The Day Family Blog

Yesterday we got the opportunity to go visit Agape International Missions (AIM) in Svay Pak which is a small village 11 kilometers outside of Phnom Penh. Svay Pak is known for it's trafficking of young children. Don Brewster and his wife, Bridget, moved there in 2006 and started AIM with a rehabilitation home for girls rescued from sex trafficking. They have grown so much since then. When we visited yesterday, it seemed they owned every other building on the main street in Svay Pak. All of their buildings are aimed to defeat child sex trafficking, and it is awesome to see all of the work God is doing in that village because of AIM.  It was so amazing to see how God is creating such beauty and life out of death and darkness. Every single building they have used to be a brothel. I don't know how much more evil you can get then a brothel filled with children. The thought of it makes me sick to my stomach. But God, in His goodness, is so much bigger than any evil in this world ...

I know I've said it before, but time here continues to go by quickly. This week we will have been here one month.  I want to give you an update on what I've been doing here. Last week we had a team from Mississippi come to help HPC out, so that left us interns with some more random jobs. On Monday I got to babysit the director, Alli's two little girls which was very fun. She is an  extremely busy person, so I was glad I got to help out a little bit. Then I was put in charge of organizing a couple of things. The first was a room in Alli's house which will become a team hangout room. It was filled with many random things that I organized and but into boxes. Then I was put in charge of organizing the craft/game/costume/office shelves in the staff office. This was quite a task because organization is not a valued skill in Khmer culture. But after a few days of cleaning and organizing, it looks awesome! I've also been doing outreach at Wat Phnom. We go for a few hours i...

I can't believe we have already been here for two weeks! Time has gone by very quickly. Each day I grow to love this city more and more. The first week we volunteered at the Boys Center , I helped with the different classes they hold in the mornings for the boys (computer classes, English classes, discipleship, and  playroom therapy). Then in the afternoons I helped out at kids club at the Boys Center which consists of dancing to songs, playing games, skits, worship and a lesson. I really enjoyed my time doing that, the boys are all so awesome and even though we don't speak the same language, we are still able to connect and have fun.  But this week some girls from the streets and surrounding neighborhoods have started to hang out on the main floor at the Boys Center in the mornings. They usually wouldn't allow them to come in because it is for boys, but they will hopefully be opening a center for girls this summer and they want to start building relationships with the gi...

I would have had an album uploaded by now, but after 4 hours of waiting I was only at 128 out of 225 pictures and then figured out that facebook said it would take another 16 hours to upload. So I canceled it. We will get internet in our house on Monday, so I hope I can upload pictures much quicker on that wifi. Here are some tastes of life in Cambodia so far! The Killing Fields A memorial for the victims of the Khmer Rouge A small outdoor market There were SO many birds in this cage! They believe that when they let the birds go, they receive good luck.    The Independence Monument A monument in the middle of a roundabout  representing their independence from France in 1953. The sign the Khmer staff made for us! They are all so great! Central Market   A random statue of a dragon. There are a lot of them.  We see monks everywhere, especially in the mornings when  they go  ...

A blog post from Josh's perspective follows! It feels like its been a long time since we arrived not because its been a long, difficult week but because there has been so many new experiences and we've done so much. The week has been really good and I'm starting to find my roles to fill while serving The Hard Places Community (HPC). First, thanks for your prayer, everyone. The beginning of the week was tougher as we were clueless in a new foreign city, figuring out how to eat safely, Gretch battled a two-day bug, and seeking to know God's place for us here. The church has been a huge encouragement and refuge in all the newness though as we still have all things in common with the body and our shared salvation transcends all foreign experiences. As for my role, it's still being revealed. However, I know I'll be teaching the discipleship class for the older boys (8-12 years old) at the HPC boys center which serves boys victim of physical or sexual abuse or are at ...

This was the first journal entry I wrote the second day we were here. “We made it! We are finally here in Cambodia! I still can’t believe we are in Phnom Penh! I want to journal about everything. I want to capture every moment. Everything is so new, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes. And I love it! Walking off the plane and out of the airport was so much fun! We immediately felt the hot humidity and it felt like paradise… I probably won’t continue to think of that word when the heat becomes a norm. We got to go on a tuk tuk (pronounced took took) which will be our daily mode of transportation. This I also love. Our first look at the city was on the tuk tuk ride form the airport to the house. There were so many things to take in and I wanted to soak everything up. Which I know in the next three months I will have time to do. I have ever seen anything like this city, this kind of poverty level. The streets are filled with trash; almost every house has some sort of shop in ...