, and that Cambodia and our day care gives her wonderful memories to take back with her to Scotland.
The staff had their Christmas lunch on 14th December, they decided to go to a BBQ and Karaoke place. Everyone cooks their own food and it just keeps coming so you can eat as much as your like. I have never seen so many prawns, squid, beef and pork eaten in one day, then the singing began. I sang “Last Christmas” and “I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus” and the staff sang their favourite Khmer songs – there was lots of dancing, and everyone had a great time.
We had our Children’s party on Christmas Eve morning, it was the usual chaos but was so good to see so many of our past children join us. All the children got a set of clothes (tshirt and shorts for the boys, and a dress for the girls, together with a new pair of flip flops, a carton of milk and some sweets. We told them about baby Jesus being born and why we celebrate Christmas – it was a great morning, and they all went home happy.
One of the younger children recently got to wear a uniform for the first time, he was so pleased he thought he was so grown up.
Mark, our son Adam and I had a quiet Christmas as usual, enjoyed Facetime with our grandchildren on Christmas Day so we could watch them open their presents from us.
In Cambodia many people sell their goods from little carts, things for the house is no exception, this poor man was struggling down a steep hill with everything on his cart apart from the kitchen sink. You can get almost anything here, even a set of “Designer” tyres for your 4×4.
We have now almost completed our new intake of children. We are up to around 25 children and have 2 places still to fill. Lots of babies, mostly boys, Sokheng wants a few girls so we are hoping our last 2 will be.
The needy in the village are still coming to ask us for help. We gave rice to a mother last week and her first comment to her two young children was “lets go home and eat breakfast as we now have food” – she had no money, no food, no husband and two young children to care for.
Sometimes when walking through the village we see a concrete house, we think, oh they are ok they have a good house, then we hear that they are living in one room of the house, sharing with five other families and realise we do not know what is going on inside and cannot assume anything.
We will leave you with a Liz’ism – Our German friend sent us a beautiful video of his family singing “ Oh Tannenbaum” and next day I said to Mark that was lovely hearing them sing “Oh Tiger Balm”.
Into 2025, may God bless and keep you always …
Liz and Mark x
