CHRIST-mas, Birthday and Church play

Sam has more candy at least he is sharing with Joseph.
Help with a necklace.
Spinning a top.

Duck Curry is every ones favorite birthday meal.
Chan Chow plays Joseph.
Channee plays the King.
Come and register for the census.

Joseph and Marry with 3 wise men.
They get to do their harvest dance.
Birthday cake shaped like Angkor Wat.
Sam gets his Birthday gift from his cousin.

Ly, Yong, Jon, On and Channee celebrate their birthday this quarter.

Weed whacks the pinata.
Hua has his turn.
Jon is next.
Christmas went really well I would say.
I went out the day before and topped one of our eucalyptus trees marked for removal.
We built a little frame for it to stand up and trimmed it to give it some kind of shape.
We blew up balloons with candy in side them to make like Christmas balls. We also made the tinfoil candy wraps again. It was real fun looking with sparkle and color.
The night before we set it all up after the children where a sleep.
So at 5 am we could hear them at the glass of the locked dinning room door talking and giggling. It was real tough for them to wait, they had to feed the animals and clean up first. At 6 am they where ready all sitting in a circle. Our 3 little ones received theirs first and in no order after that.
Each present was a new outfit and accessories, with a small toy or game. Each child ran a little more than five dollars.
The children where so giddy the night before. Some where saying they where nervous because they did not know what to expect. The children from last year told them do not worry you will like it. There where lots of cute things being said amongst the children.
So after that they eat and ran to church. Some of our children where in the nativity play and all our young ones preformed their harvest dance which was good timing because the harvest is in mid-swing.
After that we played some games and started the birthday parties for a couple of the children. We played bingo, and had a pinata.
For lunch they eat their favorite duck curry and eat cake. Their was much excitement to be had, they where so wired from sweets they made it all the way through until evening.
We have letters coming with us when we come. And they are wonderful, these are the best letters yet. They have been keeping a dairy to help their writing skills and it looks like it is working.
I hope you all enjoy you Christ-mas as we have.

CHRIST-mas

Our 2 foot window to the world. This has been a big blessing.
Our second CHRIST-mas tree, this one is a eucalyptus branch. We used balloons with candy inside and tinfoil with candy inside to decorate the tree.


Tee looks over his watch.
Yong in the middle waits for his gift. Darow is enjoying his.
Sam asked the whole week about his birthday and was hardly containable. We had to put together a gift for him at the last minute because we kind of forgot about him. We plan on getting his gifts in the states but did not think about his excitement for the day. So all the toys where things he had not played with for a while and he was just as excited.
Big boy toys. They each got a little radio and a game plus the new out fit.
It worked out that each gift was around $5 dollars for the out fit accessories and a toy. Pretty good.




Sam has a mouth full of candy every time we turned around. To many people to ask when mom say no.
VeChi and Channee smiles
Chan Chow
A little shock? They never celebrated
CHRIST-mas like this before. Most of the time it was not celebrated at all.

Climbed up the eucalyptus trees to get a better picture of the building.
Last family photo we took does not include the 5 new children yet.

Class time teaching English. Our tables are almost full and we are looking at getting some desks made.
After the dentist the group of children that had not gotten into trouble last month got to go for some fun. They got to see the boats practicing for the big race and go for some bumper cars.
Nyng learned to hold on tight.
The children are doing great in school we got their numbers the other day.

2 are number 1 in their class

1 is number 2
2 are number 3

3 are number 4

2 are top ten

3 are top 20

2 are top 45 because they are new in the school.

7 are unknown, little ones do not get placement.

Ve Chi is the 14 year old in 3rd grade who did not know his alphabet studied all summer to catch up to his grade and is now number 4 in class.

Rachana went from #39 to #9.

We are so very proud the effort they are putting out.

Our Rabbits are producing every month now and the piglets are going to sell soon.

We have all the staff working finally. We are set for the rest of the year and that is a good feeling.

From the roof

I like to sit on the roof some times and keep a good eye on what is going on. When you have a lot to look after the best way is up high.

Srey Own, Srey Nune and Kyo collecting grass for the goats.
Wut, watches the goats today so they do not eat to much from the trees.
Wut tells our 5 and 6 year old that dad is on the roof taking picture. On the left is Srey On, Weed , Com Ly and Wut.
Ra stops by for a visit he is learning a lot of hard lessons this year and we hope it is only refining him for his future work. He will probably replace Pastor Khon in the future and he needs prayer for strength and wisdom. He is wonderful with the children.
District Chief comes for a visit and tells us what a good job and beautiful place that we have. He says when he gave the approval to build he had no idea what it would be or the good that it would do. We are thankful to him and Ream's uncle for keeping the flies off of us; they will not allow groups to nag us for fees and bribes that are not real.

We have 23 children as of now and plan to accept more next year. We will be in the states from December 30 to Jan 15. If you are wanting to meet with use please let us know in advance.

The major lightning storms the other night. This is around 2 in the morning. Lots of rain most of the property was flooded that night and the children caught about a dozen fish crawling on the ground. The thunder and lightning lasted all night and there was no sleep to be had.

Summer is over.
I was ready for the children to go back to school we have been so busy with them home. Then the first day I miss them and the place is to quiet.

We had a pretty good summer helping the children advance for this year. 3 of our children are skipping a grade to get them caught up. All the children are proficient in the grade they are going to. And our two little ones age 5 started 1st grade.

They children learned a traditional dance about the harvest.
Some started to learn play guitar, drums and flutes.
We are still looking for a piano and a traditional violin teacher.
They got to go to the beach, zoo and some old ruined temples.
Some of them celebrated their first birthday ever.

They also received their incentive prizes for this quarter.

Our animals a producing,
We had 12 baby pigs and the market is very good to sell right now.
We had 7 baby rabbit be born.
And three baby ducks.
Also our fish in 2 months have grown 8 inches.


We have had some staff changes again probably not the last time either.
Peah is on the Left and Own is on the Right
Here is a picture of our 2 new girls and their care taker.
They names are Jon and On. So we are up to 5 now and waiting for more.

Bible programs have started again. We had a little brake due to the dance teacher.

We played some games during the birthday party.
We had teams where they had to pass the bottle from one bucket to the next using their mouth which was a lot of fun for them.
We also played a traditional New Year game. Instead of using the game board we used our selves running from one place to another rolling cubes to see who won some candy.

We are trying to make it home in January I believe but we will see. Staff and teams will play a part in when we go. We would like to be home for a month because it seems after two years there is a lot to do.
Ream’s sister is in the states right now living in Pennsylvania for a year learning Administration skills. We hope she will make it out the same time we are there.

Things here at the orphanage are going really well, the country also seem to be improving. The big scary election is around the corner, but it is being down graded from scary. The political parties have spilt back into groups they came from with a few new ones.

Also the country is trying to control some Christian groups. Their have been a few bad representatives here that are making it hard on others.
We have known for quite a while you can not really street whiteness here. You can but it has to be really low key. If you do not harass people or create a seen and you’re fine. You also should avoid doing it around temples or government buildings like the palace.

I think all is fine.
I have seen some groups in America that I thought should be ban. They where caring coffins and crosses telling people are were going to hell and burn. It was a very shocking display for me to see.

The government is making news by cracking down on NGO that are profiting or taking advantage of people or the government.

We have had to speak with local officials about being Christian and what we do. At first it seemed scary. With all of this happening this month it seems that the place might go communist again. But doing that is suicide for them. They would throw themselves back into very bad poverty and it is bad already.

I know there is way too much money coming in for them to close the doors. These same reports and problems where in the news back in 1999.

What we have to pray is that the good upright Christians are protected and are not affected by the people stepping out of line. There is plenty of good work going on and the harvest is being reaped.

Over all we can hope to see the Government continue to improve and it relations with Christian groups continue to grow.

Sorry for being to political or anything like that. There has been some concerns out there about what is happening and I do not think it is much to worry about right now.

Thanks for taking time to look and keeping involved.