The journey begins!

The call was made a year ago for people in the church to go out to Cambodia to volunteer for CHO (Cambodian Hope Organisation) and then the preparation began. We had the fundraising day where we had stalls, car washes and enjoyed a quiz evening later that day. We received some wonderful donations towards the trip which made us feel blessed and appreciative of the support we had.

Preparation included training, learning the do’s and don'ts and cultural tips. We also applied for our visa’s and underwent a course of injections such as hepatitis A + B and typhoid. On Sunday 19th October we had a wonderful commissioning service at Brighton Road Baptist Church. The next thing we knew was that we were sitting at Terminal 4, luggage booked in and on our way. We had a very smooth flight and managed to get the odd sleep in every now and then. We got through customs without a hitch and were met by Monorom, a member of staff from CHO, at the airport who took us to our hotel for the evening which was called Valentine Resort. How wonderful, shower, bed and air con.  We got up for breakfast at 7.30 am and were on the road heading for Cambodia. We stopped a few times to fill up with fuel which gave us a comfort and toilet break. We then later that day arrived at the border which went quite smoothly as when were inside it started to rain quite heavily. We arrived at the hotel in Poipet at lunchtime and we were shown to our room and made to feel very welcome from all members of staff. We had a peruse of our room and after that headed to Destiny Café where we met Chomno and his big beaming smile made us feel even more warm. After we had a super lunch we were taken to Safe Haven school where we had a look round. It was all very intriguing and quite amazing. We had a moment of prayer before we drove back to the hotel for our team meeting.  And that was our first day!

Michelle and David