Culture Fatigue

Culture stress or culture fatigue is a common phrase for us to hear in working in missions overseas.  It can best defined as a season you experience, in waves, when the things of culture -- language, driving, food, smells, sights, ways of doing things, difference in religions, etc.  seem to burden you more than usual.  Now those stresses are always present and you always feel them in your day to day, but during "culture fatigue" they feel heavy or never ending.

It is safe to say we (or I) am in a season of culture fatigue.  Driving (which is always in traffic) makes you want to pull your hair out.  The dust coming off the streets and the huge trucks that is sticking to your sweaty face seems no longer tolerable.  The constant cancellation of appointments, pick-ups, drop-offs, or meetings make you wonder if you can ever get anything done.  The 9th meal in a row with white rice no longer tastes good (even though it did at one time).  The unending honking of horns, bells, and whistles makes your ears ring, and head throb for minutes after stepping into a quite building.  The construction next door at 6:00am (every morning) is not something I want to compete with anymore with my ipod.  Everything, and I mean everything, is made with the poorest quality, and something is always breaking or falling apart.  That no matter what time of year or time of day it is it is never cooler than 85 degrees. You get the point...

So what is the answer?  We talk (and write) often about thankfulness and the phrase I have read continues to resignate in my mind: "Can I take each seeming problem and turn it back to praise?"  So here it goes:

- I drive a moto and that is much faster than driving a car. Thank you for our reliable and awesome moto.
- Thank you for all the wonderful face wash that is brought to us with visitors or in care packages.
- Thank you for having us be a part of three amazing ministries that glorify God's name everyday.  And that we have accomplished more than we could of ever imagined in 16 months!
- Thank you for our amazing cook, Ohm, who without fail makes us a delicious Khmer meal every day and when we come home we just heat up dinner, and boom, we are eating! Thank you that I don't have to go to the market and try to buy meat off a hook!!!
- Thank you for the safety and protection we have been given while driving.  I guess the honking does help.
- Thank you for the ipod, and the dock we have in our home that helps us feel normal.  Thank you for all the generous people who give us itunes gift cards and send us music so we are not stuck with songs from 2009.
- Thank you for just being given super glue, so I could run around our house and glue everything back in place again.
-Thank you for all our generous donors that allow us to afford air-con when we sleep at night.

God does provide, and we are thankful for that.  I will say that this morning was the first time that I told a friend and Chris that I can't wait to be in America this summer not just to see people but also to have something for once be easy.  Then our friend responds with, "girl, you have culture fatigue, and so do I."

Here are some great photos of our fascinating city of Phnom Penh.

We have much to be thankful for here.

The rest of Mom's visit and Malaysia

Like we mentioned here my mother, Ginger, came to visit for the last couple weeks of September.  Having family visit is one of the highlights we have in the year.  It is so fun for us to show the people we love most our life here in Phnom Penh.  We went to all the markets (this time I took mom to Khmer fabric market so we could get some clothes made for us and for a Christmas gift for my niece), to our favorite restaurants, and found new ones that now have been added to our favorite list (Pacharan on the river front - for those who live in Cambodia), and spent many days in our apartment talking, eating, watching movies, and enjoy the day to day life we have established here.  The whole visit was a big blessing!

Pictured above: tuk tuk ride to church, at home after working all day, our favorite Khmer noodle restaurant for breakfast with the Hein's and their daughter Allie, and pedicures at Daughters.

Half way through her trip was the Khmer holiday of Pchum Ben (read here about this holiday) and we were treated to a trip to Langkawi, Malaysia.  The island off the peninsular coast was nothing shy of beautiful.  We spent four days relaxing on the beach, renting motos and driving around the island (even Mom drove!!!), and visiting the jungle waterfalls. 

After our time on the island we started heading back home with a short one day layover in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.  We stayed in the area of town called Little India, and enjoyed an amazing lunch when we arrived.  We then shopped in Chinatown, walked abound the city until we finally reach the Pentronas Towers, which were stunning at night, and yes went to Chili's grill.  There are two in Asia, one is Singapore and one in KL, and we have happily eaten "Big Mouth Bacon Cheeseburgers" at each of them.  Thanks Mom for going to a massive American food chain while visiting Asia.

The trip was wonderful and we enjoyed the natural beauty, peace and quite, and good quality time with family.  As a bonus we only had one rainy day (pretty good for rainy season...)

New Facility

For those of you who follow our blog and our ministries here in Cambodia you are aware that I have been spending the last 6 weeks working on the construction and renovation of Asian Hope's new building in Prek Pneu.  I am VERY happy to say the construction is over, the renovation is complete, the walls and ceiling have been painted, and the floors have been cleaned (or better yet scrapped).  This was a HUGE endeavour that was completely overwhelming when we started, and now it is complete!
Here are some photos of all the work that has been done on the building...

We had one team of American military who are stationed in Japan come and help do the clean out of the building.  This was a very dirty job and they did an amazing job of getting it all ready to be painted....

Then we had multiple sets of volunteers come to paint the entire inside of the house, including the ceiling downstairs.  The interns at Asian Hope's guesthouse did the priming, a team from Belfast, Ireland painted all the walls blue, and the 9th and 12th grade classes at Logos painted the ceiling.  We also had countless hours of help from Asian Hope staff, volunteers from the community and those we met traveling, dear friends, and my mom come and finish off the painting and get the left over paint and dirt off the tile floors.

 

 Here are few before and after photos:  The upstairs main room:

The kitchen:

 The downstairs main room (before) and the office (after):

Thanks to everyone who helped, emailed encouragement through this process, and prayed for us and this building.  Last week we went shopping for all the furniture and school supplies.  I am so excited to start the next step and put my hammer, paint brush, and paint scrapper down :)

Momma's in Town

Mom is back in town!  My mother, Ginger, arrived last Wednesday and has already once again jumped head first into our life here in Cambodia.  She has helped finish paint and clean the new facility in Prek Pneu, and also helped in the Pre-K 3 classroom in Logos.  We have eaten out with friends, gotten pedicures, taken a tour of the local microbrewery -Kingdom, and went to church at the Khmer house church we support in Prek Pneu.  It is good to have her back and eating at our dinner table once again. We are leaving today for Malaysia with her while the Khmer holiday of Pchum Ben happens here in Phnom Penh.  It has been a treat to spend the last week with family and we look forward to her two remaining weeks with us...

Pictured above:  Eating all the wonderful breakfast food she brought for us, riding in a tuk tuk to church, and then Chris and Mom on a moto on our way to dinner.

Cambodia Bike Project Photos: Stung Meanchey

Here are some photos of the bike distribution that happened in Stung Meanchey last month. Andy Brophy and Stuart Atkins of Create to Restore did an amazing job capturing these kids and their families. I am so happy to be able to serve these children with bikes. There is a lot of exciting updates happening on with Cambodia Bike Project so give our Facebook Page a "like" to stay up-to-date on all what is going on with the program.

Some links for when you are bored and stuff...

This video is promoting a partnership that we have created with Andy Brophy of OneNine Images and Stuart Atkins who works with Andy on Create to Restore. For every Senior photo shoot Andy does this year he will donate a bike to a child here in Cambodia in need of transportation to attend school.

It has been very exciting to partner with such incredible organizations and individuals. Check out their sites and projects for more information on what these two incredibly talented people do with their skills.

There will be many more photos and videos available soon, this is one of many. Enjoy!

Also, go to the Cambodia Bike Project Facebook page at www.facebook.com/cambodiabikeproject.