Traditional Dance (Blog Back Issue #3)

This is a clip of three young women from Phnom Penh Mennonite Church doing a traditional dance in the Christmas program on December 27, 2009. They are (from L): Thavy, Sony, and Sophea. Didn't they do a great job? : )

Celebrating Christmas (Blog Back-Issue #2)

Here are some bits and pieces from our Christmas celebrations and festivities in December...

In the middle of December, we made a weekend-trip to Kompong Cham, the home province of Srey Roth, Pastor Dady's wife. We joined her mother's family for their Christmas service and dedication of the newly-constructed church building/house, which included a great pageant/concert by the children and youth.

The day before Christmas, I was finally feeling good enough to tackle my desired project of baking Christmas cookies for our family and several other families. Ming Nyaw's daughters, SreyMom and SreyLaek, stopped by in time to get in on the fun - perhaps the first time they made Christmas cookies? Despite some gas-stove issues, the cookies turned out pretty well!

Christmas morning, the kids wanted to open up the MOUNDS of gifts lovingly sent by our family and MST (thanks again, guys!) before eating a proper breakfast - who wouldn't? - so we stopped for a bread break amidst the gifts and wrapping when our bellies grumbled.

Our tree was up in the corner of our upstairs room/bedroom, and along with the stockings, really helped to make it "feel" like Christmas in the tropical heat.

Christmas night, our family enjoyed cookies and a showing of "The VeggieTales Christmas Special" video in the family room, and Juliana and Kai got extra silly, thanks to the antics of those crazy vegetables and some added sugar in the bloodstream!

The following Sunday, Phnom Penh Mennonite Church celebrated Jesus' birth in typically festive style. Along with lots of Christmas songs and special sharing, several members performed a special, Khmer-style "opera," lip-syncing along to the CD which told the story of Christ's birth. Above, Joseph and Mary praise God in "song." : )

Here the three Wise Men entertain the audience as they search for the new King. I couldn't understand everything said, but the congregation got a bang out of their part of the performance. : )

Lots of gifts were given out in the service as well. Mothers, leaders, and random-drawing winners were among those blessed with small tokens of Christmas joy by PPMC. Here, the children of the congregation receive gifts. (L to R: Kai, Juliana, Mittaphum, Daniel, Rachel, ____, Davey Will, and Allison.) It was a great day of celebrating the Lord's birth with brothers and sisters in Christ!

- Bethany

December Birthdays (Blog Back-Issue #1)

Dear Blog Readers,

We are doing some blog back-issues for the past 3 months because we have many pictures and stories we've not yet shared here. December was a busy and difficult month for us. Besides the busyness of 2 birthdays (Juliana on the 4th and Kai on the 17th) and Christmas celebrations, we were saddened to experience a miscarriage. We were 9 weeks pregnant when we miscarried on December 15th. So within two days we mourned the loss of our baby and celebrated the life of our 2-year old son. We sensed God's grace in special ways and felt very cared for by family and friends here and in the U.S. Thanks to the many of you who prayed for us and sent encouraging e-mails our way!


Birthday Bits:
Juliana had been looking forward to her 5th birthday party for quite a long time and frequently asked us, "How many days 'til my birthday?" On her big day, she got to go shopping for new sandals with Mommy, ride bumper cars with Daddy, and eat macaroni and cheese with the whole family.
Above: Daddy and the birthday girl at the bumper-car rink which we had almost to ourselves in the late afternoon. It was good that it was nearly empty, considering there were no seatbelts in the bumper cars and Juliana was excited, but also a bit nervous about her first experience in this kind of entertainment.

The next day, we had five of Juliana's preschool friends over for a party. Mommy made a yummy cake. Here we're singing. Other activities included facepainting, playing in the sandbox, and musical chairs...

Here Juliana poses for a picture with her friend Hannah after receiving a finger print/doodle pad for her birthday.

As for Kai, his party was much more low-key. We celebrated it as a family, inviting Nyaw, our househelper, to join us.

This boy knows what to do in front of a camera!

A family friend offered to make a cake for Kai's birthday because of Bethany being in the hospital and weak from the miscarriage when she would have liked to be baking. Kai loves cars, trucks, and trains so we were blessed that it was such an appropriate cake, complete with a little car on top.

We love our children and were happy to celebrate their birthdays. As we experienced the loss of a little baby in the same month, we were reminded again to not take for granted the wonderful gift of life that God has given us and our two little ones (who aren't so little anymore!).
- Ryan

Our New Home, Part Two

Welcome to the second half of the tour of our new place!
One of the best things about our new home is our neighbors. We get to interact with our neighbors much more than at our old place, primarily because only half of our first floor is indoors. The rest of the space feels like a big open porch, great for biking and all kinds of fun activities!
Above: Juliana and her neighbor friend Liza play with our neighbor's puppies. So fun!

One of the two downstairs rooms in our new place is the kitchen/dining room. We eat many good Khmer and American meals here. While most of our lunch and supper meals are rice and stirfries, we often enjoy yogurt, oatmeal, bread, or Bethany's homemade granola for breakfast.

Juliana poses in our family room on the first floor. Though there's quite a few toys in this room, the toys get played with mostly outside. VeggieTales and other fun DVD's get played in this room.

The second floor of our house is made from a dark wood and not a lot of overhead light. We like the cabin-like feel of this floor. This is Ryan and Bethany's bed. We have no closets in the house, so as you can see, we make good use of under-bed storage opportunities. (No picure of Juliana and Kai's room, which is pretty small and only holds their beds, a changing table, and a couple of fans.)

With Simon contentedly on her lap, Bethany sits in the 2nd floor office. Email-checking, accounting work, and most other computer-related tasks get done in this room.

We continue to enjoy the new house and look forward to sharing it with others. Who knows, someday maybe we will use it to host you!

-Ryan

Our New Home, Part One

On September 23rd, our family moved into a new house! It's a traditional-style, concrete-downstairs-wooden-upstairs house, which are plentiful in the countryside but in the minority in the city. After some weeks of adjusting to a much smaller living space, we all agree that we really like it, especially that we're outdoors so much more of the time. We're grateful for a decent-sized yard where Juliana and Kai can ride bike, swim in a wading pool, and play in safety.

In the photo below, Juliana is sitting on the only stairs to the second floor, so when it's raining, we get wet if we need to go up or down. : ) (The rainy season is nearly over, though, and we're looking forward to the cool/dry season - my favorite!) This house is cooler than our other house, which was made all of concrete and kept the heat in at night.

Juliana and Kai enjoy playing in the sandbox that we bought. A motorbike-pulled cart delivered the sand for a whopping $5!

Another feature of our new home is the abundance of wildlife such as birds, geckos, lizards, snails, etc. Some creatures we don't appreciate as much, like the rodents, spiders, ants and mosquitos that are more prevalent here than at our old place. We actually took in a domesticated animal as well - introducing our cat, _______! (We're still just calling him Kitty, since he'd been named Stoopid and we have yet to all agree on a new name!)

Above, a huge snail we discovered on a water tank, and below, a very shy lizard that lives in the corner of our yard and loves to sunbathe.

More to come, but that's good for starters! : )

Wedding Bells in France

When I flew out of Cambodia on Wednesday, August 19th, I didn't know how rich the next few days would be. My destination was France. My purpose was to attend the wedding of Rodney (younger brother) and Alex (Alexandra).

We were disappointed that our whole family couldn't go, but Bethany, Juliana, and Kai did well at holding down the home fort while I enjoyed time at the wedding and reconnecting with my parents.

Here's Juliana and Kai trying to sneak into my suitcase

It was wonderful to finally meet Alex and to share supper with the soon-to-be-married couple on Thursday evening.

On Friday afternoon, Rodney, Alex and I welcomed our parents to the area too.

The wedding was beautiful, and I'm not just talking about the bride and groom (pictured above)


I had the honor of being Rodney's best man. Somehow it wasn't hard to say "Cheese!" in France.


The wedding reception was held at an old stone castle. It was a photographer's delight. Here the newlyweds pose with Mom, Dad, and I.

One of the best parts of my time in France was just simply seeing Rodney and Alex interact together. I witnessed love as I saw them experience laughter and tears together. I'm so glad they can be together and share in the wonderful gift of marriage.

-Ryan

August Beach Vacation

On July 29, our family left Phnom Penh to spend the next nine days on vacation at the Cambodian seaside. The town of Sihanoukville (named for a former king) is a pleasant destination, much different from the congested capital. We had been there as a family in December, and stayed at a Hotel School that trains students in the hospitality business while practicing on actual guests. We decided to head to Don Bosco Hotel School again, and thoroughly enjoyed our stay. Since it was the middle of the rainy season (not a high tourist time), we were the only guests for most of the time we were there!

a photo of the Hotel from the Don Bosco website

We had great food all week, and loved the fresh rolls at every meal!

Not only was it rainy season, but contrary to the rain-then-sun-then-more-rain of Phnom Penh, it rained for several days at a time in Sihanoukville. That, and the fact that during the rainy season, the Gulf of Thailand is pretty rough with big waves, we only went to the beach a couple times. So, in addition to watching Tom and Jerry, Discovery Channel, and DVDs, building pillow-houses, bouncing on the beds a little (the kids) and getting on the Internet (the adults)...

...when the clouds parted, we went swimming in the hotel pool. Juliana and Kai enjoyed playing in the water with Mommy and Daddy, and practicing the things they've been learning in weekly swim lessons (June-Sept).

In between raindrops, Ryan also had the chance to practice driving a motorbike on the less-congested streets. We all enjoyed going out as a family on the bike, and Juliana and Kai loved to have Daddy as their driver! Kai and Juliana in their towel cocoons, Kai's favorite thing to do after a bath

We had a great time on our vacation. It was so long and so relaxing that we actually started to miss the routine of regular life at home, which was our sign that the vacation was almost too long! Ironically, upon our return to "real life," 3/4ths of our family passed around a virus that knocked us out for a few days with fever, sore throat and headache. Upon recovery, we hastily prepared for a week-long separation, the details of which will be shared in the next post!

- Bethany

Hello?... Hello!

Dear blog readers, we apologize for seemingly disappearing from BlogLand the past month and a half. We were away, then very busy, then on different continents, then even busier... you get the idea! We will attempt to catch you up on our recent happenings in a series of posts, and hope to return to our bi-weekly posting habits. : )

A Week With the Coats Family

On Monday of last week, our family made a four-hour journey into the beautiful Cambodian countryside east of Phnom Penh to visit John, Debbie, Micah and Jesse Coats in their home village of Mesang. The Coats family joined EMM last summer, but have lived in Cambodia for more than 16 years, so they have a wealth of knowledge and experience in cross-cultural ministry to Khmers. This was our first trip out to Mesang as a whole family, and it was good to learn more about John and Debbie's ministry involvements. Their backgrounds are in agriculture and health care, and their ministries have included well-digging, beginning a Tuberculosis clinic, teaching Khmer church leaders, leading Bible studies, tutoring schoolchildren in math, and beginning a character-training program for children. Currently, John works mostly with the kid's program and tutoring, while nurse Debbie is hoping to begin an important research study on B1-deficiency in infants next month. John gives math instruction to struggling students

Our visit fell during the transplanting stage of the rice growing season, so we saw lots of workers out in the fields, transplanting rice from seedbeds like the one above, where the rice is first planted and grown densely, to other (usually flooded) fields where the plants are spaced further apart to bring greater yield. Due to a lot of young people moving to the city for work, there's a labor shortage, and workers now earn about $2.50 for a day of transplanting (more than it was before). It looked like back-breaking work!

A transplanted field of rice

The house above was our home for the week. It's about a kilometer away from the Coats' house, and was built for a family in their former mission who ended their assignment early. The Coats' kept the house to use for visiting teams, etc. The design of the bedroom part of the house, patterned after John's design for their house (which we don't have photos of) allows for great ventilation. As you see below, the thatch walls have lots of double "window" panels that open up to allow the most breeze through (the bottom ones are all closed in this photo). It's a genius plan, and not very typical to traditional, stilted Khmer houses.

Juliana and Kai play at the Coats' water pump (J's feet are resting on the levers where one stands to pump water with the feet, somewhat like an exercise machine!)

We got to do lots of bike-riding as a family, since one of their bikes had a toddler seat for Kai. (We hope to have one made for our own bike here.) Another highlight, especially for the kids, was Jesse's free-range flock of chickens which ran around the property, and the family's two kittens, Velvet and Quilt. Below, Velvet patiently allows Juliana to pet him, something he apparently doesn't do for the Coats'!

15-year-old Micah and 12-year-old Jesse give Kai and Juliana shoulder rides

Our last full day there, while I visited a provincial hospital with Debbie (a child from their village was being treated for meningitis), Ryan, Juliana and Kai went to visit a nearby fish hatchery. The owner, Mr. Sombat, showed them how he uses a net to catch the fish. The kids also enjoyed a ride on a swing on the property. On Friday morning, we packed up our van, ate breakfast with the Coats', and began the return trip home. Outside of the fact that the night sounds of the countryside (LOUD frogs after the rains) and sleeping in a new place made Kai scream for a couple hours a few of the nights, we had a really good week in Mesang. Thanks, Coats family, for your friendship and hospitality!

- Bethany