We're.......back!

Hooray! Lesley here with a quick update on our arrival in Phnom Penh. We've been "home" now since Saturday night (sure feels like home!). The flights with Korean Air were excellent, a bit more turbulence that I've experienced before, but we all slept a bit, watched movies, so an 11 hour flight with a quick run through the Seoul airport to connect to another 5 hour flight, went rather quickly. All our luggage arrived without problems, to our amazement, as the connection was such a quick one. We've suffered mildly from jetlag, still dealing with that a bit. We're super tired late afternoon, want to go to sleep then, or at least early evening, but then wake up really early morning and can't fall back asleep. I hope this will be it tonight!

Dean's been back at work right away, while I've been unpacking and getting the house organized. It was in lovely shape coming home (ie; shelves were dust covered, there was a nice plate of fruit waiting for us.) and it was really great to see our landlords, Kim Srean and Mony again, and Sokhom our helper. I missed them and it was a nice warm return. It's taken a little while to get all our borrowed out things back. My moto, my phone, Dean's moto needed some tune up to work properly, and our car didn't start, as was expected. So, some battery upgrade may be in the future, but other than a few minor glitches, non of the repairs are anything more than normal maintenance, so it's no problem. Besides work for Dean, which has involved meeting new teachers and running orientation with them, in the last 2 days he has single handedly secured our internet connection, ordered cable and purchased a TV! We are now the proud owners of a Sony "Vega" which came wrapped in cellophane, the "Sony" label is actually on the tv, but the "Vega" label was written on the cellophane in felt marker! haha. Well, it's no flat screen, and the connection is a bit grainy so far, but we are really excited to have a bit more connection to the outside world this year!

The school is running great, and within the next week, we will head out to see the new school site, which is apparently so well underway, and looks great! we'll show some photos when we get to see it. Nice to meet new staff. Just today, I spent the afternoon back out at Marie Ens's Rescue orphanage, as a bunch of the new teachers and summer staff were going to visit. Never get tired of that place--always great to see the kids!

So much thanks has to be mentioned to all our friend and family who "hosted" us, if you will, during our stay in Canada. From manitoba, across the prairies, to the West Coast, we were shown incomparable amounts of generosity and interest and support! It was really a blessing for us, and thanks to any and all of you who sent e-mails, said hello, fed us, gave us a roof over our head or simply said a prayer on our behalf. We are excedingly grateful and intend to "pay it forward" the generosity we experienced in Canada, back here in Cambodia! A very special thank you to Tim and Sylvia Smith who not only let us crash (almost literally) in their whole basement for over two weeks, but also fed us a ton of food, let us use their "facilities" (which included a pool, trampoline and hot tub!) AND drove us to the airport, with the odious task of having to drop off our van at the designated long term parking spot when all was said and done. If that wasn't enough, they even said we could do it all again next year, if we needed! Are they crazy? Nope, they're just some of the best people on the planet, so Tim and Sly, thanks for ALL you did! You were a huge gift to us!!!! Same same, but WAY different!!!

Before I leave you with a few prayer requests, I would like to tell you how God answers prayers and gives us little gifts and blessings. Forever and a day, the kids have been asking us for a dog, just like all kids do. "Sure, maybe one day, maybe in PP, maybe back in Abbotsford"--they keep getting these wishy-washy answers from us! haha. Very non-committal. Well, we gets home from the airport late Sat. night, like almost midnight. We don't want to wake everybody or scare Buddy, the landlord's dog that we hope remembers us so he doesn't freak out. So we sneak in the gate, the kids are excited to be back, Buddy's wagging his tale, and what do we see in the dark around Buddy's feet--is it a rat? A kitten? Nope, a darling little puppy, not 6 weeks old yet. Her name is "Lilly" and she is probably the most adorable thing I have ever seen! She is tiny as anything, and the whole next day, Sunday, our landlords were away so they asked if it was Ok if the girls "took care" of the puppy! They were out of their minds to do so! They fed her, carried her. She keeps sneaking into the house when the door is open, it's so CUTE! (Cuz I don't care if she pees or poohs on the tile floor!) I'm ranting about this little Cambodian mutt, but really, a picture shall soon explain this level of cuteness. Anyways, God is good, cuz our kids are experiencing a puppy in the best way possible--it's not really ours, but it lives with us!!! I don't even know if they ever prayed and asked for one, but they've got one now! How sweet is that?

Man, it's good to be back, get out driving again! (My first drive resulted in a police pull over, but hey, that's par for the course out here!) We've shopped and got groceries, Sokhom has treated us to some of our fav cambodian dishes, and the kids are starting to hook up with some friends. We're back to practicing our Khmer again--I'm pretty rusty!

Ok, if you're the praying type, I have a couple things for you.
-Lesley's grandmother had surgery this past Monday in Winnipeg, pray for a strong recovery and so far so good, she's doing well.
-New staff, returning staff and our family to have a good start to the Logos year
-Sokhom has a stomach problem that based on the medication she showed me, sounds like an ulcer. You can pray for her to heal.
-Praise: We're so thankful to have travelled safely. Praise God!
-The new school: for it's last months of successful construction
-Our family adjusting back to the heat and the culture.
-We get our NGO visa's. We had all the paperwork at the airport coming back into the country, but the guy said we didn't need it (as our last year's visa hadn't expired yet) so we got in, but turns out we did need this visa, and apparently we can't just go back and get it??? Not sure what's going on here, I would hope it should be a quick fix, but may not be.

I guess I could write a list very long, but those are some of the current things. Those of you who have been following the Sureyah story or have shown an interest in homestay possibilities, what I know to date is that it looks like plan A is to have him stay in residence, and there may be donors in the wings for this, and plan B is to have him in a homestay, where some interest has been shown. We left Canada with very strong and promising leads, so it's looking closer and better for him all the time. Hopefully we can give you an absolute positive update shortly, and keep praying for him and this awesome opportunity!

Ok, signing out and will post some pictures of Lilly soon! Mony is so kind to share her with us!!!
L