Ratanakiri, Cambodia  
 

October 24
to Nov. 18 

Villagers join us for worship

This has been an amazing outreach and now that I am home, I have pictures - yea!   Click here:  Cambodia 2007

The Beginning:

We arrived in Ratanakiri after a 12 hour bus ride -- 3 hours of which were on very rocky roads -- towards the end of October and spent a few days in prayer for the next phase of our health care.  We felt that God wanted us to stay in one team rather than breaking up into two or more. This proved a bit challenging in terms of moving around and finding housing and food as our team grew to 25 people including 8 translators and 3 drivers, but was a real blessing.  Our trip began in the backs of 3 open trucks travelling to our first village destination where we met up with a couple of hilltribe translators and our "kanote" or wooden canoe drivers.  We were blessed to stay in the village communal house where the entire team fit with a little extra room for a dining space.  The next thing we did was take baths in the river!  It was quite a unique experience for most of us! First we walked to the river, then down the steep and sometimes muddy bank where we got into a leaking, and rocky old kanote.   We women had to quickly perfect the art of holding our sarongs up while we washed everywhere using a dip bucket of river water -- trying to keep the boat from tipping while others were doing the same!  I wasn't sure I was up to this, but it felt so good to get that dust off our bodies that you just didn't think too much about it!  Later we heard there were crocodiles in the river too -- well, I never saw one but a couple of people said they had seen them by the end of our time.  Its a good thing I didn't see on because I don't think I would have been able to balance myself on the bamboo platforms that we hung our legs from in other villages.  We became very adept at taking showers and bucket baths in a variety of situations. 

Gnerally, the first night at a village, we set up "jungle camp" and got ourselves situated, then the next day we spent holding the clinic -- or a couple of clinics if we sent a small team to another village.  Then the following morning, we packed up and headed out in the kanotes to the next place up stream.  These villages were sometimes only 50 families large -- others were about 150.

Clinics:

Overall, our clinics were very successful -- we saw a lot of patients by the end of our time -- esp. moms and babies.  There were lots of patients with colds, viruses, worms, scabbies, and various other assorted problems.  I generally worked the pharmacy or helped students when they needed extra help trying to figure out what a person had or what questions to ask them.  It was challenging sometimes as we could not always get a clear answer. Our students and translators were quite busy with the crowd pressing in and going through three languages to diagnose what a person had was draining!  I am so proud of them for what they accomplished and how well they served the villages.  Many villagers were blessed and prayed for because these students persevered even when things got a bit chaotic or lunch didn't show up and they were hot and tired. 

Village Khun:

From the beginning we were able to tell a few villagers in each location about Jesus.  In the first village, there was a man and his wife that accepted the Lord at the end of our clinic.  It turns out that the wife was the village witchdoctor and has quite a following in terms of teaching people from other villages her trade.  She wasn't sure what to tell them about it now, but we were able to help her find answers to her questions.  Her son and his family are also pondering if they should accept Jesus too.  He said he would watch his mother first and see what  happens.  This village --Khun-- is the family home to one of our translators.  She and her husband and the village chief and his wife are about the only Christians in the village.  So this is a huge break through for the village.  The next day we were supposed to leave for another village, but it rained so hard, we could not go.  We began to worship and praise God and these families joined us and we ended up telling them about the Good Samaritan and more about what it means to be a Christian as well as answering questions.  Please pray for this couple who accepted Christ and their son to accept him.  We want to see the power of the Lord in their lives -- not the power of witchcraft. 

Our Boat Driver:

One of our boat drivers also accepted the Lord the day before we broke up.  He was an older man and had been so sick with a terrible cough that he was going to go home in the middle of our trip.  His boat was the one we put all the luggage on and we could not have found another boat that size without considerable difficulty.  We ministered to his physical condition and then he just watched our team as we went about our days and nights.  Then he asked one of the team to tell him more about Jesus.  It was quite amazing to see his face the next day as several said his countenance changed considerably.  This was a divine appointment!  Thanks for your prayers.

Food:

Our trip just kept getting better with the exception of the food . . . which lacked protein.  I didn't realize just how poor these villages were until the last one we held clinic at.  There was a woman who brought her baby to me to look at her skin.  The baby just had dry skin and nothing more.  I told her to use some cooking oil on the child after she bathed her but she told me she had no cooking oil.  This is a basic part of each kitchen as it is in most households in the world.  But she had none.  I don't know what they were eating but our cooks in most of the villages helped themselves to our rice for their own use since their rice was not quite ready for harvest.  This leads me to believe that many did not have even rice to eat.  It was quite sad. 

Special Priviledge:

We were all ready to be back to the largest city in the area, Ban Lung, after our 10 day jungle clinics.  From here we had an amazing opportunity to work with the government and an NGO called Health Net in a provence wide campaign to give immunizations.  It was not something we often get to do as part of our school, so we took advantage of it.   The students went out for 4 days with teams of local health care workers to give immunizations to babies and moms.  They travelled sometimes for 2 hours one way in a truck to get to several village stops.  I think they all did very well and were blessed to see that they can make a difference in the lives of these kids and their moms.

Sick:

During this time, I was sick with some kind of Asian flu.  4 days of fever, sore throat, achy limbs, headache and bronchiti.   I've still got the cough left and its been almost 10 days of antibiotics and cough medicine!  Please pray for me to get over this. 

On to Thailand:

Two days ago we travelled from Phnom Penh to Poipet on the border of Thailand by bus which took about 8 hours, then we went through immigration and travelled by vans to Bangkok for about 4 more hours.  Tonight we leave for Chiang Mai on the night train which leaves about midnight but we have to leave the YWAM base here at 8 PM to get there on time.  Once we arrive in Chiang Mai, we will stay a few days there and then begin working with hilltribe villages near there.  We will possibly go into Myanmar as things seem to have settled down but don't quite know yet.  We are looking forward to working with contacts IPHC has previously worked with and going to villages where they don't know Jesus.

Please continue to pray for us -- especially for our unity (which is quite good really) and for our health -- most people got some part of that virus -- I was lucky enough to get it all!  Of course, keep praying for all the prayer points on the prayer page.  I am so glad you are praying.  We could not do this without your input that way.  THANK YOU!!!   Cambodia thanks you, we thank you, Thailand thanks you and of course, the Lord loves your prayers too!!  I'll try to send pictures from Jungle Camp while in Chiang Mai.

 Don’t stop praying!  Prayer Requests

click 2007 News for previous 2007 entries.