The Day Family Blog

There is a little shop here in Phnom Penh ’s touristy Russian Market that sells these beautiful embroidered banners. The labyrinth of stalls in this market, which we unashamedly frequent, is often very repetitive. A whole row of jewelers; there are your North Face backpacks, there’s your Cambodian-tourist parachute pants… the items go on and on. This one stall in particular is a one of a kind. It is backed by a local Christian NGO and helps at-risk women with employment by teaching them the trade of screen printing. The result is these beautiful banners they sell which display scriptures from the Bible. Gretchen and I put our order in a couple weeks ago for a customized banner. We wanted to get the first verse from a passage of scripture in the book of Romans which memorializes many of our experiences here. Romans 8:18 is the verse on our banner. The text speaks the promise God gives us for persevering through the pains of the present world. It urges us to consider the present ...

We have been here for two months and we have one more month to go. Lately I've been feeling emotionally drained.  There is so much suffering, pain, and brokenness here that we encounter everyday. One of the little girls this week told us she has been raped, luckily we already know about her story and our staff at Hard Places has been working hard to get her into a safe home. I saw a man beating his 3 year old child with a stick and there was nothing I could do about it. We consistently see older men (40s-60s) with younger Khmer girls (12-20s) at restaurants we eat at, we all know what is going on there. " For my thoughts are not your thoughts,      neither are your ways my ways, declares the  Lord . 9  For as the heavens are higher than the earth,      so are my ways higher than your ways      and my thoughts than your thoughts." -Isaiah 55:8-9 This verse has been an incredible comfort ...

Here are some random updates :) I've posted earlier how I've been helping out with the girls that have been coming to the boys center. Well we had been meeting in the front lobby and I had unofficially become in charge of playing and hanging out with them every morning. We were supposed to get a girls center on July 15, but sadly we didn't have enough funding and staff to open one. But we officially get to use the library of the boys center to meet with the girls in the mornings! This is exciting because we have started to create a curriculum that will be a mini version of what the girls would be getting at the future girls center. We teach English, play games, do crafts, sing songs, teach bible studies, and have lots of fun! Planning all of it takes a lot of time and research, but it is so fun when we actually get to teach the girls.  This past Saturday we got to take the all of the kids (I think about 140 of them) to Dreamland, which is an amusement park that reminds ...

Here are a list of some of the weird, strange and interesting things about Cambodia that I've observed. This is by no means a list making fun of the people or their culture. But as a first time traveler, there were many things that were very new and surprising to an American.  There are no rules in traffic, it is completely acceptable to drive on the other side of the road. Many stores here start with "Lucky". For example, "Lucky Burger" "Luck Supermarket", "Lucky Internet", "Lucky Star Hotel". Pinching, hitting, and even kicking babies is totally fine... as long as they are really cute. Dogs love to roam the roads and put their butts together. So weird. There is trash everywhere, the street and sidewalks are not super clean. On that note, you can throw your trash in random trash piles on the side of the road, which is pretty cool. Businesses and stores will all sell the exact same product in the same area right next to each ...

This most recent week has been full with feelings of sadness, pain, and wonder as well as knowledge of the faithfulness, glory, and love of God. Truths from Romans 5, 8, and the entire biblical promise of hope of renewal for all things have been place weightily on my heart and those of our whole house. If you have been following updates on Facebook or the blog, you know of six year old Sok and may even feel like you know the little boy. He’s really great! He’s warm, funny, and steals your heart in an instant. Without evening knowing you, he will ask you to come with him to his room to play with cars. He’ll ask you to sit down with him in our big chairs to play with a staff member’s iPhone. He even asked me to accompany him to the bathroom this morning… ha. Sok’s story is one of great sadness and difficulty, but also of God’s nearness and love. I want to write, to highlight and glorify God’s goodness in the midst of difficulty. Difficulty that is not only occasional, but diffic...

Some of you might have seen me post some recent status' for prayer requests for a little boy named Sok. Here is the latest update from The Hard Places Community about his condition. " After weeks of trying to locate surgeons who could operate on Sok's heart, we were led to  www.babyheart.org . It's a great organization that is saving the lives of children all over the world. The head doctor there said that he  could perform Sok's surgery, but that the facilities in Cambodia were not equipped to handle such a complex operation, so we would have to fly Sok to another country where we would meet the cardiology team from Babyheart. We began the long and tedious task of getting the necessary paperwork for Sok's passport, and thanks to Steph and Borey, the paperwork was completed for us to apply for passports. However, Sok was admitted to ICU at Royal Ratanak Hospital three nights ago in critical condition. After much consultation with his doctor, we know that Sok ...

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 ...