So, while I was in Cambodia I emailed my parents a little journal entry of what was going on. I had her forward them to me so I could post them on here for all of you to read.
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Day one: So the first day the team got here, we went to the Genocide Museum where it was a killing field during the Khmer Rouge. They abused and killed the officials, doctors, lawyers, and their kids the most horrific ways! It reminded me of the Holocaust Museum! It was so sad... It showed a lot about their culture today and how everyone is scared to get an education because that's why those millions were killed, even people of all ages that wore glasses were seen as "more educated" and were killed. Then we went to a cupcake restaurant where some of the girls who have been rescued work at:) and then ate at a restaurant where they hire homeless kids and teach them how to cook and wait:)! Amazing!!! And amazing food:)! No worries there!! They definitely pick THE best restaurants! Day two: ah...sad! We went to Women's Island, which was another killing field! But now hundreds of people come to the island just for church and many of them live safely on the island! Our translator Theara's father is the pastor and we held a mini worship service, in which they sang in Khmer! Then he took us on a tour of the island and then we got to play with the kiddies!!!:) it was such a fun time and kids always make you smile:)! Especially if they are smiling and laughing!!! C Then we went to Theara's house where they house Kids Club! When we got there,we had to go down this big alley way to her house. What we saw right off the bus?! Sooooo many kids running to us! It was such the experience! They latched on and wouldn't let go! Each one of us were surrounded by at least ten kids at one time! They open the doors at 5:30 in the am till 6 at night for these neighbor kids! Her family specifically moved into the neighborhood to start this ministry! It's so the kids can learn about Jesus in a safe environment and play:)! They preformed songs for us and dances:) then Magaly, Kacey, Katy, and I prepared a devotion for them while Theara translated for us! She's amazing!! We also got to witness her brother and 'coconut boys'! They make jewelry out of coconuts!!!! Truly amazing what gifts God gives us! Third day: started with five hours of driving to a different city! Long time in the bus with all of us, plus our luggage! We finally got to be in the city of Rapha House! Which by the way, needs MANY prayers as they are struggling with spiritual battles. Less than 1% of the country are Christians and that means Satan is working hard! When we arrived at the house, we were greeted by the welcome party:)! We all walked through the tunnels of girls, each of us given an amazing flower arrangement! So beautiful, smells delicious! Then they preformed dances and a skit of the prodigal son for us! Afterwards?! We danced...and danced...AND danced!!! They are truly Gods pockets of joy for us! They are blessing our lives and we are hoping that we are giving them hope for their future! Tomorrow?! One of the two weddings we have the opportunity to attend! Weddings are especially special from their girls, so we are definitely honored and joyous of this opportunity! Their weddings usually last a whole week, so I am excited to see what we experience in the morning! Starting at 7:30 so it's not suuuuuper hot and humid during the ceremony, then the reception will be later during the day:)! I love all of you:)! We have been über safe and healthy:)! Just keep praying:) thank you! We can definitely feel the prayers of our prayer warriors!!!:)
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Saturday:
Today started with one of the Rapha House girls getting married! This is a huge victory because it's hope for her and every girl in the house. For her to trust a man enough to marry him and to overcome everything she had to go through. When we got there we found out that we were apart of the wedding! We all held fruit platters and walked into the ceremony! It was crazy!! They feel very honored that we were in attendance, so we were treated like royalty! The bridal party changes their outfits many times! It started at 7:30 and we didn't leave until almost one...! Which is only the wedding ceremony part! The reception is about to start! We just got back from the looooong reception! Guess what we ate today?! Real Khmer traditional wedding food...YUCK! A mix of mystery meat, pigs blood, etc. best part?! They cook it all by the animals outside with the flys! Safely to say,we starved today hahaha we have been eating at amazinnnnng restaurants until today!:) But the reception was amazing! Everyone is dressed so gorgeous and LOTS of Khmer music and dAncing. The traditions here are SO weird, and they don't have a walk through the night before so it was very entertaining! Again,it's a miracle and they hardly have weddings, so it's amazing to be able to attend one, let alone two! Our second one is Wednesday! Tomorrow we are going to their church and then taking a tour of the House:)! And seeing the sweet girls! Then going to their salon,getting my hair done! Waaaay cheaper than in Australia!;) annnnnd maybe being dolled up by them and being able to dress in their dresses! I'm excited!!!!!! The devos with the girls!:) Again, please please pray for Rapha House, it's a such a spiritual battle here!__________________________________________________________________________________Sunday: Church! Best part?! Over 24 kids baptized!!!!!!!!! And one of the songs that was at church was How Great Thou Art! It was amazing to hear Khmer and English together! We took a tour of Rapha House and saw where they do what they do:)! Saw the girls again:)! Lunch at this American lady's restaurant called Cafe Eden! She helps local artists:) Then went to their salon and got pretty:)! I FINALLY got a hair cut..and guess how much?! Only like $5!!! Compare that to Australia's $80!!!!!!!!!! Boo ya! And for a great girls life:)! I also got a little chunk dyed a different color to remind me of my sisters in Cambodia! Then?! An updo that made me look like a poodle! :/ ha but fun, she did a great job:)! Then had devotions with the girls and helped them with a craft. They also took pictures with us, unfortunately we can't have them:(! It was hearrtbreaking leaving them because we leave this city in the morning after devos and probably won't ever see them again:( but we left hope in their hearts! Tomorrow is traveling:)!__________________________________________________________________________________Monday: We woke up early to have devos with the staff at Rapha House! They are truly remarkable and dedicate everything for these girls! Lots of praise to them! And lots of prayers, it's definitely not an easy job! After devos, we had to say goodbye to the girls. One girl, Monkey, brought me a card that she made me! Half in Khmer (ka-m-eye) and half in English! I'll have to have Theara translate it! Heartbreaking again to leave the girls!:( then we set off for another city! This city is by far the worst one! Hannah was saying that we were going to experience a lot of seeing the trafficking being done, whether it be sex or selling. We met the Rapha girls here! They are older. It breaks my heart to say, but the average age at the other house was 13..... Kenzi's age...safe to say that I've had a really hard time with that part! The average in this city at the house is 15-17, so a bit older. As we were walking, Hannah pointed out to me a girl that was "on a date" with a perpetrator. They think because they are at dinner, taking the girl on a date,that it must be okay...definitely not! Still praying for these men! Tuesday: Finally a fun, touristy day! A good break from all the heartbreak...which, we still encountered, just not a lot of it. We went to Angkor Wat, which is one of the man made wonders of the world at sunrise! It was SO early, but definitely worth the beauty! We were touring this temple and also two other temples, one that was filmed in Tomb Raiders with Angelina J. On the way to the second temple we found monkeys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got off the bus, bought some bananas and...you guessed it! Fed them:)! I had a bad of peanuts (thanks Mommy!) and one saw it and jumped onto me to get it! It took off before I could snatch it back! We had them climbing all over us! It was crazy, and SO much fun!!!!!! The after the second temple, we drank sugar cane mixed with oranges:)! Tasty! We watched them make it! They use a machine to squeeze out the juice! Then we rode the elephants!!!! Amazing creatures:)! I asked this family if I could take a family picture with them in front of the elephants and when I was finished, they asked Theara in Khmer if they could have a picture with me!!!!! Too funny! After the third temple, the kids were all there to surround us! So heartbreaking. These children are trafficked to sell a certain quota and if they don't, they get abused. One little boy went up to Kacee and asked her to buy and to please help her... Another lady even offered her to buy her baby! It's just a sad place here. When we got back to the hotel,we did something that is on my bucket list! The fish feasting on your feet massage! There's a tank full of these specific fishies and everyone sits around it, with their feet emersed. It was awesome! The fish just go to your feet and start feasting! Wat does it feel like?! A million cat licks! That sandpapery feel! The beginning of this $1 fish massage for 30 minutes, if you can believe that, should have been filmed! I'm sure we did great marketing for the place because we were a riot and a hoot! It is shocking, ticklish, and scary all at the same time! But most of all, wonderful! Amazingly smooth feet:)! After this, we went to the market! They are crazy here and try to rip you off, just like any market! Hannah is a beast and found us the right prices! After dinner we went shopping again and then headed off to our $6 full body massage:)! Might I add, not a relaxing massage buy one that works out the kinks! They are crazy!!! We were put in this room with mattresses on the floor. When Katy finally said,"Doesnt anyone else think its kinda scary that we are in a room in the back of a Khmer massage store?!" No one should worry, we were safe and sound! And got served tea afterwards! I feel amazing! Haircut, fresh-feasted on feet, and my whole body massaged! :) I just got back to the hotel to open my valentines from Grandma B! And Grandma and Bompa! Thank you guys SO muchhhhhh! I love you!!! Tomorrow?!?! Wedding!!!!!!!!!__________________________________________________________________________________Wednesday:This morning was the second wedding! We all dressed up in the dresses we bought from the market, looking Khmer-tastic! This wedding was different than the first one. The first one, the groom had a huge family and money. This wedding was a small,intimate church wedding! The bride and groom looked soooooo happy and actually smiled! In the culture here, no one smiles! During the Khmer Rouge people were killed for smiling and that ended only thirty years ago, so they are trying to over come it. But this bride couldn't hold it in! She was so beautiful and she loved having us there,especially the Rapha House staff! Get this! Everyone was whistling and the bride was blushing when they kissed....on the cheek!!! We laughed so hard! They don't kiss on the lips,so the cheek is a big thing I guess? I'm not exactly sure what the brides story was, but I got the underlined answer of her parents didn't sell her. So, again--a huge victory for her to be getting married!!! Sad thing?! I got sick during the wedding and had to go straight back to the hotel while everyone enjoyed the reception. But after napping and drugs,I felt semi better... Or I could have been mind over matter because I really wanted to go on a boat tour of this huuuuge lake and the village that live on boats. Wow. Can I just say that the smell was awful! This water is their drinking water (hopefully boiled first!), their bathing water, and...yep you guessed it, their sewage!!! Awful! Living on a house boat is actually the cheapest way to live because you don't have to pay for land. Another sad thing?! They have child trafficking all over! Little kids selling shoulder massages, this little boy jumped on our boat! They had this little girl with a snake around her neck trying to get you to hold it for a picture. They also had this lady being paid to have strangers hold her baby...very disheartening! I finally gave in... To which one?!?! Fighting the crocs for the fish of course!!! They had a farm of crocodiles under this boat store that we stopped at. You pay for a fish on this pole and pretend to feed the crocs and then if they bite the fish, you fight them for it! At the least, it was VERY entertaining for everyone to watch me...scream! Ha it's kinda scary and then one finally bit it... I pulled back hard, Theara helping me and finally.... Snap! The fish, headless, came flying towards me and LANDS ON MY HEAD!!!!!!! It was so so so gross! I had fish guts in my hair, making it crunchy! Everyone got a kick out of that! After I did this for a while, I handed my pole off to Luke (one of the guys on our trip, from Oregon) and he even screamed! It was fun, which I'm really really glad that I didn't have to stay at the hotel! When we got back, we ordered pizza and had a debriefing, listening to Stephanie about how Rapha started! Remarkable story!!! Basically started with a vision from a Khmer pastor, passed to Stephs father, and then to her! She came over to Cambodia and actually bought a 12 year old girl for $300 because that is what they said she was worth. It broke her heart, but she was going to fight tooth and nail for this little girl, which long story short, she did! That was before they truly understood the system of trafficking, learning that if you buy girls out of it, their perpetrators can just buy another girl with that money. which is why they are rescued, not bought! I didn't feel very well after dinner, so I stayed back while everyone went shopping at the market! Tomorrow we start our five hour ride back to the main city!__________________________________________________________________________________After we traveled back, we ate at Friends again. Amazing place:)! Hannah's favorite, and I'd say that it is truly delicious! With an amazing mission of helping out the community.The morning that the team left Cambodia we went to a Christian book store! You had to go across their crazy highways to get to it though! Luke went first, playing frogger, while we all carefully went after!When we got to the airport, we had our goodbyes! No one wanted to leave to go back to the 'real' life. I think that if we had the choice, we would have stayed much longer! My flight wasn't until late that night, so I was saying goodbye to my Vernal family..and the new additions of Luke and Hannah! Really, I just wanted to climb onto the plane with them and head back to the US!I went with Theara back to the salon that her sister lives in, where we had lunch! And then we went to her house so she could work. I napped for a little and then went outside to play with the kids:) We ended up playing a range of games and then I sat through their English class with them where they were learning some of the abc's and the words: table, television, and turtle. It was so cute to watch them learn English!We ate dinner and then headed to the airport for my departure... :( I didn't want to travel back to Australia, really I just wanted to either stay in Cambodia or go home so I could be with the team and then cuddle up in my parent's arms and cry! Anyways, I got on my plane and headed to Korea!!! I had a twelve hour layover there, got a hotel room for about seven hours and slept! Ahhhh much needed! Then got something to eat and then headed off to Australia!I got back to Brisbane, slept the whole day, and then packed! Monday I flew to Sydney and met Allyson at our new cute house! It's way way cute! And the lady we share it with is way nice! Funny story? We had to go buy groceries from this store a few blocks away, so we ran to the store and then... we had TOO many bags so we might have... 'borrowed' the cart! Imagine watching two athletic-dressed girls pushing a cart filled with groceries... quite the picture! Well, we are going to return the cart asap:)!__________________________________________________________________________________TOMORROW...MY AUSTRALIAN BIRTHDAY! Wooooooohooooo for TWENTY FIRST! :) I am sad not to be sharing it at home with my family and friends... BUT we are going to go down town, climb the Sydney Bridge and then have an amazing dinner! They BETTER sing happy birthday to me!!! :]Anyways, thanks for reading this post and if anyone has ANY question about my trip to Cambodia, please please please ask! I would -LOVE- to answer any and every question! My friend Luke made videos about our trip and you can watch them on his website: http://vimeo.com/lukemcfaddenEnjoy!:) And let God work through your heart as you read and watch the videos! <3
