One More Flight.

We are sitting in Seoul, Korea waiting for our 12 hour flight to Chicago. I think we both have mixed emotions about coming home, but definitely excitement to share all we've seen and learned and be home with the ones we love. There is a lot for us to process, so please be praying for us as we come home and do that.

It was amazing to network with so many great people while we were there...We even connected with an unexpected couple in our last few hours being in the country! God is definitely working out details that we don't even know yet and has shown us the need we went to assess is bigger than any person can accomplish.

We were so blessed to have stayed with three girls that work for International Justice Mission. They were such an encouragement to us while we were there and made us feel so welcome as friends. In all the talking we did I think the conclusion everyone that is working in Cambodia has come to is that God needs to intervene and we need to pray and believe in the power of prayer for this lost and desperate country. God has called many great workers to be there and it was such a testimony to see their obedience and faithfulness.

We want to thank all of you for your support to us as we are taking these first steps of faith to something we believe God is calling us to. We are looking forward to seeing all of you...Just 15 more hours!

Love, Chrissy and Kristin

Where have we been the past week?

So it has been a while since our last post. That is not because we haven't done anything.. it's actually quite opposite, this week has been very busy and the few times we have been at internet cafe's we have been trying to catch up on emails and phone calls. So anyway, what have we been doing the last week?...

We went to teach at our second salon, and that went very well. They have one girl who is way more advanced than the others and we worked closely with her so that she could teach the other girls when we left. She was very eager to learn and was excited about the educational material we left with her. We also met with some more organizations to see what their needs are and if there organization would be one that God is calling us to help with long term. We know that we want to help from far away long term, but we are just not sure what that looks like or how were we should start. We have ideas and have been praying for God to bring clarity, so if you would like to partner with us in praying for that we would appreciate it. We went to a prayer meeting on Thursday (there are a few organizations that get together every 2nd and 4th thursday) and we prayed specifically for the issues having to do with human trafficking. It was cool to see the organizations come together to pray, and you could really feel the presence of God in the room.

Outside of the meetings and teaching we managed to go to an orphanage. This was something we had planned, but really didn't have much to do with the over all goal of our trip. Wally (from Christian Service International) had strongly suggested that we go, so we did. It was my favorite part of the trip. The lady who runs the orphanage used to be a missionary in Cambodia. She came over in the 60's and then had to leave during the war. When she retired, she was asked to take on this orphanage and she did. So she is somewhere in her 70's, and she is such a beautiful person. She doesn't have all the material possessions that many times I find myself striving for, but she is so happy and satisfied with her life just how it is. At one point she said "It is such a great responsibility having this many people love you so much" (I thought she was trying to be funny when she said that) but she then went on to say "you have to be careful and think through everything you do because it affects them and their emotions get hurt easily"... when she said this I was like wow, what a self-less women. She gave up everything to come here, and to retire here where it is always uncomfortably hot, to take care of these children... Anyway that is probably what you want to hear about, the children. They were so precious! We took a tour around the facility and got to see the different ages of kids...first we went to the elderly, then the babies-everyones favorite.. and i was looking at these precious babies and Marie (the lady who runs the orphanage) started telling us which of the babies had aids...that's when I lost it. Then there was a lady, probably about 35ish and she came up to us and showed us her leg and it had open sores all over it from aids. And we began to realize many of these girls that we have taught, and probably most-if not all-women who have come out of a brothel have aids. This is so heart-breaking for me. They have already endured so much, and if they are one of the lucky ones that gets rescued and has a better chance at life, they still will have life taken from them by disease. This trip has showed me many things that I maybe didn't want to see, but am glad that I did, because I have pictures of the people I need to pray for imbedded in my mind. If you would like to know more about the orphanage they have a website: placeofrescue.com

We will be leaving in 3 days I can't believe how fast the time flew by. This will probably be our last post, unless you are really lucky and we decide to put one more up before we come home. I can't wait to see some of you when I get home and tell you about it firsthand, and with many pictures.

Genocide Museum

Today we went to the Genocide Museum. For those of you who don't know much of the history of Cambodia, in 1975 the country fell to the Khmer Rouge , which was initially a small guerilla force, but grew into a large army in just a few weeks. Under the Khmer Rouge the people of Cambodia were forced to labor camps. The objective of the Khmer Rouge was to introduce a pure Maoist agrarian society-which is basically a fancy way of saying they wanted everyone to be farmers. So they executed all military and public service personnel, the educated, intellectuals, those believed to be loyal to the old government, professional workers, and religious leaders. Altogether deaths related to the Khmer Rouge actions, disease, starvation and other hardships are estimated at over 1.7 million people.
Given this history, you can imagine what this museum might be like. We will try to get some pictures posted. It was a very hard museum to get through. Apart from wanting to vomit at the things I was seeing, I just felt such a heavyness of emotions. There are rooms you go through that just have pictures after pictures of all the people killed (they took pictures, sort of like a mug shot, of each person before they killed them). And then other rooms would show all the different things they would use to torture the people, there were rooms with glass cases full of skulls. And there is a whole building of tiny cells that they would keep the people in.
Before I came on this trip I read books about the history of all the horible things that happened in the short span of four years under the Khmer Rouge. Reading it was aweful, but to be here in Cambodia and see the reality of it was absolutely horrible, words truly cannot describe it.
Life for these people in the last 30 years has been an enormous struggle to overcome multitudes of obstacles. Only in the last 10-15 years has any sense of normalcy been restored.
So you can imagine how this also plays into our challenge of teaching the girls here. How do you rebuild a country that has had everyone with an education or professional career killed. After the Khmer Rouge fled, everyone went into survival mode. And still 30 years later most Cambodians are just surviving, living on less than a dollar a day. This counrty is in great need of prayer.

it's already been a week...

We have finished our first week teaching and meeting with people. It has been very challenging as well as fun and insightful. We are still dealing with jet lag and the heat, but with the crazy downpours we get everyday it cools the air down a bit.

I don’t know how to recap all that we have done and talked about the last few days…but the reason we are here has been confirmed to us in many ways that the need is great.

We have been teaching at Agape salon, which is the salon that has many of the girls I taught in 2007 employed. In our teaching we have had more difficulties than we imagined. It has helped us gain a better understanding of the culture and systems here that are ok by Cambodian’s standards, but would never be tolerated in the states. The girls have learned a few new haircuts and we went to the market and bought some mannequin heads for them to practice on. Chrissy and I cut a couple of the girl’s hair to teach on. We also taught them how to highlight on one of the girl’s hair, but imagine the difficulty that we had figuring out how to use their color! Fortunately it turned out great.

We have met with some wonderful people here doing great things for girls that have been exploited. In our meetings all that has been communicated is a need for proper education for all areas of cosmetology: hair cutting, styling, sanitation, color, and even basic understanding of hair structure. We have many ideas floating in our heads about how to help with this and we have talked through them with these ladies, but it basically comes down to us doing it. They need someone to actually put the time and energy into making something happen and being here to walk alongside these girls.

We are meeting with a couple tomorrow that should have some really good insight and connections for us to help us figure out next steps. I can see how easy it would be to go home and say the job is too hard, but I know God has brought us here for a reason. Please be praying for us as we meet with people the next few days. Pray that God would give us direction for a starting point and make it clear what that looks like for both Chrissy and my life.

A verse God keeps putting in front of me is Isaiah 61

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion – to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.”

We are thoroughly enjoying our moto and tuk tuk rides everyday that we bargain to pay between $.25 - $2.00. We have finally figured out how to do that in Khmer as well as give directions. A few words help a lot. Last night we went to Haven of Hope, the school I taught at in 2007, and the girls there sang a lot of songs for us and we played many games until we were too tired to keep our eyes open. They were having fun teaching us and making fun of us as we didn’t understand what we were doing.

Thank you for your prayers and support. We will try and catch you up as often as we can. God bless.

Day 1 in Cambodia

We arrived in Cambodia late last night. It was a very long flight, but we were well fed and had plenty of movies to choose from so it wasn't so bad. The airports here are very serious about swine flu, we were a little nervous that we were going to get quarantined since we were americans, but thankfully we made it through the temperature detectors. Anyway our first day here has been great. Since Kristin has already been here, I will give you some of my first impressions of the country... It has a very distinct smell-maybe a mixture of garbage, food, and dirtiness- sounds awesome huh? The traffic is pretty much utter chaos and really has no rhyme or reason, there is a lot of honking. Everyone and their brother wants to give you a ride to where ever it is you are going, so if you are walking you constantly have locals on their tuk tuk's or moto's suggesting you need a ride somewhere. There are tons of shops and most of the people who have shops also live in them, which makes for an interesting time. Today when we went to buy our phone card the lady running the shop was nursing her son. little awkward. Anyway despite all this I love it here and really have found a great appreciation for the things I have, and the privilege to live in America. Most of our day was spent at Agape salon. Kristin and the girls were sooo excited to see each other again, and it was cool to see the obvious impact she had in their lives. Their faces lit up the second they saw her. We spent the day observing and talking with the girls about what they do on a day to day basis to try pin point the areas they need help in. We also had Nhu take us to the market to show us where she buys their supplies and to find out what is available to them. We were surprised to see that Nhu uses the same hair lightener that we do, except she pays 3 times more for it (which is very odd, since everything here is super cheap). We are wrapping up the day by preparing our thoughts and plans for the rest of the week. Tomorrow we will be teaching at Agape Salon as well as meeting with some of the organizations we have been in contact with over the past few months. Please keep us in your prayers the next two weeks, for our safety, health, and guidance through the rest of this trip. We love you all!

Support

I have had many people asking me if there is a way they can give support other than our June 8th salon day. If you would like to help financially support this trip we really are grateful and definitely appreciate your inquiring about it. You can make a check to Christian Service International and noted in the memo line of the check "June 09 Missions Trip" and send it to the address below. Just make sure that you do not write Kristin or my name on the check, if you would like the check to be specifically going to support one of us just put a post it or a slip of paper in with the envelope that indicates who it is for. The IRS watches non-profits closely to make sure they are not using tax receipt funds for the personal benefit of anyone so that is why our names can't be on the check.

Christian Service International

Attn: Wally Yeager

14630 Double Eagle Court

Fort Myers, FL 33912-1716

Thank you everyone for how supportive you have already been. I have had many of you telling me that you are already praying for us and we could not ask for better support than that!