Week two/three

Hello!

So, Im not really sure what's happened these past few days because the days have been running together. Our first week here we worked with a youth camp for a few days. We were working under an organization with a man named Jack. That week we also did alot of touristy things, like toured the killing feilds and the temples. We ate out ALOT.

One night, we ate this really rich food and I woke up sweating. Then i ran to the bathroom and threw up. It was crazy. I never throw up. But I felt better. Then Laura started screaming in her sleep (right after i threw up) and we had to wake her up. The malaria medicine gives everyone crazy weird dreams. Then none of us could go back to sleep because 20 Cambodian cats decided to fight outside out hotel window.

During the second week we changed organizations we worked with. Now we are under Asian Hope. (No more touring, no more eating out, this is starting to feel like a mission trip...) There is a couple that is basically hosting us, Dan and Carolyn. We are staying in a guest house in Pnom Phen (spelling?) in the capital city. It's all 5 girls in one room, all 5 boys in the one next door. We have been doing various things, like VBS's and construction work.

Asian Hope has two homes, one for boys and one for girls. The homes are for boys and girls who do not have parents who can take care of them, and each home has two volenteer guardians. We've gotten to know the boys and girls really well. They do alot with us, and we are all starting to feel like a family. We're also getting close to Dan and Carolyn's family.

It's been neat to see our team fight but then work together for the most part. There is so much conflict. But we are getting to watch members of our team be completely transformed through prayer.

There are alot of orphans here, and there is this place called the dump site that is basically a dump site where families live off of trash. Kevin talked to one little girl who told him that she picked up trash all day, hoping that she could sell it for money for her family. kevin told her that Jesus loved her, and she told him that she loved Jesus too.

The amazing thing about this trip is that we are seeing SO MANY PLACES that have been given Jesus already. There is a woman named Clara and she has a ministry with the dump site. There are so many different ministries and the people here are getting saved left and right. It's so encouraging. We've been to coffee shop ministries that employ abused women in the name of Jesus, boutiques that give women in poverty jobs as seamstresses, and even today we worked with a place that picks up kids from the dump site every day and bathes them, feeds them, schools them and plays with them, as well as tells them about Jesus.

Overall so far, this trip is nothing but encouragement of how big God is.
I have never felt like God was so real as the time when one girl from the youth camp explained in great detail the comfort that she recieved from God. She described feelings that i have also felt from God, and she does not come from a family of believers nor was she very close to any believers. When i listened to her speak about God, I knew that God was so real, and so alive across the world in the same way He is in Louisiana. Which makes me want to cry.

As for prayers, please pray for more mission opportunities for our team, for times we can tell people about Christ, and for people who need to feel love to be placed in front of us or for us to be led to them. God is doing alot here, and I can't believe its half way over.

Also, Kevin ate a duck embryo the other night and I ate a cricket. Gross.

Oh, and I've been getting up at 5:30 every other morning to go running with Carolyn. It's been alot of fun, and very unlike me, but its been a good opportunity to get to know her and to see Cambodia in the mornings before the town is awake. And the exercise feels great.

I hope everyone is doing well, thanks for reading and most of all thanks for praying. I love you
Hailey