Sunday – day of rest!

Trouble is, nobody had told the party who started this incessant chanting and speech making at 5.00 in the morning. It was broadcast from the other side of the road from our hotel using two very large loudspeakers and even those on the opposite side of the hotel were woken up! It had been going on from when we arrived from Siem Reap the previous day and had only paused for 6 hours at 11pm on Saturday night. It carried on into the afternoon! We discovered later that it was a ritual that took place 100 days after the death of a loved one.

Leaving the noise behind us we walked along the dusty street to CHO's offices for Sunday worship, about 800 yards away. Along the way little children rushed to greet us, shouting, “Hello!” and holding up their hands for a 'high-five' greeting - evidence that Americans had walked that way before us(?); we've not mentioned before how surprised we have been by the presence of teams and individuals from many parts of the world – all wanting to support the work of CHO. Some come with specific skills and stay for quite a while, while others turn their hand to whatever needs doing. It has been encouraging and inspiring to hear some of their stories and it has reminded us that we are part of the one church. A theme very ably developed when Maria preached on Paul's letter to the Ephesians (Chapter 4, verses 1 – 6 & 5. 19 – 21); speaking through a very competent interpretor, Maria spoke about God's call on us to be united, reminding us that we are part of the one church and that both she, and the interpretor who translated for the Cambodians, are inspired by the very same Spirit.

The worship had begun at 9.00 and a small group of musicians led a wonderful time of worship. Some of the songs were familiar and were even projected on the screen in English, there was a wonderful cacophony of sound as the English (sung by Americans, Canadians, Australians and English) mixed with the rich sound of the Cambodians singing in Khmer; occasionally, the sounds came together as we sang Hallelulah! Other songs were not translated but, along with the Khmer characters, were the words in a form we could attempt to read – if not understand. Both the worship and the prayers were a real blessing to us and the privilege of having one of our team to preach was very special.

Before lunch we walked down one of the less well travelled roads and were able to see at closer quarters how the people lived and scratched a living. Most of the buildings, just a few feet from the road, are completely open at front (At least, here, they were dry; we have seen many where they have been under several inches of water.) – the nearest equivalent I can think of is the shops along a seafront town in England. Their wares are displayed as best they can and there seems to be little variance between one and the next, occasionally there is a stall selling MP3 players. Some are cooking on open woks, pouring hot oils onto what looks like pieces of chicken; one lady was washing duck eggs - there seemed to hundreds of them. For the most part we felt perfectly safe, the biggest danger being the motor bikes and very heavily laden carts which constantly passed within feet of where we were walking – there was no pavement! The people were either friendly, greeting us with a smile, or indifferent.

We are very slowly beginning to have a slightly better insight into the lives of these people and we are looking forward to our first day of real engagement tomorrow (Monday).

Doug (23rd October)