26th Birthday Celebrations

Today is my birthday! I feel so blessed to have the people I have around me today that made me feel so loved. My birthday celebrations started out an evening early. Gideon took me out for a nice dinner last night. We ended up having to bring home left overs because we are no longer used to those portions anymore. I ordered a GIANT sandwich.

Today my lovely teaching assistant, Sorphorn, surprised me. She bought me breakfast, noddles and fried veggies, very Khmer style. She also bought me these flip-flops that I've wanted ever since she came to school wearing them. I actually went to the market to buy them, but I didn't because they wouldn't give them to me for the same price they gave her. So she went and bought them for me and surprised me today with them. Really I was so humbled by her gifts.

Gideon also had an ice cream cake delivered to Logos today so I could celebrate with my students. Gideon came in singing Happy Birthday and they all just stared at him. I hadn't told them it was my birthday. After eating the cake Odom, the one sitting next to me in the following picture says, " How many are you?" I respond, " I'm 26 today." He continues, " Oh.... You are long." "No I'm Old."

The kids loved the ice cream, but in Pre-K3 there are always consequences to giving the students ice cream. We just played the rest of the morning, and I won't go into the details of the other consequence that happened after nap-time.

It just seemed like the celebrations went on all day. Our landlords remembered my birthday and gave me a beautiful hand-made purse. Today Logos Lightening elementary soccer team had a game and it was our first non-loss of the year ( We Tied) !!! Yay Team!!! What an exciting day. During our stretches my team broke out into Happy Birthday. They did this all on their own with out the prompt of Mr. Walker. Also Gideon's 5th grade girls made me a huge happy birthday poster, and each signed it with a thoughtful note!

Thank You God for family,friends and students that made my day special!

Khmer New Year Whirl-Wind Break!

Hey all!

WOW! Does anyone else find it funny that sometimes it seems like you are more busy when you are on VACATION, than when you are working! IT'S CRAZY! This week Kristy and I have been on Khmer New Year Break! (Don't ask me what year it is! I'm still trying to figure it out since we had Western New Year in January, Chinese New Year in February, and now Khmer New Year in April! I think that puts us two years ahead... so 2013? IDK?) I am trying to figure out a way to get a couple more birthdays out of the deal though... but don't tell Kristy. Got any ideas?

Okay... enough rambling about the year... on with the good stuff!

Well... look at that... I guess it will be tough for me to get much better than that! That picture is some GOOD stuff. I mean really.... that guy is a stud! Soooooo good looking! What REALLY could be better than that? Okay... well... Humm... I conceed. She always has to one-up me! Oh well... at least since she is my wife it makes me good too! Soooo pretty!

AS FOR OUR BREAK --- :) We decided to go to a province town called "Sihanouk Ville", which is VERY popular for it's BEAUTIFUL beaches, and diverse choice of ethnic foods! We, however, went for the relaxation! We arrived by bus (which is insane, by the way!) on Saturday, and checked into our hotel --- The Orchidee --- If you can figure out how to say it correctly, you are already ahead of me! After settling in, we took a walk to the beach! Here are a few photos!

I loved the Ocean! It was soooo clean!

Kristy had a great time!

And for those of you who know me well... you will be surprised to hear, but I actually RELAXED on the beach for nearly 4 hours! Here are a couple of photos. I did ask Kristy what time it was like 20 times, but I did GREAT!

That is one of Kristy's feet and one of my feet! So... proof that I was there and relaxed, for all you DOUBTERS!

The beach was great, but another one of the best parts of this trip was FINALLY getting to eat Mexican food again! It was AMAZING!

We spent four days in Sihanouk Ville, just eating, relaxing and kickin it on the beach. I actually got to read a book for fun! Kristy got a sunburn, but still says it was worth it. We took a HIKE along a rocky part of the shoreline. It was HOT!!!, but sooo beautiful! Take a look....

The last day there, we had food delivered to our hotel room, and just watched movies together all day. It was so awesome just spending quality time together! WE NEEDED IT! I recommend it for EVERY couple! We finally arrived home late Tuesday evening tired and ready for some more relaxation. However, our landlords had other plans in mind. The told us that we needed to move up to our new floor THE NEXT DAY! AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!

The next day proved to be extremely less relaxed! We moved everything from our 1st floor to the 3rd floor! That night we spent unpacking and settling in. We did not end up going to bed till after 10 p.m. (that is really late for us here!) Here are some pics of our new apartment!

Our new HUGE kitchen!

Our ridiculously LONG hallway! (anybody else love RITZ crackers?)

Our new bedroom!

Our NEW living room!

Our NEW balcony!

After a couple days of settling in when were finally able to get caught up on school stuff and errands. We are really happy about our new place, because it is WAY cooler! There is a lot of wind that comes through the windows! Praise God! It has been a great break and although it sounds WEIRD, we are ready to get back to our kiddos! (students that is.... not our own children!

Finally, possibly the craziest thing about Khmer New Year is the fact that it marks that we have ONLY seven weeks until we jump on a plane for the States. We are getting really excited to see everyone! However, I am not going to lie about the fact that we might be equally excited to finally eat normal food! (okay... maybe seeing everyone is a little more!) We are sad that our first year is almost over, but excited to see family again!

Please Pray that we: 1. continue to draw close to God together 2. continue to draw closer together 3. gain more opportunities to witness to our landlords and our students 4. trust in God's provision in our finances 5. help God bring the Kingdom of Cambodia to Him! 6. Get enough rest!

Please Praise God for: 1. His provisions for us so far! 2. Him creating opportunities for us to minister to others. 3. We have made incredible relationships with new people. 4. Our new apartment! 5. A great time of relaxation!

Cultural Day at Phnom Penh University

This last weekend we got a chance to go with our landlords, Sotheare and Onn, to their place of work. They both teach English and the Phnom Penh University. The part of their school is called Institute of Foreign Languages. The IFL hosted a Cultural Day where each department ie. French Department, English Department, Japanesse Dapartment etc. performed some dances from that culture. We had everything from traditional to hip hop. After the performance was over at 11 am we ate lunch with our landlords and joined them in learning some traditional Khmer dances. The University hired a band to stay until 6 pm. Our landlords, Gideon and I were completely worn out after 2 hours of dancing and only stayed until 2pm. This cultural day was to start off the celebration of Khmer New Year. Next week we are on holiday for a full week for the new year. We had a blast with our landlords learning to dance even though we were hot and sweaty the whole time. Please enjoy some pictures of our exciting day!

Traditional Cambodian Dance

These tents are what they use for weddings too. Don't you think they are so beautiful.;)

Cambodian Boxing

Gideon got tired of trying to do the traditional dance and he broke out his hip hop moves!

They dance a lot with their hands, and move their legs and feet a little bit. They also do line dances.

This was the students from the French Department.

Money Offering Dance- they were raising money for the soldiers who are fighting at the border between here and Thailand. The dispute is over who owns a certain temple.

This video is for Carol and my middle school girls at ROL. It is the Hannah Montana dance performed by Cambodian College Students. I just thought it was amusing!