On the weekend Soeun preached at a school a few hours out of town. He often preaches at church, and the Bible school, so usually to groups of Christians he knows. But this was to a group made up of many non Christians as well as Christians. It was hard to prepare as he didn't know them. He ended up having to change some of his illustrations as he went.
He stayed over night and preached the next day too, so he got to know them a bit. He was surprised to find they knew how to sing one of the songs he wrote, and they were surprised to find he was the songwriter.

(It turned out the students from the Bible school who work there had taught this group one of Kimsoeun's song.)

Visit to a hill

With my Bible study group I went to visit a construction site. You can see here the view from the half built building where we ate lunch. The shed is the sort of place they put up for the workers to live in while the building is being built. Can you see the antenna off the top of the tree?

Waterfall picnic

One Saturday we went to have lunch on a hill. It was about a 2 hour drive from Phnom Penh. Soeun’s small group had prepared a picnic lunch of beef rice and veggies. The rice was in our rice cooker, just cooked that morning. The beef was cut up and marinating in our big saucepan. We also took an esky (ice box) full of drinks and ice, as well as our huge water container.

We got out of the school’s bus at the entrance. After paying the gate fee we packed the picnic on an ox- cart and began the 3.5 km walk to the waterfall. It was nice to be walking through bush, not something you can do in the city!

However after about 1km we found we had to unpack the picnic from the ox-cart. The rest of the walk is too steep and rocky. So the rest of the way we carried everything. Between the heat, the slope, the rocks and the heavy stuff it wasn’t pleasant walk anymore. We had to keep stopping for breaks, we were all so exhausted.

The last straw for me was when my shoe broke. By that time we were already at the top. But I was so exhausted I couldn’t imagine how I was going to walk back down again.

Picnic photos again.....

Picnic food prep

The day before the school picnic all the small groups were getting their lunch ready. Two students came to borrow a knife from me so they could cut a branch off the banana tree. I think they used it to wrap up some food. Another student borrowed the knife later on to cut some lemon grass. KS's group spent the afternoon picking "drawcoon" from around the grass on campus, then the next morning they cooked it in our kitchen.

"Prahok" is a paste made from rotton fish that stinks!!!! But it is a favourite food of many Khmer people. You can see here KS has some and he is mixing in some garlic, chilli and other seasonings. When he finished he put it in our lunch boxes to carry to the picnic the next day. Our group was very popular, students from other groups kept coming to our picnic table/bed thing and asking for some.

Beautiful

This week the college went to a bush picnic spot in some hills about 2 hours drive out of the city. It was very quiet and I think I saw more trees in that one day than I usually see in a month! In this post you can see pictures of the beautiful trees, beautiful picnic spot and of the beautiful husband. He doesn't normally wear flowers in his hair, but they were selling these head things. Some of the girls bought them to wear, and someone gave me one and some how it ended up on his head. We have some pictures of the students too, hopefully we'll be able to show you soon. We are just waiting to ask their permission.

Cambodian picnic spots usually have this raised wooden platform covered with a woven mat, where in Oz we would have a table and benches. You take off your shoes and sit on the platform under the shade of the thatched roof.