Family Holiday Cooking Fun Photos part 3

sister making sushi rolls

Not pictured - lots of potatoes, mangos and Christmas cake, Christmas pudding

Family Holiday Cooking Fun Photos part 2

 Cooked pizza with brother

Family Holiday Cooking Fun Photos part 1

Mint toffee made from the mint in the garden

Sister making dessert

ham

Cooking cambodian food with husband and brother

Musical chairs with food

by digitalart

Over the last there have been so many arrivals and departures of siblings (75%) and their families, as well as lots of food!
  So many "firsts" this year* as I mentioned on Jan 23.  And to add to that list this is:

-Soeun's first Christmas staying with Aussie family
-my first Christmas in Australia being in the middle generation rather than the 3rd/youngest (my grandparents have all passed away now, and now my parents are the grandparents- very weird!)
-first Christmas with no siblings in high school

First time to....*

...fly into Sydney in 9 years.
...fly Thai since I was in high school.
...live in Australia not as a student since I was 5.
...live as a married couple in Australia.
...live on campus as a student's wife.
(I've lived on campus as a student in Australia, as a teacher in China and as a teacher's wife in Cambodia.)

is it an inner problem?...is it a migraine?...no!..its an inner ear migraine!!

NTE

This month I enjoyed getting to know some of our FOCUS students as we went to a conference together, and then served together afterwards at a Chinese church.

Reading the Bible with FOCUS friends (at conference)

Two of our students prepared their testimony to give at the Chinese church. Although I couldn't understand the final product, as it was in Chinese, it was really encouraging to watch them prepare for this.

Pork, preparing to feed lots of people at a Chinese church , part of the Christmas outreach

 One of the jobs the church we worked with gave us was to shave pigs belly. Apparently when you buy pork in bulk you need to get a cleaver and scrape off the hair before you cook it. We found this quite amusing, it was the first time any of us had done it. I also enjoyed smashing the hard boiled eggs to make tea eggs.

training event over, off to mission

Just spend the last few days at a Christian training event, it was great it lots of ways! Now we're all on missions, ie helping out in different churches. While we were at the training event we had to help usher everyone into the dining room. That wasn't part of the official training (we were there to learn about God and how to teach his word etc) but on our first night of mission the first thing our church explained to us was about how they want us to usher at one of the events.

never thought i'd be used to..

Pork, rice and pickled veg for breaky in Phnom Penh

 I never thought I'd get used to eating rice and meat for breakfast, but the last few years I ate pork almost every morning! I never thought I'd get used to having cold showers, but now I'm fine with it (I don't like doing it in Aust though as the water here is so cold). I wonder if I can get used to other things too?

Bible school students sleeping area on college mission 

It would make life easier for us if I didn't mind sleeping on hard wooden surfaces. I always try to find a mattress to sleep on if I can, and i'm always so happy to get back to my own bed ("a proper bed" i would call it) after travelling in Cambodia. I can't imagine ever choosing to lie down on tiles or wooden planks to sleep, I sometimes have to do it but I don't like it.

Thats how it used to be with cold showers and Asian breakfasts... but now I would choose them.

Happy, noting enjoyable things

Tonight cooking Cambodia food to eat with our housemates! It will be similar to this the dish we photo-explained here.

It might not be genuine Khmer food as Soeun won't have his usual cooking implements and surfaces, you can compare the photos here with an Aussie kitchen, a litte different.. anyway, it will be cooked by a genuine Cambodian. (more photos of the spices here)

Soeun has finished studying for the year. I borrowed a stack of ancient history related dvds from the local library for him, currently watching Time Team , its nice to hear him laugh.

Sad, noting what we miss

The college campus we live on just had their end of year events, and now many of the students have left, others are here doing work around the college such as painting.

Seeing the students enjoying their end of year events, such as performing songs etc, and showing funny videos they made ("tribute preacher" so funny!!) reminded me of how fun it was when we were both students here before, and fully involved in campus life. I couldn't help but feel strongly how much Soeun has missed by being sick this year.

He doesn't have regular classes, so it was never going to be like the first time around anyway, but this week we've been feeling sad thinking of the relationships, music and sport he could have enjoyed if he hadn't been sick. (...and all the while he is also missing Cambodia, double missing this year- what we've left behind and what we expected to have).

As I walked around campus yesterday I saw lots of students doing painting and sanding etc, working for the college. That also made me feel sad, as Soeun had hoped to get a job in his summer break like last time, but now he can't.

Anyway, we're going ok generally, I just thought I'd make a note of these. There are lots of things we are thankful for this year, but it has been very different to how we expected.

out of synch (did i say this already?this time last semester)

at this time of semester most of the students are finished exams so there are end of year events happening, like lawn mowing and library closing early...its weird for us as Soeun doesn't finish until the end of the week

cooking and eating with students

Dinner with students last night

 Last night hung out with students, cooked and ate together at their place. Today hung out with a Cambodian friend/student, cooked and ate at our place. Soeun came home for lunch and made himself soup, so I guess I was hanging out with 2 Cambodians- yay!

Cooking with Khmer people today

Soeun is not eating college food these days but cooking his own food to see if he can stop his dizziness that way. Its often tricky to time our food at the same time so it feel like we hardly eat any meals together. Sometimes we eat the same food, but we have already paid for the college food so I try to eat that as much as possible, and bring back bits that he may be able to eat (trying to stay away from preservatives, so plain fruit and veg is ok).

We didn't end up going to church on Sunday, Sundays always seem a really low part of the week. He asked me to give him gos kchol and then when back to sleep (no vomiting this week, although he felt like he was going to.)

one year since the stampede

FOCUS leadership team!

One of my favourite things about this year has been working with the other FOCUS leaders, some staff, some students. Today we had our first meeting with the team for next year. Both exciting and a bit sad: sad as some of the people we worked with year are leaving so aren't part of the team anymore (starting next year) and exciting starting to form our new team and get to know new team mates!! We had Indonesian food for lunch.

sick of sickness...

At the start of the year we were going to have a get together at a friend's church, so we could catch up with our friends and supporters as we had just arrived back in Aust. We ended up cancelling it and have a low key thing near where we live because Soeun was sick. I remember thinking, "When Soeun gets better we'll be able to do stuff, get started with everything here properly."

Well, that  was about 9 months ago.....! Still waiting. Some things I've settled into, like my job (although with less commitments that originally planned). But other things like church, feels like we haven't really starting participating in yet.  I went to our Bible study group once, and I go to the morning service most Sundays, Soeun hasn't been for ages (about 2 months). I'm finding it really hard each Sunday morning waiting to see if he'll be feeling well enough to go, then the disappointment finding he isn't.

Today we decided to go to a service in the afternoon instead, see how that goes. I'm sad I missed church this morning, but at the same time relieved as I've begun to dread Sunday mornings (the leaving sick hubby at home by himself part of it).