Farewell Cambodia, hello Thailand

I'm currently driving through beautiful Thai countryside as I write this, at least the first part of this update. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers - this journey has been extremely easy and quick, praise God. We all had a very pleasant surprise when we got on the night bus last night (Monday) to find that it wasn't like the Indian ones we've experienced, but instead had beds with back rests! It was luxury compared to the 12 hour journeys we've done in uncomfy school-like buses. 

What a month it's been! Our time in Cambodia has flown by, but also felt like an eternity at the same time. Cambodia is beautiful and I love the country and people very much - they're so warm and open. Phong Penh is a bizarre capital though. It isn't very developed apart from the riverside area so it felt like we could have been staying in any city anywhere in the world really. Sadly, piles of rubbish was a common sight and the traffic was crazy! Several times we found ourselves driving down the wrong side of the road because our 'half' took over and expanded to about eight lanes of traffic. The pollution caused from all the motos, tuk tuk and cars was quite alarming, and our lungs are especially glad we aren't staying any longer, I'm sure. The contrast between urban and rural Cambodia is stark! It only took a 40 minute tuk tuk ride to reach beautiful countryside and postcard-esque villages. I really wish we could have spent more time in the country! It was such a wonderful and very real reminder of how creative God is - I know it's true in every inch of the earth, but Cambodian countrysides make it even more evident for me. This is a tuk tuk by the way...

... and it is the easiest way for a group to get around. Thankfully, you can barter them down because start prices so ridiculously high, but you also need to be prepared to direct them! It's also crazy that in the capital city there is no public transport system! No buses to be seen, or vans, minibuses etc. Nothing of that nature at all. I was talking to Lindsay about it, and she reminded me that this country is still recovering from the huge effects of the Khmer Rouge fifty-odd years ago, and so development isn't as we would expect. This dark part of Cambodia's history is something I haven't looked into much, but is still very fresh in many aspects of life and is perhaps playing a role in the rate of development being seen.

Over the four weeks in Cambodia we have met some amazing people and have been blessed to get involved in various wonderful projects. One of the most frequent things we have been doing is teaching conversational English - to children, university students and adults. It has given me an interesting insight to the reality of teaching English as a foreign language, and how much we take our native tongue for granted! So many people are desperate to learn English (most of whom already speak one or two languages) and it is a great way to build friendships with locals. At several times I have been slightly ashamed of my lack of languages - for the majority of my friends here, English is not their first language, and some speak up to five languages. I speak one (and maybe a quarter if you count my GCSE French but that shouldn't be included as I found out last night because I sadly can't hold any sort of conversation in French anymore). We are often very lazy in our English speaking world not to learn other languages because we don't need them, but it makes life so much easier and richer if you can speak to natives in their own tongue! So, I challenge you to learn some local phrases of wherever you go travelling next - even just hello and thank you which is all I can say in Thai and Khmer, but the locals really appreciate it.

I'm not sure I could pick a favourite thing we did in Phong Penh as all the projects were so different and unique. They have all taught me so much, more than I can take in an process in a year it feels like! But I really loved playing with some of the street kids every day for a week on riverfront. Those children are so exploited and abused yet they are still children with their playfulness, easy joy and a longing for love. It's where they find this love which is the problem. We were blessed to be able to give them a safe source of love for a week, but I only wish we could have made a longer influence not the short impact that we did. Those children deserve their childhood back - and thanks to a few dedicated organisations, they are slowly getting that. They reminded me of Matthew 18 in the Bible when Jesus says that to inherit the kingdom, we must become like children. It's a passage that's been really on my heart, and its interesting to me how it relates so closely to some of the people we've met - how can I become more like a child in my faith, and what I can learn from the beautiful street children of Cambodia.

This month has been exhausting as well as wonderful. Being part of a cross-cultural team with very strong personalities is very trying, I have discovered several times. It is so hard to balance striving to live in a kingdom culture and holding our cultures loosely with the things which are imbedded so deeply within us. We have experienced so many cultural slip ups and bizarre opposites which I shan't add to this long blog, but if you're really lucky then I will do a whole blog dedicated to the most humorous ones. We are heading to Thailand united still, which is a miracle in itself! A lot of things have been revealed to me by our Father and by other people which have been painful to see in myself and process - I'm a long way off from sorting through all the things which I feel have been started in me, but thankfully much of our time in Thailand is for debriefing so I will hopefully have time to crack on with all this self searching stuff. I feel like it's been a month of chiselling and moulding. 

We have made it to Bangkok safe and sound. Thank you for your prayers! It was one of the easiest and most comfortable journeys we've had - we were very blessed. There is no signs of the unrest where we are staying so please don't worry about our safety. Tomorrow morning we go to another town in Thailand called Mae Phim which is on the coast for our debriefing time. We are all so excited, and I'm especially looking forward to being by the sea and able to swim (hopefully daily). God is good! I hope you are all well. This was our favourite meal from Thailand which we revisited this lunch - pak Thai. Yum!

My next blog will not be for a while I expect, either at the end of our time in Mae Phim, or in Bangkok or when we are back in India in February - just so you know when to look here next - don't do it for a couple of weeks.