...Finally Here!

After much planning and preparation, time and travel, we're finally here, writing from Cambodia. That's right, all four of us: Ryan, Bethany, Juliana, and Kai are all her in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.
We've been here for about a week and a half, arriving here late Sunday evening, April 13th. Our long weekend of travel went well, better than we were fearing it might! Juliana did especially well. We weren't sure how we were going to channel all her energy in ways that would not be disruptive to other passengers. One activity she enjoyed was going to the back of the plane and tossing/kicking an inflatable neck pillow back and forth with Ryan. (No injuries sustained!) We made all our connections (not always with a lot of time), and the only real disappointments were when Bethany got peed on while changing Kai on her lap at the gate waiting area in LAX, and when Kai had a leaky, diarrhea diaper while Ryan was holding him on the flight to Seoul. So we're very grateful for all your prayers for us while traveling.
We have many things to be grateful for. We continue to enjoy the fantastic living situation we have. How nice to not have to "set up house" right away because of the opportunity to be in a fully furnished place. Mike and Rachel Hill (who will be home in the U.K. for several months) left very clear and helpful instructions/advice about the house and how to relate with the landlords and house helper, Ty (sounds like "tie").
The landlords are already grandparents and therefore have taken also to Juliana and Kai. "Yey" (rhymes with "say," Khmer for "grandma") made sure to let us know that if ever we need someone to hold Kai, she'd be happy to do the honors. She also likes to swing him in her hammock. Yey is not the only one eager to spend time with our little chunk of a man. We might have to soon be concerned about him getting spoiled by all the attention of the doting neighbor women. They love to hold him always comment about how big and white he is. It really is ideal for us to live in an area where we'll have lots of contact with neighbors. It gives us frequent opportunity for interaction, building relationships, and practicing our Khmer.
How are we experiencing the transition? Well, we're each experiencing it in our own unique way. The one thing we have in common is that it seems that we have all learned to get our days and nights straight. Ryan is excited and optimistic (what's new?) Bethany is happy, but feeling a bit overwhelmed by the balancing act of getting settled, being a parent, and learning Khmer. Juliana had a first rough week, made obvious by some of her emotional outbursts. She was often confused by us talking a new language, and would sometimes (in a disoriented and emotionally-charged tone) say, "Say it plain Daddy!" (To her, anything besides English is not "plain speech.") She is doing better with this already and is now responding correctly to some simple questions we ask her in Khmer. (We speak mostly in English, but are using more and more Khmer vocab in the home as we learn it.) Yesterday she spent a couple hours playing with Yey's granddaughter. They threw/kicked a small soccer ball back and forth and ran around pretending to be wolves, "hoooowl!!!" It's neat to see how language barriers don't keep Juliana from having fun with her peers here. Kai seems to be his same contented self. It's hard for him to keep cool and he's often just wearing a diaper around the house. Both he and Juliana have suffered a bit from heat rash, but some powder (and a haircut for Juliana) have helped Kai's behind and Juliana's neck to feel better.
Well, that's it for now. I'm disappointed to not be able to include pictures with this posting. (I'm not writing from my own computer.) We will try to figure something out before next week so we can share some snapshots with you.
Blessings to you...

Lessons in Language Acquisition

Wow, so much has happened in the past several months! Our lives have been a whirlwind of activity as our family continued adjusting to its newest member, raised missionary support, sorted and packed our earthly possessions, tried to tie up "loose ends" and had special "last moments" with dear family and friends before leaving PA. We had hoped to be able to publish posts along the way and let you glimpse us "in action," but with all that happened, blogging never made it to the top of the list! So, we'll jump in with the latest adventure, and maybe someday we can go back and share more photos from the previous months...

We have just completed two intense and very helpful weeks of training with Mission Training International in Palmer Lake, CO. The course is called PILAT, and stands for Program In Language Acquisition Techniques. We've been grateful for the time to be here as a family, gain practical skills for jumping into our language learning adventure, make lots of new missionary friends, and enjoy the beautiful Colorado scenery! A not-so-fun aspect of the time was the stomach bug that made its rounds during the second week, but we're mostly back to normal and ready to fly out of Colorado Springs tomorrow for our trip-around-the-world! Cambodia, HERE WE COME!!

A scene from our extended airport stay - they look happy, but it went downhill from there!

Here we are in class, learning how to learn languages with our missionary classmates

Dwight Gradin, PILAT director and instructor, and Ryan, volunteer "language learner," model one of the techniques we learned

A phonetics drill session, where we "got our mouths into shape" to make the new sounds of our target languages

Joanne Smith, another instructor, and some of the phonetic vowels we were trying to say in the photo above

Dwight and Barbara Gradin (former Wycliffe missionaries to Viet Nam and PILAT director/instructors) and daughter Andrea Tepley (another instructor) were so helpful, and told great stories from their experiences on the field

While the adults had class, the children had their own fun classes, and Juliana enjoyed her time with "Aunt" Laura and her classmates

Kai, enjoying a favorite spot in his class, where he hung out with "Aunt" Sandy, other caregivers, and fellow nursery buddies

Juliana loved to push the buttons for the elevator - we called her our little "Bellhop!"

Our precious, soon-to-be bilingual, multi-cultural children! (Juliana: 3 yrs.; Kai: almost 4 mon.)