Friday news: Silk Scarves available to support Sureyah and New Life School (Keep reading for Sunday news...)

Hi All, Dean here. Hope all is well for you. Have a great little story that can have a good ending with your help. :)

A good long while ago, Maryanne Quiring, from Abbotsford, came out to Cambodia in the summer and stayed at our house with her two older children. After she returned to Canada, and a number of months later, she shared an idea that perhaps if she could get some of those beautiful silk Cambodian scarves back to Canada, she could use them as a way to raise funds for Sureyah (the Logos student who is now at Trinity) and another good little Christian Cambodian school we support out here, New Life School. At that time, when she shared her idea with me, I was not sure how we would be able to get those scarves over to her in a cost effective way, and I am not aware of the import duty issues. So at that time, although a good idea, it seemed to stop in its tracks.

Well moving forward a few months, and the day before we left for our trip to Malaysia, an American from Asuza Pacific University, Alex Jun, was visiting Logos for a couple of days. We invited him to eat school lunch with us during the school day. Alex said he was leaving to go back to the USA in a couple of days, but that he was heading up to Vancouver the following week to stay at the Wall Center for a conference.

My thought immediately was, "Hey, maybe Alex can bring a load of silk scarves to Maryanne?" I shared the idea with Alex and he was fully willing to do so! Since there was little time, the scarves needed to be purchased immediately. I could have gone to the market to get the scarves myself, but of course I have a real knack for picking out women's scarf fashions. So immediately that afternoon a couple of our female staff members went to the market and purchased 150 scarves. Yahoo!

After I got back from Malaysia, I had a chance to follow up and see if the scarf drop off actually worked out. It did! Amazing and awesome! Maryanne picked up Sureyah from TWU and the two of them went down on a Saturday to Vancouver and met Alex at the Wall Center. It was the first time Maryanne or Alex had a chance to meet Sureyah and they spoke very highly of him.

So if you would like to help out, perhaps you would like to donate to receive and use these fabulous and lovely Cambodian scarves for Christmas gifts?

Please contact Maryanne Quiring for more information.

mquiring@shaw.ca


And remember it will go directly to supporting Sureyah and to New Life School.

FURTHER UPDATES, SUNDAY NOV. 15...
Lesley here now. There's been some unfortunate goings on in our lives this past week, that thankfully, we can pray about and would like to ask you to pray for, too.
Two of our many friends and co-workers are in need right now. The Asian Hope CEO who arrived in Cambodia about the same time we did last year, about the same age, kids the same ages, Tom (and his wife Danielle) Matushka, have had to leave suddenly for crisis marital counselling in Thailand. This has all come as a sudden shock to most of us, but this is the reality of life, and especially missonary life overseas, with it's unique set of challenges. We would call these people friends, as well as co-workers, and their kids are especially devastated with this news. So, the kids are being cared for for 2-3 weeks, while their parents are away, and then there will have to be changes ahead for their family. Please pray for their marriage, as they work towards saving it. We do not judge them at all, and feel so much for their situation, the exact details we don't know (and don't need or want to know!)

Our other good friends Kara Dedert, her husband Darryl is on staff and their oldest daughter Sophie is Maya's good friend. Kara left last weekend in a taxi to drive to Bangkok to give birth to their 4th child. She stays in Bangkok for a month to have the baby. Some early test on her the unborn baby show that the head size is signifantly smaller than the rest of the body. There is talk of possible brain damage, but nothing will be known for sure until the baby is born. This is very stressing for Kara, who is there without Darryl (he'll be joining her shortly) and we just PRAY that God will do a miracle, and this baby will be born perfectly healthy. It is in God's hands and we are all trusting Him for the best thing for the Dederts and this precious new life.

My grandpa Papson in Canada has not been well. He's been in hospital with multiple problems this past week, adn it's just hard for me not to be there. I pray for his health, I pray for his soul. He is elderly and does not want any recussitative methods on his life. He needs alot of round the clock care right now. It's tough on my mom and dad and family, so, again, I just wish in many ways I was there.

Finally, Dean took the car in this week to get some power steering looked at, and we came out of the deal with a new, rebuilt engine! Apparently ours was going, significantly. Any of you remember when we lost our engine on our 2000 caravan (in 2005!) and it cost us $3000? Well, welcome to cambodia: $150 US, installed! Ok, that's affordable!
Anyways, we headed out with Ange Booy, this past Saturday, to try bowling in PP. There is one small bowling alley, and it was 10 pin, and a total hoot! (Ange won by the way, and although Dean would like to blame the fact that he "shared" his turn with Maya, his 3 in a row gutter balls certainly helped his last place finish!) Lots of fun. ANyways, driving, home, the car starts to fade, battery lights go low and sure enough, it dies. Julia, Ange and myself hop out to push the car on the attempt to jump start it. (Now, any white people out pushing their car in the middle of PP is a sight to be seen at the best of times, but two white women and a white kid? Now that's worth a crowd!!!)

We give this a few tries, smiling and waving to onlookers, but to no avail. Then, unfortunately, I feel this slam into the back of my leg and I hit the concrete. I was hit by a moto that either didn't see us, or didn't anticipate how slow our car was actually going. There are these "dream boys" out here, who drive really nice expensive motos, they are young, and they drive WAY too fast, almost all the time, weaving in and out of traffic. These are the guys that get killed. It's tragic.
ANwyays, it was one of these guys, he hit my back leg, trying to get around us. He managed to get control of his wobbling vehicle, and looked back a couple times before speeding on and away. I didn't hardly realize what had happened, but looked back and saw traffic behind me, so I popped up fast and got myself around to Dean to say I'd been hit. My leg was hurt, stinging and bleeding a bit, but otherwise I was OK. I didn't hit my head or any other part of my body, so I was just shaky and shook up, but my leg wasn't broken and I could walk.
We got to a gas station, tried to get the car going to no avail (it's turned out to be the alternator) and ended up taking a tuk tuk home 45 minutes later. I really just wanted to get home and get cleaned up. I think I was running on adrenaline! Ange, Steph and Jubes helped get Maya to bed and I just cleaned up slowly and iced my leg and went to bed. All this time, Dean had phoned a buddy and they were trying to do anything but leave the car overnight anywhere but in our gated driveway! It did start and run a bit with a boost, but lucky John Roberts who was helping Dean, ended up towing it home to our house. The guys snapped his tow cable and couldn't actually push the car up onto our driveway (bad angle) until Julia came to help and was able to add just the needed force to get it in!
So Sunday, today, my leg's sore, a bit swollen at the mark of the tire. Scratched up, but will heal. Thank God, it could have been so much worse! It could have been Julia or Ange, or just more serious. I was able to rest today and ice it alot. Took a bit of ibuprofen. It feels tingly and a little numb in the foot, but I keep it moving and try to stretch. Thankfully, I need my voice to keep teaching, not my leg, so I can take it easy physically a bit for a while. Glad I got my exercise in this weekend by playing basketball with my daughters and some other Logos girls this past Sat. morning, cuz I missed volleyball this afternoon. Will get better, but am truly thankful it wasn't worse.

Thanks for all your continued prayers: I'm convinced it's what keeps us safe out here. Please remember the prayer requests for our friends and my gramps.
Will update you soon! Lots of love to you all.
Les
:)