so what?

Interesting few days…

First there was real tragedy among lots of missionaries and pastors. One pastor who has been here for 12 years committed adultery last week. He was apparently unrepentant and has caused a lot of pain. His son Micah came to stay. He led a church of about 500. Mainly Khmer. He started by just teaching English. Which always gathers a crowd, then built from there. He had just passed the leadership onto his eldest son. Steve was clearly very upset. I don’t know what to say.

Then positively a guy called sowat (so what? Sowat!), who was part of the church about 18 months ago. Phoned Steve out of the blue and said he wants to come back. No one knows why he left or if he made a commitment. We went and visited him today. His English is very good and he is going to come to the church on Sunday. This is really good news for Steve as sowat was one of their first real Khmer contacts.
So we went to his house, which was basically one room, with one big bed in the corner then a few little stalls round the edge. He apologised that his house was so small. Which I was baffled about. But offered us fruit and a drink and we got talking. He said how good it was to see Steve again and to meet me was a real pleasure. He shared his desire to go to university but because his wife doesn’t work and he has a child to care for he is stuck working at a motodop (a motorbike taxi station). For him and many like him his life is a constant struggle to support his family. His desire is to get out of this circle of poverty but the only way to do it would be to ask his family not to eat for a few years. It is a very hard life. Yet his smile was overpowering and his zeal for life captivating. I liked him a lot.

I have my second day of home schooling tomorrow. This should be interesting. It is actually very easy and the boys know what they have to do anyway. The lesson plans are really good and I have to say I think they are getting a much better education than I had. They are learning about all sorts of things I still don’t know anything about. Having said that because the material is American they spend a lot of time studying the Wild West and Abraham Lincoln etc…

There are only two things I really miss. Milk and Jo-Anna (my guitar). I would give anything to have her with me. I wish now I hadn’t worried about my baggage allowance and just taken the risk and brought her.
You can’t get good fresh milk here. The fresh milk is extremely creamy and very expensive.
But on the other hand I do eat mangoes for breakfast. Beggars cant be choosers…