Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Wednesday: Bamboo Train!

Fact: Bamboo Train is awesome!  Imagine a train-ride tour through the peaceful countryside of Cambodia… You look out your cabin window and see a gorgeous mix of green jungle with serene expanses of rice patties, and all sitting underneath a brilliant blue sky…  Now imagine the tracks are so old and warped and the gaps between each rail are so big they had to stop any commercial traffic a long time ago…  and the jungle you see is from the branches, grass, and thorns that are all overgrown over the tracks and cross in front of the tracks …   Oh yeah, and your not in a train cabin, your on a 6’ x 8’ flatbed cart with no side rails that sits 1’ off the ground…



So, imagine your on one of those flatbed shopping carts at home depot but instead of jumping on and riding through the parking lot your screaming down an old train track at 30 mph through the Cambodian jungle, feeling every bump like someone hitting you with an uppercut, getting whipped with branches as you scream by, and being covered with fire ants and bugs you can’t even imagine…   sounds like fun right?  It was awesome!!  The kids had so much fun today on the bamboo train.  



After starting the day with breakfast at the Green Mango (which is a very cool restaurant here in Battambang that helps women who were victims of trafficking to have a different life http://www.greenmangocgi.com/ ) we picked up the kids and spent the morning on the Bamboo Train and they loved it.  Not gonna lie, it was a little painful but a lot of fun and it’s worth it just to see how happy they get. The things we do for the kids we love…

After Bamboo Train we had lunch at the orphanage (awesome!) and got back into our curriculum.  Today’s topic was about Being Friends with Non-Believers.  Cambodia’s a Buddhist country and there are few Christians here which means the majority of people the kids are friends with are going to be non-believers. Laura and Mistye shared some excellent personal stories about today’s topic too.  It’s great to able to reinforce the importance of having friends that are non-believers and letting the kids get to know us better personally too. Great Job!

After curriculum we ran back to take a quick shower only to come right back to the orphanage so the director and his wife could have a date night!  Ratha and Phearom who run the orphanage are two of the greatest people you will ever meet in your life.  Imagine how bad you want a date night after a week with your kids..   now imagine having 40 kids! and only a handful of date nights all year..  So giving them the chance to have a date night was important to us and we’re so glad we could do it. That also just meant more time to play with the kids! 

After that is was dinner at Café Eden, another cool restaurant with a mission similar to Green Mango http://www.cafeedencambodia.com/main/

Praises:  The trip is simply awesome so far, thank you all for the support.  Thanks to our support teams back home!  We got some letters yesterday from some of our closest supporters and it was awesome, we love you all! 

Prayer Requests:  Continued good health and energy. 
Keep doing what your doing, thank you all!

Tomorrow:  Pancake breakfast at the orphanage, (cooked by us), more songs, games, and curriculum, then… the Circus!

Blessings,

The Team

No comments:

Post a Comment