Koh Samet

     Outreach is officially finished and debrief is here in full force.  I have many more stories and pictures to share with you, but I wanted to keep you updated on where I am now.  I’m on an island in the Indian Ocean, in the Thai Gulf and it is beautiful.  The water is not quite as clear as I would have thought, but it is very warm.  Our speedboat ride to the island was very very choppy.  It was more like an old theme park ride that feels like it’s about to fall apart.  The 11 girls on the team were screaming as we jumped from wave to wave.  We made it to the island where all 13 of us fit into a taxi.  The taxi we road was a green pickup with benches in the cab.  It took us about 15 minutes down a narrow, hilly, pot hole infested road to make it to our bungalows.                

     After 2 days in the enormous city of Bangkok, I’ve finally been able to relax and enjoy the warm ocean with only a few other people here at our beach.  It’s hard to comprehend that I’m on an island in Thailand.  When I look out I can see a few other islands popping up in the horizon and an amazing morning sky.  I woke up for sunrise and you can see a few glimpses of what I saw this morning down below.

     After 3 months of a schedule that didn’t ever stop it’s nice not to have anything to do but enjoy a couple days here in a faraway land.  Thank you all for being a part of this journey by praying, and encouraging me during this time.  I hope to share more as I process all that has gone on and I’ve got plenty of more pictures to share with you.  Today I go back to Hawaii and start my 4 consecutive days of travel with a wedding somewhere in the middle.  It’s time for breakfast on the beach, don’t be too jealous…

The Not So Secret Life of Poipet

     Battambang is now only a memory.  A very good memory filled with many great experiences and great relationships.  It’s a time that I won’t soon forget.  There's a whole lot more pictures and stories for me to share, and maybe when I'm back home I'll have a few days to reflect and share with all of you all that happened.

     Now I’m in Poipet.  A city that makes all the evil in the world that I have seen before seem like a drop in the bucket.  Prostitutes and their pimps walk the streets, moto drivers constantly asking if other men want a “massage boom boom”, there are about nine casinos in the stretch of a mile, brothels are not difficult to find, children, men and women are trafficked across the border each day to work, people cart over illegal goods each day that the government simply taxes, people travel to Thailand to work illegally and are brought back by the police a few times a day, and children are left near the border as their parents cross to work each day.  We’ve even seen prostitution and many extremely disturbing things here in our hotel. 

     Since being here I’ve witnessed all of the above, but have also seen and been involved with a few things that are helping this city.  We arrived on Saturday and on Sunday I was able to preach here in two services.  I’ve been to a slum area where the Pastor of the church and a few others are teaching the children about the Bible and English.  They often have them driven over in an old Camry where they pack about 15 kids in.  It’s quite a site, but not that strange here in Cambodia.  We’ve had a chance to meet with an organization called CHO that is doing a variety of things that are helping this city.  I’ve been to a few slums where a few of us played with the kids and took lots of pictures with them. 

Here are a few pictures of all the things I mentioned above.