When we arrived, we went over to Botevy’s home and will be staying with her family. She is the angel woman that runs the orphanage that we are working with. She has a heart of gold and so openly invites us in and hugs us like we are long lost family. What a blessing to know her! Here is link to the website for her orphanage and her story is more than inspiring! Worth your time to read, for sure!
http://www.cicfo.org/index/Orphanage_Story.html
We
are very aware that opening your home to two families that bring 15 people—is
more than most would do. She has done so
with such grace and love that I hope I can be changed to a better person by
just watching her and her family. They
are of our faith, so the feeling in their home is very familiar to us and makes
us feel comfortable.
After
getting settled, we were to go over and meet the children. They immediately ran over and openly hugged
and welcomed us to their home. One of
the kids turned on some American music and within minutes, my girls were over
teaching them how to dance to the Macarena!
The orphan boys just watched and then one of them picked up a ball and
they started playing soccer. All of boys
joined in—even Munchie—and they were playing with no language barriers--just to
have a good time. It was a great.
We
have learned that Botevy has to travel to the market daily to buy the food for
their meals because they don’t have the fridge space to store much. Ally and I made the trip with her and took
Cole and Tyler along. (Both are 8) I now understand what a wet market is—it is
where there is blood on the ground from the meat. We could have purchased whole octopus, whole
sting rays, roasted pig hooves or even a whole roasted pig head (with ears) and
more cow and pig parts than I could begin to name. There was more than one occasion where Cole
buried his head into my shirt and wouldn’t pull away. There was a moment right before we left that
a sweet little boy came up to us and tapped his mouth. You didn’t need to understand words to know
he was hungry. Cole just watched and
didn’t know how to respond. It is so
hard to see and know that you can’t fix it for all of those little kids.
We
asked Botevy if we could take them on a field trip that would be a treat for
them. So, here we are in Siem
Reap—touring Angkor Wat. It is an
ancient temple site that is over 1000 years old. The trip up here was interesting. We travelled in four vans to transport all 50
of us and shared the road with bicyclists, motos (or mopeds/motorcycles), tuk
tuks, cars, trucks and even an occasional pig, donkey or cow. The road was long and bumpy and our driver
was free with his use of the horn. It
took us from 6:30 am to about 4:00 in the afternoon to get here although I
think the actual trip was only 200 miles.
We made a potty stop and I had the chance of a lifetime to utilize a
hole in the ground. Interesting! We also walked over to an open market and could
have bought roasted spiders that were as big as my fingers and cockroaches just
as big. Let’s just say it was a cultural
experience.
We
are staying here at a guest house that runs $5 per person/ per night. We were a little nervous but it has turned out
to be just fine. Not quite the Marriott
but that is just fine with us. A little
lizard on the wall never hurt anybody!
We
will start touring this morning as soon as the kids finish their seminary
experience with Doug. I am so grateful
for Doug and Matt and that they would be willing to take our families on this
journey. What a chance of a
lifetime. We are loving every minute of
it—even when the sweat is running down our backs! None of the kids have complained a single
minute but did rejoice when we found a hamburger place and some ice cream bars
for sale. Emily went to bed the other
night and told me that she went to bed dreaming of a hamburger and woke up to a
dream with chocolate chip ice cream.
Imagine her delight when that day her dream came trueJ
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