Welcome to the Kingdom

Well hello,
I have been in the Kingdom of Cambodia for almost two weeks,
and boy is it different than Thailand and Nepal.

We are in Poipet,
dusty,
poor,
corrupt,
a smattering of random shops,
shanty slum houses,
and casinos.

Poipet is a town right on the border of Thailand, and gambling is illegal in Thailand, so when you cross the border are these mega-buildings for casinos, and the rest of the city is just shambles. Also, Poipet is a place where many, many Cambodian children get trafficked (smuggled across the border into Thailand for prostitution).

Cambodia is also, in a sense, a "new country", because in 1979, a rebel group called the Khmer Rouge did a mass genicide and killed millions of people out of paranoia and control. Anyone who was educated, a doctor, school teacher, even if you had glasses (because you looked smart), were killed because they might be a threat to the Khmer Rouge.
So now, when you walk the streets, there are no old people here. They died in the massacre.
80% of the population of Cambodia is under 35 years old.
So its a very different atmosphere here spiritually.... lots going on.

But in the midst of all this,
the people are still beautiful,
and the children still manage to have fun, like flying a kite out of a garbage bag they found.

It is ridiculously hot here,
and ridiculously humid!
There is no airconditioning for relief,
and we pretty much have wet, dripping faces, and our clothes soaked in our own sweat.
All the time! Yummy.

But Cambodia is still awesome.
It is the beginning of the rainy season, so around lunchtime everyday, there is a torrential downpour that deafens the ears and makes me stand in awe of how big God is.
Then everything that was dusty, now becomes sludgy mud, and we slip and slide our way back home.

We got caught in the downpour today, it monumentally soaked me through, but I loved it!
We were walking to the internet place, which is 1.5 km away, roughly a 25 minute walk. (There are no taxis in Poipet....you walk.)

We are staying with a cool Christian woman who lives here now, but she's from Australia.
She lives in a house with many rooms and many floors, so it accomdates our team of 9 well.
We eat delicious Cambodian food everyday.... every meal is my favorite meal! I've never experienced so many good flavours, consecutively!

For the last week and a half we have been working under CHO, Cambodian Hope Organization, a Christian non-profit that branches out to help all areas of society here.
We are working hard in the mornings digging an uber-long ditch for homes they are building to house rescued children from the trafficking industry.
This week we'll be helping in an HIV patient hospice. In the afternoons we chill with the families we've met in the slum communities around, and teach English at a nearby church. I really like the hands-on type of ministry we're doing here... its a different pace than Nepal, and really touching.

I still don't think I've grasped the depth of the poverty here, or how dire the corruption is and how poor the majority really is. One sweet lady we met yesterday, asked us to pray that God would provide for her and her 5 children... because sometimes she doesnt have rice to feed them.
What does one do with that reality?

We only have 12 days left, it has been amazing so far,
I am thankful for this place,
and how God is growing me, and softening my heart when I try to keep it shielded.