I was picture day and here is a picture of the three brothers we accepted reasently.
Here is our three girls two on the right are sisters
Pictures from the roof our neighbors are palanting rice.
Srey Nyng birthday along with some others. She got a really nice doll with hand made coths from my mother. She was so happy.It is coming to my 33rd birthday as some of you may know. This is the 3 birthday I have spent in Cambodia and this year has been the nicest. The weather is great right now, low
80’s with over cast and slight breezes. I stand in the front yard and it is easy to forget where I am.
This year my beard has seen its first white hairs. I got to tell the children that it was a sign of wisdom and they should have more reason to listen to me. What they did not think of is that out of the thousands of brown hairs I only have three white hairs and would be good reason for them not to listen to me. :)
I do not feel old except when I play with the children, it seems I get hurt or sore every day.
Anyway we have 16 children 3 of them girls. I will post more information on the new children later.
All the children are health and most are happy.
We have a little summer school planned for them with dance lessons, music and maybe a little art. We are going to try and push some to catch up to the grade they should be in so we don’t have 30 year olds waiting to get out of high school.
One of our new boys will 14 soon, he is in second grade and is barley learning his alphabet.
There is a lot of work to do on many of these children but thankfully many of them want to take the chance given to them. The hard decisions will come in the future when will have to decide to pull a child from school and start teaching him a trade. We are talking with them trying to make them to be apart of these decisions that will shape their life. The big one kicker is when I tell them I don’t want them digging holes in someone’s yard the rest of their life making $20 to $30 a month.
We really keep on them about it being their decision so they do not end up hating us. I do not want this to be a negative experience for a child who has not come to Christ. I would be sad to think a child leaves here disliking Christians and blaming us for their failures.
5 of our new children are not Christians yet so they need your prayers. Of our three girls one seems to be a bit naughty. She is worse than most our boys but we keep on her talking to her about being a lady and what a people admire in a woman. We have one boy who does not smile. He always has his angry face on. It feels like he his cursing me or trying to burn a whole in me. But we keep loving him and giving him attention, one day he will change. He already listens more than he did when he came. His grandma told us she thought he was going deaf because he hardly ever listened.
This month of July we will be buying chickens, ducks and maybe some fish. Ream and I personally want to get a goat. There are so many goat milk receipts out there. We want to make good ice creams and cheeses. The ice creams they sell in the village is more like a shave ice accept it is usually frozen pond water with powdered chemical flavoring. I would guess that it is one of the more dangerous things to eat here.
The property is really looking nice; the rains have turned everything green and beautiful. The children are really happy with the grass almost every day they are out there playing or rolling in it. Unfortunately it is a really itchy grass but they love it anyway.
The people who support this work I want you to know how wonderful it is and how important it is. I know with changing markets in the States it is difficult to still give, but I encourage you to stick with it and reduce something else if you must. I know we had only owned our house for a year before we came here and we would be struggling to if we where still there. I tell you where I would cut my expenses. For one I drove to fast most of the time, almost a hundred miles a day would cost me about $400 a month. I know if I would have slowed a little I could have reduced that cost. Also I like the fancy coffee some times a 4or 5 dollar frap chino, when I eat I would buy the expensive meal because I really liked the $6 burgers at Carl’s. These small indulgences do not seem like much but all month long it is a large expense. When it came to the end of the month things would be tight. I think now we had this last year almost $9000 a month income and we spent it all. So I would have to say my priorities where off. When it came to cutting expenses I would cut the wrong ones. I hardly gave any thing outside of my tithe and some times I would find excuses not do that.
I pray for the people who support this work that these hard times would not be so hard and that your faithfulness would continue. I pray that you would feel the blessing of what is being done here. I hope you realize that you are a part of changing many lives and that will be accounted to you in heaven. If you look at it like that it might even be easier to give. Make it a game or a race and try to change as much as possible. Most of us are really good at collecting something. Let us collect the crowns that will be given to Christ.
Thank you, so much to the children church for their continued interest. The children are using the play equipment every day. Sometimes the neighbor children come and play to so it was such a wonderful blessing.
Thank you, home groups and all who pray for us, the children and or this ministry.
I believe we will be home some time on or after Christmas and can not wait to see and share with you.
