Where are the days going?

We wanted to blog tonight to give a recap of the last week for us. Like most, the days are slipping by faster than we can keep up. Our week was full of the normal working tasks for each of us as well as some that are out of the ordinary. The Head of the Board for Asian Hope flew in on Wednesday making for the week to be full of meetings and fundraising talks for me. For Chris it was supposed to be the first week that he wasn't coaching or having to host a school fundraiser. But of course the HS basketball coach was out all week and Chris stepped in to fill his absence. Saturday morning was no rest for the weary as Chris had to play in a badminton tournament at the school. My thought was, "What? How many people signed up? Nobody plays badminton." I was wrong, this was a big event with many students all eager to show off their skills. Sunday came and did provide rest. We enjoyed going to church, I finished giving a desk a new makeover (more to come on that), and Chris spent time reading some newly received magazines.

We wish the chaos ended there but on Thursday of this week we will begin our weekend-long move. We are moving into a new apartment starting in March and get the chance to move in a little early. We are really excited about our new place, and feel more than blessed with the deal we found. Our 2 bedroom place will be much nicer and more Westernized than we ever imagined we would be able to live in. And it only gets better, it has many amenities that most don't have so we are VERY thankful for the hot water heaters, aircons, fridge, oven, and washing machine that comes with the place. It will be a great upgrade for us, and we can't wait! Once we are all settled in we will post pictures. Our visitor this past week also brought us our Wii from home, and I can't wait to set it up and beat Chris in Wii boxing again! Once again, another great gift of getting this package this past week.

Soon the true rest comes, we are taking a 4 day trip to Singapore for the first weekend of March. It is International Women's Day here and we will take full advantage of the holiday. Since we are not coming back to the States this summer we wanted to head to a place to get our "Western" fix. We have full intentions to indulge in it all...they have a Starbucks, McD's, Taco Bell, and even Chili's. Yes we will hit all of them, and yes we did google what American fast food chains were in the city several months ago. We recognize that most travelers when headed overseas try to avoid all of these spots, but this time we can hardly wait to eat chicken soft tacos, a Big Mouth Bacon Cheeseburger, and sip on a few lattes. (Maybe we should think of a running a few more times this week). It has been about 8 weeks since we have had a day off and you may be thinking, "that's not that bad." However, the stresses of life here of grocery shopping, driving, the heat, and some of the hard sites you see on the side of the road make you crave time away pretty quickly. So we look forward to the clean, modern, and westernized city of Singapore.

Our last update is that we started our personal Khmer tutor last Thursday. We will only meet once a week, but are excited to learn more of the Khmer language. I will continue in my 3x a week class, but this one-on-one help with help both of us immensely. Chris is a quick learner and amazes me everytime we learn a new sound or a new vocab word how quickly he says it right. I have some more language than him because of my class, so Chris calls me "teacher pet" in tutoring because I ask questions he doesn't know yet. I respond with, "I am just better at Khmer than you." All in all, we are enjoying it and one day look forward to not being illiterate, and possibly being understood in our day to day world.

Please continue to pray for us as we build relationships with those around us in the hopes to walk alongside them in their faith in the times that are good, bad, and confusing. We also ask for strength as we regularly witness heartbreaking sites of lives being lost, children offering themselves as sex workers, and the overwhelming difficulty that most Cambodians face in just trying to get by from day to day. We covet your daily prayers.