27th March – 9th April

Firstly we would like to apologise for the delay in writing this blog! There is no real excuse other than we couldn’t be bothered during two busy weeks! Secondly we would therefore like to apologise for the length of this blog!
Looking two weekends back we spent the day with Kip, visiting the old market and looking around the ‘Hope Transformation Centre’- the new addition to CHO’s properties; we went swimming at one of the casinos also. Vuthy invited us for a meal that evening and so we spent the evening with him and his family, eating his wife’s fantastic food. She makes the best pumpkin desert, which is ridiculously sweet and we will all have to learn how to make it before we come home! The following day after the morning Palm Sunday church service, the wonderful Allan and Andrene left CHO to go on a short holiday in Thailand, before returning to Scotland. They are the most wonderful, inspirational couple with hearts of gold and they are already dearly missed both by us and those at CHO. They gave so much and put their all into CHO and in particular the Safe Haven and the school there. They treated us as though we were their sons and we thought of them as our parents. They truly settled us into life at CHO as we arrived just a week apart and so it was a shame to see them go as they have been with us almost every step of the way. In the afternoon we spent the time preparing for the next two weeks at the safe haven school where the children would design and make Islands. We put them in 8 groups of 6 and they drew the island, named it, made a flag, drew the animals, made up rules for the island, wrote where the island is in the world, what the weather is like and then finally built it. The project finished on the 9th where we gave out some prizes. We were all so impressed and proud of them, with their efforts and the final islands they made – so original and exciting!

In the mornings for both weeks, we spent much of the time either continuing to put manure in bags for the plant nursery, flattening the ground at the side of the Safe Haven for a water trench (for when the rainy season hits in a few months), but much of the time was spent helping to build a new house at the Safe Haven, laying bricks and cement. The sooner this house is complete the sooner more vulnerable children can be taken into the Safe Haven. Last Tuesday evening, Matt and Nori had a farewell dinner with several ex-pats working for various charities in the Poipet area at the Japanese buffet in the casino area. Matt and Nori have been working for CHO for just over a year now and are now heading back home to Melbourne, Australia. We enjoyed spending time with them and it suddenly dawned on us that just as Allan and Andrene left, they were about to as well.

On Thursday Paul’s brother, Chris, came to stay and work with us for two weeks. He brought with him lots of useful things, for which we are very grateful. It has been nice to have another British face and voice around Poipet as we are so used to hearing either Khmer, Australians or Americans. We had a fantastic service on Good Friday at the Safe Haven, where we led the children in singing “O Happy Day” – they’re cheeky, toothy (or not so) grins were a delight to see and we felt so proud of them. That evening we had one of our final home church services with Matt and Nori and the most exciting thing happened – Matt made HOT CROSS BUNS! Wowee, felt like being right back at home!

Last weekend we spent much of Saturday showing Chris around Poipet, to the market and around the city. That afternoon Emily had organised a treasure hunt for Matt and Nori all over the city of Poipet: to CHO, the photocopying shop, the fruit market, the old market, street food vendors and finally to the virtually unused golf course in the casino area, where the rest of us organised a picnic for them (with balloons!). They had to take pictures, buy things they had never bought before and the like. It was a fun afternoon, completed by haning out at their house. We visited Don Bosco on Sunday afternoon after church with an American team. We played Ultimate Frisbee with them for the afternoon, and just as we were about to go home, we realised the van had a flat tyre. This was particularly annoying as we were once again invited to a meal with Vuthy’s family which we were looking forward to, especially as we knew how good the food is! This added an interesting new twist to the week as it turned out this was to be the first flat of two! Luckily this time we had all the tools available to us and we were off soon after we were halted. The second flat tyre, however, happened in a rather far out village, when we were visiting a school on a mat. After playing games, as we turned to go home, the van was sitting at a rather jaunty angle. With no jack and the incorrect tools, this delayed us quite some time. We eventually got the spare tyre onto the van – which also turned out to be flat (almost)! We did return home to Poipet on both occasions, but it made for more exciting travelling! On Sunday evening we ate Vuthy’s wonderful wife’s wonderful food and then had our first Sunday STREET evening. This project is so exciting so please continue to pray for its development and that it would be fruitful.

This week we once again moved bricks (totalling over 3,000 bricks in the last few months), levelled ground and laid bricks. On Tuesday evening we had our last home church with Matt and Nori and listened to Alex’s dad speak, where he included a shout out for us which made the evening! (Alex’s dad is a Vicar in Gloucester and we have been fortunate enough to listen to his talks each week). The CHO staff had a leaving party for Matt and Nori on Wednesday evening and so we spent the evening enjoying Khmer dancing and sticky rice with fresh mango, fresh lychees and banana cake! They left the following morning and it was such a lovely way to see the two of them sent off. They really inspire us and have been so helpful in settling us into life in Poipet and Cambodia. It has been great to have the insight of westerners in the culture and explaining how they do things that we do not always understand! We will miss them as over the nearly 3 months we’ve been here we have grown to love them, enjoy our time with them and we’d like to thank them once again for all they have done for us.

That Thursday evening, two western men in their lat 30s approached Alex and Paul just outside the CHO offices and asked them where they could find bars with girls (brothels). We were near speechless. We turned to them and put them straight, explaining we are Christians and don’t believe in that sort of thing, and in short, told them to go. We both wish we had said more to them, put them straight further – it makes our skin crawl that all these two fat, greasy men wanted was a beer and a brothel girl for the evening and would travel Poipet to find it. It is disgusting. As it happened, that evening we went with the American team to go to the brothels of Poipet and hand out bags containing soap, tooth brushes, scrunchies, etc. - however the first 3 places we went, where there are lots of brothels, had all been shut down by the police - a big answer to prayer. We did however find a brothel slightly further out of town which had girls looking rather care-free, all provocatively dressed outside the door to which we handed these bags to and prayed for them. The three of us did feel somewhat awkward, as guys, but it showed something being there, as we were not there for the reason most men normally go for. We did have to leave 10 minutes later, after praying, because the brothel owner wanted us to go as ‘the men were coming’. Again, disgusting - it made us think of those men we met earlier that day. We only hope they didn’t find anywhere and still wish we had said more to them.
The girls in these brothels on average pull 15-20 men per night. Since 2005, the rate of tourists coming to Thailand alone has increased from 2 million to 11 million - 80% of whom are single men. This world so often seems so full of the devil, and in much of this part of the world; our heart cries out for them. Please pray with us that Jesus would sweep across these nations and his saving grace would enter the hearts of many; that the good news of Jesus and his Kingdom would reach everyone. CHO do incredible work with many of the girls at the brothels, but please pray for them; both praising God that many have now been shut down, but also that the rest would also close and that the sex industry and trafficking would STOP. NOW! It is not right. We want to see a change in Poipet, Cambodia and Asia so please pray for Jesus’ transforming power to sweep across Asia and for the church’s development.

We were thrilled to hear that the Safe Haven children would be going to visit the Angkor temples over the Khmer New Year period for the weekend as they rarely leave the four walls of the site. Paul and Chris are to visit Siem Reap for the weekend also. Chris leaves Cambodia next Wednesday on the 14th, and with Chris, we ourselves will be leaving Cambodia to visit Calum's cousin in Singapore for a week (Transform + Connollys = sobei sobei - Happy Happy!). We leave on the 14th/15th and return on the 21st to Thailand and the 22nd to Poipet so please pray for our safety in travel and that we would return to work fully restored and ready to give 100 per cent into all we do.
With our love, grace and peace,

Alex, Calum and Paul xx