10th - 24th April

(left to right) Alex, Paul, Calum at the Esplanade, Singapore

Hello, greetings from Cambodia. We are back safely in Poipet after a great holiday in Singapore.

Last week was Khmer New Year; a national holiday when everyone goes home to their family for a week, meaning Cambodia effectively closes down. Paul and his brother, who has been visiting for the week, went to Siem Reap to see the temples for the weekend whilst Alex and Calum stayed in Poipet. Seeing as all the CHO staff are on holiday we decided to take a holiday and visit Calum’s cousin in Singapore. We travelled to Bangkok on Tuesday the 13th where we would fly out to Singapore to next day. Thai New Year is at the same time as Khmer New Year; both nations celebrate the New Year with water fights and by smearing each other with powder and paste. Driving through the streets of Bangkok was incredible; everywhere you looked people were having fun, pick-up trucks drove round with water tanks and people on the back having water fights with those on the street, it was a so nice to see this instead of all the violence that has happened over the past weeks in this city. Calum flew out on the 14th and Paul and Alex on the 15th as we booked flights at different times, some poor planning! Chris (Paul’s brother) flew back to the UK on the 14th just after Calum. We all loved having him around, being able to talk to a familiar face and showing him what we are doing here and it’s a big effort to travel all this way for just 2 weeks and so we really appreciate it, thank you!

Calum’s cousin Fiona and her husband Ewan moved to Singapore two years ago from Scotland. They are both teachers and love living in Singapore. Being so close to Singapore it made sense for Calum to come and visit them and they very kindly offered us the spare room in their apartment, which we greatly appreciated. Singapore is a city state, and there are a lot of city type things to do. We spent Friday looking around the city centre, it’s a rich city and the CBD is full of skyscrapers. It was great to wonder round these really interesting buildings including a hotel which is 3 tower blocks joined by a ship on the top and the flamboyant Esplanade arts centre. The next day we played football with Ewan and his friends in the morning and then went to their church in the evening. Their church, ‘City Harvest’, has over 33,000 people, which is just incredible. There are 4 services over the weekend and sitting in the middle of a congregation of 8,000 people all praying in tongues worshipping God really is a powerful experience and something we will treasure for a long time; the power of God was in that place. The service was about unforgiveness and at the end people came up to be prayed for. The whole church prayed for these people and we thought that the size of the church would mean that it would be really impersonal, but as they prayed for their brothers and sisters up the front, you could really tell that they cared. The church is split up into zones and then into cell groups, who have weekly meetings, praying, worshiping, sharing testimonies in their week and fellowship, so after the service we went out with Fiona and Ewan’s cell group for a meal. We were really impressed with the Singaporean Christians we met; they are so kind and hospitable and really can’t do enough for you. The next day we went to the beach on a smaller island attached to Singapore called Sentosa. The sun was shining, the sand was white and the water warm, ye cannae beat it!

Singapore has a great zoo, which we went to on the Monday. If you want a good day out, then you really cannot beat going to a zoo, they had all the family favourites, of which we especially liked the jaguars, elephants, sea lions and monkeys. It rained everyday in Singapore, at least a little (which was awesome!), and Monday was no exception, with a torrential downpour of biblical proportions as we were going back to the apartment. OK, maybe not, but it was really rainy, alright?!
We spent our final day in Singapore shopping in the city and spent the evening with Fiona and Ewan. We are so grateful to them for letting us stay at their apartment – it was amazing to have a hot shower! After a somewhat long journey the following day, including travelling in a very small plane (4 seats across!), we retuned home to Poipet on Wednesday evening. The taxi driver who took us back to Poipet was a Christian and was the first in his village. In a similar way to Chomno, he became a Christian by studying English. His parents were hostile towards him when he came to faith and his father burnt his bible. Just one year later his whole family became Christians through his determination and now his father is a pastor of a church and many people in the village are also Christians because of him. It was such an incredible and encouraging story to have heard and just shows how valuable the work of the church is.

For the rest of the week we have been back to work as usual, building, moving gravel, teaching and Alex did a morning devotion this week on patience. It was lovely to see the children at the Safe Haven again as they bring such light to our day. We have been told that they were asking after us all week and had missed us so we were pleased to see them! Calum has been unfortunately been a little ill the past few days but is well again now. Next week we have a change to our week routine as we are going to be staying in a village called Bos Thom for four days. We are looking forward to spending time there but please pray for us next week.

Thank you for all your support and particularly your prayers
With our love,
Alex, Calum and Paul xxx

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