We are in Abbotsford!

Well we have had a blessed time seeing so many people as we have travelled in Winnipeg and across the prairies. We have made it to Abbotsford and we are staying with friends from MEI school as they have allowed us to hunker-down and stay in their basement suite as we do our visiting from there.

There are many aspects of our trip that have been interesting for us. For example, right when we first landed in Canada for a few hours in Vancouver for a short layover, we quickly went to see my Aunt in Richmond. We had a nice fast visit at midnight Vancouver time as we waited for our 7am flight to Winnipeg. As we were getting ready for a quick few hours of rest we noticed a weigh scale. This was the first time we could weigh ourselves since we left. I realized that I had lost 25 lbs in my first year in Cambodia. Well that was then, this is now. With all the rich foods and quantity of meat and cheese available for the eating, in the first month back in Canada, I have gained 15 lbs back! I am eating like a bear about to go into hibernation!

Another interesting thing is getting use to the cold weather. Winnipeg was very cold when we landed, about 10C. For the first couple of weeks, all of my joints were aching and a bit sore. After a couple of days I decided to wear shorts like other people and just try and get use to it again. We first stayed with my Mom in Winterpeg. She was not making any sense with keeping the house warm. First when the sun came out and the temperature turned to 15C, she opened all the doors and windows! I said, "why do you want to let the inside air (around 20C) leave the house and let the house get cooler?" Mom just said she wanted fresh air. FRESH?? She means FREEZING! In the third week of June, the weather turned very nice- around 25-30C each day. Then Mom kept all the doors of the house closed and turned on the airconditioner! No fresh air needed anymore. I have forgotten that 20C is the ideal temperature inside the Canadian home for summer.

The next interesting aspect is grappling with the idea of "home". Where is "home", especially when you have sold your home? Anyways thats for another day!

We are busy trying to see as many people as we can while we are in Abbotsford for the next two weeks before we get to Cambodia!

In Canada

Hi all. Just a quick note to let everyone know, as if they didn't already, that we are safely arrived in Canada. We've been visiting alot since arriving, and not sure if I (Lesley) am over jet lag not or what, as I just feel tired all the time. Reverse culture shock, I guess. Everyone else seems to be doing fine. We've already been blessed with alot of hospitality and get togethers mostly with Dean's side of the family as his mom has holidays these first two weeks of June. My family visit will be a little more next week. We are well, eating far too much, and very cold, as the MB weather has taken a turn for the worst. (Think mid-winter, West coast rain, clouds and wind.) Not nice, but the warmth of family visitations and some excellent coffee, I might add, is making up for it!
Won't say much more than that, but thanks to everyone we've already seen for nice visits and making the effort to get to see us.
Lots of Love, Lesley
PS I'm going to start signing my full name, so that people can actually see the CORRECT spelling of it. As often as you see it mispelled in print, as "Leslie" that is actually the incorrect spelling. Lesley with an "ey" is my name. Sorry for the plug, but have just seen it far too often spelled that way lately! OK, bye for now.

I feel a little bit like the crew from Gilligan's Island

Well not exactly, however, the feeling that I am leaving this tropical area for a thriving industrialized country is somewhat allowing me to, for whatever reason, contextualize and align myself with the crew from Gilligan's Island. The crew knew it was time to go for a variety of reasons, we are happy to leave for a while for a number of reasons.

I/We have pretty much run out of supplies here. For whatever reason, underwear seems to disintegrate out here - down to 2 pair that don't resemble something like a screen door. I am down to my last deodorant (started with over 20+ at the beginning of the year), I ran out of hair gel a little while back (only got this far because of the extreme group from church!) My dress shoes blew out the back end about a month ago- they are dead. My birk sandals are in need of a new bottom but could not be fixed by anyone here (even though they sell the "new" fake ones at the market, nobody could actually repair a "real" pair of birks in Cambodia- that is funny actually). I have sweat stained shirts I am embarrassed to say I have committed to this long in the journey. We ran out of Tim Horton's coffee, and honestly I am having a hard time drinking the stuff Les is making in the morning- it IS coffee but it just AIN'T coffee - if you know what I mean. This stuff is more like a black crude oil- and no matter how much sugar and 3 year shelf like milk substance I place in it- I can't seem to get down more than 3 sips before I give up.

Actually, I really do enjoy Cambodia. I know, like the crew from Gilligan's Island, that the many quirky things about this culture has grown on me (and our family). And with that quirkiness I am also starting to lose perspective on certain things- another reason to leave for a while. Yesterday, I nearly ran over a monkey that was crossing my path as I was zipping on my moto in front of the Wat Phnom and it reminded me of the time I ran over a jack rabbit in Manitoba and then gave it to my Dad to skin and eat. After I barely avoided the monkey I thought, "I wonder if monkey would taste like chicken?" You see, the problem is, I am subconsciously considering the idea that monkey is edible!! That is sooo wrong! Another lost perspective food related story: I also play hockey on Thursday nights with a mainly large core of Canadians out here. Afterward, we go to a place to relax and talk about the game. We casually order crickets from the menu! Are you kidding me? CRICKETS PEOPLE!!! That's right, LOCUSTS, NATURAL PLAGUES!!! And the real problem is... I kinda like them. One of the missionary guys across the table said, "it's kind of the Cambodian answer to potato chips". POTATO CHIPS??? WHO ARE WE KIDDING??? My problem is that I nodded and agreed with him that in fact I think he may be right. Mind you, unlike potato chips, I don't have to worry about getting any cricket legs caught in my teeth. So for any of you bold youth teens- if you plan on trying any crickets in your backyard- deep fry them first! Don't go eating them live or anything like that. Anyways, I hope when I am in Canada I won't start eyeing some of the pets and start wondering what that would taste like on the BBQ! Like I said, I am losing it and perhaps its a good thing if someone over in Canada can just give my head a shake to help me know I am no longer in Cambodia for a little while and I can get some perspective!

I am also feeling a bit like the SKIPPER from Gilligan's Island in the sense of figuring out what is relevant and how much stuff can we pack to make the journey back to Canada. There is only so much stuff we can take on our boat/raft as we cross the ocean to civilization. The suitcases are packed yet.... Actually I am bringing stuff back that I can't use, heck, no one could use here! Things like, a light golf jacket (thought that would help on the cool days- perhaps while playing golf?- seriously how did that get there in the first place) , an NFL football jersey (too hot to wear but got it from a guy visiting from China- by the way #21 LT Chargers [this info is for sports nut Gurv]), and an alarm clock that doesn't take 240V power (could have read the back on that one- good thing I didn't plug it in or it would have got ugly! Les did that with a night light - that'll teach her -lesson learned).

The boat is taking off soon. We are looking forward (NOT) to the long 36 hours+ of flight/airport time it will take to get back to Canada! However, we are very much looking forward to seeing all of you!

Blessings to all of you!
Deano



Acts 20:24

We are flying back to Canada in a week!

We are excited to come back to Canada for part of the summer. Below is a partial itinerary of where we will be. If we can we would love to stop in to see you if possible. (Large groups are "more efficient" than small ones.)

We leave Phnom Penh Saturday, May 30th at 11:25 am. Arrive in Hong Kong after 2:45 flight, to a long layover where we hope to leave the airport, for a quick visit into the city and supper. We leave Hong Kong at 12 midnight and arrive in vancouver at 9:05 pm on Saturday May 30th (hey, where did one whole day go???)That's after a 12 hour flight. Then, the horrendous layover--we hope to leave the airport to sleep at Edie and Al's as we don't leave for WInnipeg until 7:30 am the next morning, arriving in Winnipeg at 12:10 pm, a 2:40 flight.
Ok, so that's the juice on that. Wish us luck (or preferably pray for us) as this is going to be a long travel.

We are planning to reside at Dean's mom's place for the first 2 weeks of June, as she was able to get some much deeserved holidays at that time! yay! then with lesley's parents at the cottage and possibly in the city, for the second 2 weeks of June. This with little jaunts and sleepovers here and there with various friends and relatives. St. Anne, St. Vital, St. Laurent--better look out for us, all you "saints!"

We don't have an official departure date for leaving Manitoba, but we will be planning on getting to Edmonton and wherever the heck it is that Chuck lives BEFORE the July long, as we're scheduled to hang out in Calgary with Lesley's sister July 1-5. Hey Winship famiily, if you ever read this blog, are you going to be around that last week of June for a visit in Saskatechewan? We'd love to meet that newest member of your family, adn we missed you all last summer! Hopefully we'll connect with you before then.
Then, believe it or not, we're going to spend 2 nights camping on the lake in Kelowna with the entire Hein Clan (That's Dan Hein's family--he's our principal and good friend), as we've already booked to hang out with them and all their camping gear (We have no idea where ours is all packed) and it should be a blast!
That should set us up to arrive in Abbotsford July 8. Tim and Sylvia Smith have graciously offered us their basement for the month of July until we leave, to camp out there, and it's a great space for us-nice and roomy, private enough that we're not driving them crazy! So, we're really looking forward to that. They live close to the Abby Elem on McKee, so that's a new end of town for us. That should give us two Sundays at SOA, so hope you've all NOT planned your summer vacations then! We'll do what we can, right???

MIRACULOUS NEWS ALERT! I'm not sure how Greg Dyck, Darren Wall or Dave Jennings did it (they are all wonderful people who have been helping us with our paperwork, car issues and Dave, our sister-in-law's dad, has been collecting ALL our mail since we left and letting us know information all year! (WOW) but, between these three very helpful gentlemen, our van has been officially registered for the summer, so we will have wheels to do all this driving with! We were not sure how or if this registration across provinces was going to take place, but these guys did it for us, so we are super thankful, and really, it seems like a miracle out here to us that there have been no hassles (for us on this end) so it's pretty exciting! Now we're going to have to wear seatbelts for 2 months. that's going to be different...

As of this exact minute, we do not have departure dates finalized to return to PP, although it will be on or around July 24. Depends on a few factors that are not solidified, one of which is the decision for us to purchase one-way fares going back and leave our return options open at the end of next year, OR purchase return fares from this end, and get a very slightly reduced ticket price, but then we are locked in to returning out of PP. We are hoping we will have enough of our own cash to include Australia in our return travels, so that might mean we should just get to Cambodia this year, and work out our return details when we know more as the year transpires. Anyhoo, that's for later, but we would appreciate prayer in this way, as well.

So, we have begun some of the good-bye saying process, as we had our staff party this past Saturday. IT was hosted at a lovely little resort just outside of town with a gorgeous pool, and it was a very nice afternoon. There were speeches and tears for those leaving. High turnover is just a fact of life in this ex-pat/international world we are now living, and it's an ongoing thing. As hard as it may be at times, I revelled in the point that although we have many more good-bye's to say being in the position we are now in, we also get to meet more people this way, too! Also, God moves people in and out of Logos and they just have to continue their ministries in different places and often in different ways. There was much positive and blessings in the afternoon, and it was good.

Our last week is packed with "last" things--dinner with our landlords, dinner with some friends, getting final marks in Tuesday, finishing classes on Wed, cleaning up rooms on Thursday, and handing out awards and report cards on Friday! I think this week will fly. Oh ya, packing. How could I forget!!! Haha. I think that's going to take place sometime before we leave Saturday morning! I hope we can pack light--we are leavning most of things here and bringing as many WARM clothes as we can from here. I'm sure planning on a visit or two to VV Boutique to buy an extra sweatshirt just to wear at the beach this year! I know I say this over and over, but it's been + 40 C most of this week, and we just wake up, leave our aircon and sweat all day! We're so used to it, it's going to be cool to be cool again!

Last but definitely not least, we are on the precipice of buying a car for next year! As I write, it's sitting in our carport--we got to try it out this weekend. A 1989 Toyota Camr_. (The Y is missing, along with alot of the body work, which is par for the course here on PP street.) It was owned by a friend of Dean's who is leavning town, it's been well maintained, we can't beat the price and there's tons of Camry's all over town, which means used parts and maintenance is common, easy to find. It's a standard which turns me off a little, as the traffic here is enough to deal with without having to think about shifting all the time, but I did drive it a bit and think I'll get used to it. So, the deal should be finalized this week, then the car will sit for 2 months. Now is the time to buy as people are moving out, and things are going for sale. When we return in 2 months, everybody coming in will be looking for vehicles and the market is bad.

OK, I think that's about it. I'm coming home with PICTURES, lots of them, in actual HARD COPY format, that I will put into albums for anyone interested to see more of a glimps of our life and year out here. Cheap to print photos out here: 350 riels (that's about $0.03 per picture) so I got alot of them! Will album them when I get back right away. Been getting teacher gifts too, which is no easy issue out here--at least not for me. SO, all that year end stuff.

I will go and wish you God's Blessing until we either meet again, or we write again. Hopefully the former will come sooner!!! Looking really forward to seeing ALL of you!
L
:)