Greetings from Cambodia!
What a day it has been.  Thank you all for your prayers  we had a wonder
weather today which was key for Joy Festival.  Joy Festival was planned for
9am-11am, but we had kids come as early as 6am this morning.  By the time
9am came, we had about 350 kids (both Life U students and kids who live
around the church who comes to Sunday worship) waiting outside to come.  We
had to quickly plan outdoor games so we can divide them up into two groups
because we didn't think that we could handle all of them at once.  We opened
the door and welcome the kids who are just filled with excitement as they
came up the stairs.  They were just so excited coming in.  We gathered and
told them the rules, how they can't run, they have to stand in line to wait
to play.  Then they started to play.  It was great seeing each of them
enjoying their time together.  Beside the kids we also had about 50 parents
that came and enjoyed having their family portrait taken and printed as gift
for them.  We setup a photo booth because we heard that it is a rare thing
for families to have a picture taken.  After about 45 minutes of playing, we
switched and the second group came up.  We handed out small gifts as the
kids went out after playing.  By the time 11am came for school bus to take
the kids home, we are so exhausted and soaked in sweat but we were just all
pumped up.  We are thankful that we were able to bring some joy into each
kid and also gave the parents who are all non-Christians, an opportunity to
come to Church.  

Although we were tired, we couldn't rest long because after lunch we had to
prepare for visiting the orphanage.  We had with us clothes that our members
donated and bags of soaps, shampoos that hotel uses that were donated to
Lisa Aldabe by her friend as gifts.  We were also equipped with balloons and
individual gift bags.  The nursing students accompanied us to the orphanage
and when we got there, all the kids were waiting and clapped as we walked in
the compound.  This orphanage has been around for a long time and there are
kids as old as 15 here, over 100 of them.  The director is a nice older lady
who is a Buddhist but welcome Christian.  We thanked her first for allowing
us to come and present the gifts we brought.  Then we told her that we have
a program that we prepared and a short Christian message and asked if it was
ok to do that.  She smiled and said that was fine.  Before our program, the
orphans had a welcome song prepared for us.  Then we started with some time
of praise including making melody in my heart.  Then our first Clown team
(Isaiah, Stephen, Alex and Andrew S) gave the performance of their life and
brought the whole place down with laughter.  Chris Park then gave a message
regarding sin and how God is only one who can help us with sin.  By then
kids were already warm up to us and we broke up into older and younger
children to have time for games.  Although we were only able to stay for
about two hours, when it was time for us to leave, everyone just felt
attached to everyone little one of them who we know they are precious to
God.  We took a group picture and ended our visit by holding hands and
prayed with the children.  As we walked back to the bus and even when we
were driving away, they just kept waving.  So many of us couldn't keep our
eyes dry.  On our drive back, we prayed quietly for the orphans and for the
orphanage staff that they will come to know Christ through the visitation of
many Christian groups and our nursing teachers who visits weekly.

The night ended with team time as we sat on mats outside, because it was a
beautiful night where we played true/lies games to get to know each other
better.  The highlight of the evening is hearing Michael Zhang sharing that
when he was young he and his teammate on the tennis team had to sing
"sixteen going on seventeen" from Sound of Music to Billy Jean King who was
visiting his school.  After that we had to make him sing that and just had a
great laugh as all of us felt our skin turned chicken skin  :) 

Today is full day of class.  We started to pack up our supplies and clean up
our rooms in preparation for our departure.  Tonight we are going out with
the bible students and nursing students who are Christians to the market
then bring back fruits to have fellowship time together.  We are also going
to have time of sharing and prayer in small group to encourage one another
as many of them are going to be the future Christian leaders of this nation.

Thank you for your prayers!  We can't believe that our time is coming to an
end.  

CAM 1 Team