Arriving in Odormeanchey

June 20 (I think that’s the date… I’m all messed up…)

 

Another good day in Cambodia!  After spending a couple hours in the Internet café yesterday madly converting and uploading files for this blog I headed straight over to the evening concert site with the team.  As we arrived the South African team immediately began praying over the concert site.  They prayed for the people that would be coming and they prayed for the ground to dry quickly.  (We had quite a good rain shower that lasted most of the morning during the rice distribution that had left all of Poipet slippery and muddy.  Someone said it reminded them of what the Old West towns must have been like after a downpour.  I agree.  Mud squished up everywhere.  It’s really quite something to see people driving through it with their bikes, mopeds and cars – it’s a free for all.)

The concert was wonderful!  The bugs were a problem for the musicians but I helped several of them with extra layers of bug spray and they continued on throughout the evening in a fantastic way.  I was real proud of them.  Singing and playing while they were being dive bombed with every sort of Cambodian flying bug imaginable. 

I stayed on stage (at the back corner) for a while to assist with any needs they might have and to help people up and down the 3 step ladder to get on and off it.  I left to walk around for a while to get a good idea for how many people had come, to see how the ground was doing and to stretch my muscles a bit.  I was really fighting fatigue.  I had been out in the heat since we had left the hotel about 7 that morning.  (The restaurants we eat at in this part of the country are open air type – we’ve got a roof over our heads but only partial walls.)  The rest of the team had several hours in the hotel to cool off while I was sweating it out in the Internet café.  Real happy to do it but I found I faded a little early in the evening.  So I headed to one of the vans and with the door open put my head back a bit.  Coming from the great Pacific Northwest and growing up here I’m used to heat, but not the humidity.  It’s drained me more than  would have imagined – pretty oppressive at times.

The concert went off beautifully.  My favorite moment was when Bobby had a bunch of the Cambodian children come up on the stage and join our 15 year old young team member – Lino – on a song.  It’s a song with a lot of corryography which he taught them and then they tried to do it while he did during the song.  They had a blast as did all of us watching. 

There weren’t as many people at this concert.  In fact, I’m told it was the least attended evening concert in the history of doing them here.  We found out later that the usual promotion hadn’t been done.  But we’ve all been impressed that there was at least one, if not several people there (likely one of the children) that experienced a change that will last them the rest of their life and they will become an amazing leader for Christ in the country of Cambodia some day.

A lot happened today that I want to share with you but I’m beat and need to shut the computer down, do a little worship time and turn out the light.  (I’m keeping my roommate away I’m afraid.) 

 

Oh, but first, one funny thing from yesterday.  Well, funny and really sad at the same time.  We’re driving (or I should say sloshing and sliding) down the main mud road in Poipet and gentleman walks right into the middle of traffic and right up to the front of the van while we’re slowly driving.  Our driver stops so he doesn’t run into the guy.  The guy walks up to the front window, grabs our window washer blades and stands them both up then walks off.  Our other van drivers saw what happened and were laughing over their two-way radios.  We were thrown off a bit as well.

It was funny because it was so amazingly random and without purpose.  It was sad because he obviously either had mental problems or was drugged up.  So many people here in need – in many different ways.  Being one of the poorer areas in the country, I understand that drugs are a real problem in the Poipet area. 

 

 

 

 

Kevin Krueger

General Manager

Positive Life Radio Network

Listen Live at www.plr.org