Christmas!

It is now time to sit back and relax…for a few minutes anyway. sigh

Christmas Eve is the time of celebration with the children of Bykota House.  This year we started around 5 PM with some courtyard games and then we all shared a meal together.  After a quick clean up, we gathered inside for the rest of the festivities.

We started with announcing that we were going to use the evening to introduce our new focus.  The focus for the year 2009 is learning from the Lord to have true JOY.  The path to true JOY is putting J-esus first, O-thers second, and Y-ourself last.  JOY!  So in keeping with our new pattern, we began with a time of prayer of thanksgiving and a time to focus on Jesus with a time of Christmas carols led by Anne Tan on the guitar.  Anne returns to Singapore very soon and we will miss her help as intern.

Then to focus on Others we then asked who it was that worked so hard to make our lives easier and possible every day?  The staff!  One by one a Bykota kid chose a gift to pass to a staff member with verbal thanks and appeciation for their service.  It was very touching to see the children take to this task so enthusiastically and the thanks was very heartfelt.

After this was finished, it was time for the children to pass out their gifts to each other.  For our second year the children drew names to buy gifts for each other.  They were all given a $4 limit and a trip to a local Cambodian market.  After returning home, the gifts were wrapped by the children also.  For the gift exchange, the gift giver personally presented the gift to the recipient and we watched them open the gift and then thanks for the gift was given.  This again was a very good experience!  For many of the children this second gift exchange was their second trip ever to the big market, the second time to focus on someone else’s pleasure and to make a purchase of their own choosing.  All very good life lessons and the most important lesson was that it is better to give than to receive.  Mark and I feel this lesson is so needed in Cambodia.  There is such a beggar/victim mentality here.  We want the Bykota Kids to be raised whole and healthy and to be strong individuals.

We then passed out gifts that had been received from America…one from the home church of John and Kerri Evans in Little Rock, Arkansas and the second from our very own Grandma Marthalee in Carthage, Missouri.  This sweet woman whom none of the children have ever met raises little bits of funds here and there all year long and then goes shopping armed with a shopping list and a big heart.  The gifts are send via Fed Ex with the help of a sponsor in Oklahoma…thank you Mr. Phil!

The night was simply amazing!  The children were blessed in like manner to the Holy Infant with 3 gifts…but I don’t think gold, frankincense, or myrrh would have been enjoyed nearly as much as these tokens of love and care.

This morning Mark and I celebrated a quite smaller and quieter Christmas in our apartment with our seven children and this afternoon we are all resting.  We have enjoyed calls from two of our children in the States and hope to speak to a third this evening.  We do miss friends and family that we are away from but the real reason for the season has been enjoyed on this side of the ocean.

We pray that this blog posting finds your family enjoying the same pleasant after glow and that the coming year is full of JOY for you and yours also.

Breathing in, Breathing out,

Rhonda

 

Traffic Lights and birthdays…

Phnom Penh has some new traffic lights.  But they have an added thing for pedistrians…instead of Walk or Don’t Walk in words, there is actually a little green man that signifies “Walk”…and a red hand held palm out to signify “Don’t Walk.”  I imagine this is because so much of the population here is illiterate in English and/or Khmer.

But the funny thing is that the green man is animated and he is actually walking along.  But about midway through the traffic light, he starts walking a little faster…then in just a few seconds more, he is walking SIGNIFICANTLY faster until finally he is RUNNING.

I can’t help it…whenever I am sitting there in traffic and watching the little green man I have this mantra going through my mind…

“And we’re walking…walking…walking….”

“And we’re hurrying…hurrying…hurrying…”

“RUN!  RUN!  RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!”

We are a tad bit embarrassed because last month in getting back into the swing of things, we forgot all about the monthly birthday party and so Hosanna’s 18th birthday was not celebrated.  Then we were shocked to discover that Sammy and Tina both turn 7 this month…and Visoth turns 14!  Hard to believe it!

So next week, we are having a four in one birthday bash!

Breathing in, breathing out,

Rhonda

 

Dog Bites

Bee was bitten by a neighborhood dog today.  He was playing with a little Khmer friend that he has made and was riding on the friend’s bike.  The dog chased the bike and bit him on the ankle.  It left a deep puncture on one side of the ankle and a horizontal rip/puncture…not too bad on the opposite side.

All the Bykota Kids are current on tetanus shots so that was fine.  There hasn’t been a case of rabies found in PP for 10 years.  (probably because of the dog fighting and the rate at which they eat dogs.)

The most alarming part is that when this happened, the owner of the dog got scared and whisked Bee away on a moto to a nearby Cambodian clinic to have it cleaned and bandaged.  The guy then just brought him home with pain reliever and gave him 20,000 riel ($5 USD) to give to Mark in order to keep the peace.

The staff, upon Bee arriving with this STRANGER and hearing this tale, immediately brought Bee to the house and gave Mark the 20,000 riel.  Mark had to redress the poor job of bandaging while I burned the ears off the staff!  They were just sure that we would be upset that Bee was nipped by this dog.

When I brought it up to them about “Just what do you think about a STRANGER whisking one of the Bykota Kids away and obtaining medical treatment for him…ALL without anyone’s knowledge????  Did that bother anyone at all besides Dad and I????”

Okay…doing some heavy breathing in and breathing out,

Rhonda

 

Monday Musings

We were blessed yesterday by a guest speaker who was the daughter of the founder of World Vision.

She spoke on the circles of blessings that were started by her father that are still active and growing.

I drifted off for just a few minutes as I got to contemplating…that is what our life here is all about.  We have thrown our lives into the pond of Cambodia.  We have all faith and confidence that the ripples of this impact is going to have ripples that will go out in such magnitude that it will reach the very shore…the uttermost parts of Cambodia and bring the Father’s heart to the country of Cambodia.

It won’t be Mark and Rhonda who change Cambodia….it won’t even be the Bykota Kids who change their country…it will be the love of the Father Himself that is going out into these pond ripples that will change Cambodia.

Now…to walk through my day remembering that truth despite backed up plumbing, termite eaten cabinets, rats running in the courtyard, and monsoon rains…

Breathing in, Breathing out,

Rhonda

 

rats in the courtyard

okay…just a little Cambodia grossness!  Saturday night we are just chillin’  (that is meant figuratively because literally we were sweating like pigs) and all of a sudden there is a great commotion in the courtyard.  Mark calls down to the guard from the 2nd floor balcony to see if all is okay…and that say that all is fine…no problem.

Well, the next morning the guards show me the RAT that Snap the dog has killed the night before!  I guess he got a glimpse of it in the shadows and attacked it and killed it.  However, for some reason, the guards felt like they needed to actually SAVE it to show it to me!  UGH!!!

It was a good thing that Snap saw it because it was more than half the size of either of the cats.  So I don’t think it would have been pretty if the cat had jumped it!

Now we are left to wonder…do rats carry rabies?  Has Snap been exposed?  Snap “snapped” Madeline but only scrapped the skin.  Now has Maddie been exposed?  Yuck!  If it isn’t one thing, it is TEN others!

 

termites and thieves and soccer…

ter  mite –

Any of numerous pale-colored, usually soft-bodied social insects of the order Isoptera that live mostly in warm regions and many species of which feed on wood, often destroying trees and wooden structures. Also called white ant .

I think this  dictionary entry is WAAAYYY too mild of a description.  Plus I also think it is incorrect.  We have found that termites even like to eat waxy crayons!

We have returned from the States and after a first week of trying to recover from jet lag, Mark got school back on schedule as best he could.  But by the end of the first day, we found a terrible termite calamity.

In our main built-in cupboards in School of the Nations, termites have attacked.  We know they weren’t there when we left, but we have no idea when they moved in.  By the time Mark discovered them, they had eaten the entire wooden supports of the interior shelves.  Only the laminate material was supporting the weight of the materials.

But  the WORSE thing of all is the damage that they wrecked on the materials in the cupboards:

ALL but one of our excellent Scholastic Dictionaries were eaten…

All our extra NiRV Bibles that we had been collecting slowly but surely through donations…

The ENTIRE library of Khmer Christian Children’s writings…  EVERY Single one…destroyed…

Most of the box puzzles…

An entire box of donated Awana material…

All of our English Conversation material that we had copied for use this quarter…

Then also in the bottom cabinet where we had some art supplies stored we found:

ALL the sketch books…totally eaten

17 boxes of Crayola crayons eaten ( I hadn’t bought any Crayons in the States because we had this supply all ready to go)

All the paintbrushes eaten and just the little metal tips left that hold the bristles in!!!

All of these supplies were brought from the US and we used them and relied on them a great deal.  It was enough to make us want to just sit down in the middle of the floor and cry.  But the floor was wet with insecticide so we couldn’t sit there.  (trying to lol…)

If that wasn’t exciting enough for our first week back…the situation with crime and break ins have continued this week.  We live directly across the street from the “village chief.”  This Wednesday at 12 30 PM, his family had just finished lunch and were asleep in the house resting during rest time when they heard thieves at the back of the house.

The thief was dangling from something at the back and was patiently cutting away metal bars and supports of the fencing around and on the windows.    Thieves are doing this all over town.  They do this as a first step and sell the metal to recyclers because scrap metal is getting such a good price.  Then they come back later and go into the actual house to rob from the belongings.  But the brazen nature of this!  In the middle of the day…while the family was in the house resting…Golly Bob!

However, the week has ended on a more cheerful note.  Today was the first day of soccer with the Phnom Penh Soccer League.  Last year we were very blessed when the children of Bykota House were invited to participate since their English skills were so good.  So we had 11 very happy soccer players.  Bee, Mary, and Madeline were excited too because they love playing on the sidelines while soccer is playing.  As a side note…if this is something that a reader or someone you may know might be interested in sponsoring since it is certainly an extracurricular event…our expected costs for soccer this year is $400 ($200 for fees, $150 for new cleats for those whose feet are growing and $50 for the toll fees and transportation costs to get there)…see our website for details on how to give if this is something you are interested in.

Breathing in, breathing out,

Rhonda

 

Back in Cambodia

Internet is unreliable in Cambodia and it can be very difficult for Rhonda to keep a connection long enough to get a blog post up. So she sent this post to me via email and I am posting it for her. ~ Christina

Upon our arrival back to Cambodia, we’ve found the inflation that is hitting Cambodia has gotten worse. As an example…the cost of a kilo of flour has actually doubled. Not almost doubled…but EXACTLY doubled. So this has put incredible pressure upon a nation that is wracked with poverty already. In response to this, crime is on the increase at an alarming rate and much of it is targeted against foreign businesses and ministries, including churches. On our street…which is about 3 blocks long, there were 3 break ins last week alone. There was a woman robbed at gunpoint one street over the week before we returned to Cambodia.

This has caused us to have to hire a guard which has increased our payroll but also…it is weird. Just think about having someone walking around your house while you are inside in your nightgown in the evening or morning. Very strange but I guess I will get used to it. The guard position is being filled by a Christian couple known by other missionaries for a long, long time. They also do gardening work for other foreigners. So they are coming at 6 PM and staying until 8 AM. Until dark and after awakening, they are also caring for our courtyard. The filth and dirtiness of our life here is hard for me to take so I am trying to focus on how much neater and cleaner the courtyard will now be that we have someone who is focusing on it. The couple does sleep at night outside on Cambodian mats under mosquito netting. But should the dog awaken them by barking…someone is there. Also, thieves know who does and who does not have guards. Just the fact that someone is arriving every night is a deterrent.

We have been called about Doberman puppies for sale and are trying to decide if we should buy one. They are $600!!! So far there are only two left. Our Shar Pei was stolen because staff didn’t keep her inside the gate while we were gone and our other dog is getting quite old. But $600 is a lot of money when we are trying to adjust our food budget to deal with inflation.

Today is homeschool co op. So many families, mainly the SBC ones, are gone on year long furloughs. So our numbers are down to the point that we don’t really have enough moms to have classes for all the age divisions. But the first Thursday of every month, we are going to a hotel on the outskirts of town and swimming. My Littles got to swim so much in the States and they really love it. So that has been something they have been looking forward to all week. It is the rainy season though and so I am praying that it doesn’t rain us out.

 

Napa Auto Parts

We are back in the States for our first family furlough in almost four years.  It has been the “best of times and the worst of times” to quote a much better writer than myself.  But above all it has been busy!

We have been meeting with our home team of supporters who so faithfully pray and support the ministry in Cambodia while doing a huge number of other things such as reconnecting with family, including getting to know our two new grand daughters, touring colleges for Kati and Dani, going through the final little bit of stuff that we have in storage, and trying to get in some much MUCH needed rest and relaxation.

The Lord blessed us with the use of our sending church’s old church van and so we haven’t had the need to rent a vehicle while we have been here.  That has saved us a great deal of cash.  But that old van is what has prompted this posting on the blog…

We were heading towards Benton, KY which is in the Paducah area last Saturday.  We were just approaching Union City, TN when all of a sudden Mark realized that we had no power steering and that we must have lost a belt.  Within what seemed like only two or three minutes, the van began to overheat.  We had hoped to make it all the way into Union City to find a auto garage but before we actually hit the city limit sign, Mark had to pull over to prevent the heat from doing damage to the van.

It was HOT…I mean HOT!  There were heat advisories for heat indexes in excess of 115 degrees that day so I mean HOT!  On the road it was especially punishing and heat waves were wavering over the black top.  Mark got out to look at the engine.  I got out to give him moral support.  Make no mistake about it, I can look at an engine and see NOTHING.  I do not know a thing about that kind of stuff.

He reaches into the engine and pulls out a great big long thing that even I know is a belt of some sort.  Turns out it was the drive belt and it is a very necessary part.  So to have it off of its tracks and in Mark’s hands is not a good sign.  But Mark muttered something about at least it was in one piece so I think “Maybe it isn’t as bad as it seems to me.”  I had been standing there wondering how we were going to find a van to even rent on a Saturday afternoon in Union City so that we are where we are supposed to be the next morning.

Then Mark starts looking at this sticker on the engine that shows a diagram of how the belt is supposed to go on the engine.  This is apparently Miracle Number One because this is a 1994 church van that has been used very, VERY well and is on its last hurrah with our little foray across the nation.  To think that a sticker on the engine is going to be completely intact and readable after 13 years is totally amazing.  So while Mark is muttering, I realize that he is going to attempt to put this belt back on.  As a little side note, after 26 years of marriage, I have learned to not be real vocal with questions when he is muttering into an engine.

I step back to the kids in the van.  I tell them what is going on.  And I ask them to pray.  “Pray that Daddy doesn’t get burned by the hot, hot engine while he is trying to get it fixed.  Pray that he doesn’t get hit by someone in this traffic.  And pray that God sends an angel by that maybe has some tools with him.”

I go back up to the engine and Mark is managing to get the belt on some of these points where it belongs but they are very difficult to get to.  He says what he needs is something to lay under the van (on this hot pavement????!) and would I go get the dog’s little rug in the bottom of their crate.  So I go back there and steal the dogs crate rug.  They needed the doors open any way because the heat inside the van for all the passengers was getting worse by the minute.  That we even had that rug in the van was Miracle Number Two when I sit down and think about it because who in their right mind would be traveling around the US for 30 days with 8 kids in an old van and think “Hey, why don’t we add to dachshunds to the family!”

So now Mark is laying down under the van and the muttering can still be heard.  But then he says, “I can’t get this belt on this last point no matter how I reach.  I need some sort of tool.”  Well, the only tool that we have in the whole van (unless you count Danielle’s manicure instruments as tools) is a flat head screwdriver and I don’t even know where that came from or whose it is.  It just sorta appeared in the van having been dug out from under a seat one day during a cleaning detail.

So I go get said screwdriver which is Miracle Number Three and the belt goes back on.

When I start the van, Mark stays out to watch and see what happens and besides a terrible sound…the engine is working.  So he hops in the van and we head down the road.  Through Union City we drive but we do not find a garage that is open…we pull into one but find it closed but as we pulled in, the terrible noise stopped.  So we thought the belt had come off again.  It hadn’t though so we continued down the highway.  We found that if we turned on the AC…the terrible noise started again so we had to leave that off.  The heat was very uncomfortable but we would live.

We crossed over into KY and got quite a bit further down the road and nearer to our destination.  It was then that the belt did come off again.  Mark knew it instantly with the loss of power steering again.  So he began driving using the thermostat.  When the engine temp started to move higher, he would kick it over into neutral or even turn it off while we coasted down the road.  This kept the engine cooling but that was do greatly in part to Miracle Number Four.  The road which had been blistering hot just 60 minutes earlier was now shaded on both sides with trees on the Purchase Parkway.  We had a very comfortable breeze coming in the windows and it felt NOTICEABLY cooler!  God had lowered the temperature outside for us.

Driving in this manner was slow going but nevertheless we are making progress and getting closer.  We took our appropriate exit and Mark spied a Napa Auto Parts store and headed towards it.  Just as we are pulling up…a Kentucky grandfatherly type steps out of the door to yell…

“You alls Chris Ostenhoffer?
“No sir,” Mark replies. “But I need a drive belt for this van.”

“What year is that Ford?”

“A 1994, I believe,” Mark answers.

So all of us pile out of the van and I get the doggies out to cool off as well.

What transpired next was the greatest miracle of all…and that brings us to a grand total of Five so far in this miracle countdown.  It seems that this store owner was just about to close up shop when he got a phone call from a person identifying themselves as Chris Ostenhoffer and he was in sore need of something and would be right there if only they wouldn’t close up shop.  So the kind-hearted gentleman waited but no one arrived.  Just as he was walking to the door to lock up, we pulled in and he saw the kids all piling out of the van roly poly pell mell jumble tumble and so he opened up the door to ask if we were this Chris fellow.

Well, obviously we were not Ostenhoffers, but he had the belt out of inventory and rung up before Mark even got to the counter at the back of the store.  And before I even got the dogs on their leashes and had a chance to step into the AC, the owner was turning off the “open” sign and Mark and the kids were exiting.  The owner just had to give the dogs a pat because he loved dachshunds but then we were on our way to Benton which was only about 10 minutes away.

Miracle Number Six was that within 30 minutes of some visiting with our hosts in Benton and after a cool off swim in their pool that they had all prepared and waiting for us…the new drive belt was on and the van was running just fine.  In fact, running better than it ever had run for us.

Then we could sit back and see…

1.  Dad never got burned by that hot engine.

2.  Obviously Dad didn’t get run over in the traffic.

3.  An angel didn’t stop by with tools…BUT the day was so hot that the angel just called Napa Auto Parts for us and the rest worked out.

To Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask, be all Glory!!!!

Breathing in, Breathing out,

Rhonda

 

Monopoly Madness

Last night we got the wise idea to stay up and have a monopoly game with our teenagers.  We waited to start until late in the day.

We got started and Isaac is Mr. Monopoly and buying up the board.  We had to stop for dinner but then got back to it.  Oh my, you can learn alot about how your kids feel about you and each other when it is cuthroat business.  giggle.  We had secret alliances going on and Mark kept trying to act like a squatter and land on our places without paying rent.  We had to really watch him.

Isaac was the first to go bankrupt.  He got huffy and went to bed.  Then I bit the dust…but I had to stay in the game as banker because the others were acting too weird.  Midnight came and went.  Kati gets kicked out but won’t leave the table.  She likes the sound of her little boot playing piece clicking on the game board.  (she had too much sugar!)  So then it is down between Mark and Danielle…omigosh!!! 

Finally I announced that the dog or the baby (I don’t know which one first) will be waking me up and no one will be helping me…so the bank needed to close.  They have laid a table cloth on the table so that no pieces can be disturbed. 

They are such hoots…Mark is 43 years old and has NEVER won at monopoly before so he is determined to trounce Danielle…Danielle says “the senior citizen is going down!” 

But here I sit, up starting a new day with the baby and the dog both at my feet and the other 4 Littles clamoring for breakfast and the day is moving on!!!

Breathing in, Breathing out,

Rhonda

 

Awana begins and holiday news

Our week ended with lots of fun as our Awana Club began.  Our plan is to have Awana each Friday afternoon from 4 to 5.  We actually have an opening ceremony, circle times, and then courtyard games.  It didn’t look like any Awana Club you’ve ever seen before but the Bykota Kids had an absolute blast.

 This week is going to be a difficult week for us.  It is the Cambodian holiday of Pchum Ben.  In English, that roughly translates to Ancestors Day.  The holiday is one in which families visit pagodas, give offerings to the monks, and each morning at the temples rice is thrown into the air for Ancestors who may otherwise be hungry through the rest of the year.  I personally don’t think that throwing rice all over the place is a good thing to do with the rat infestation problems that we have already but no one ever asks my opinion.  Sigh…

But in reality what actually happens is that this is another WEEK LONG holiday in which every one piles into cramped buses and taxis to journey out to their home province.  Phnom Penh will be like a ghost town.  No crowds, no traffic.  BUT also no stores open, no markets to shop in, nothing to do or any way to enjoy the lack of crowds/traffic.  For us, it means a real hard time staffing and caring for the Children’s Home because so many staff members are gone for all or part of the holiday.  It also means that buying food is very difficult.  Many food markets are closed but the ones that are open are going to be hiking up the prices to be at least double if not more.  So for our NGO and family, this holiday is just something that we hunker down and try to survive and trust that it will soon be over.

There will be school for the Bykota Kids on Mon and Tues but then they are to be given Weds through Fri off in order to rest.  For the Benz kids, it is school as normal.  The rest of us will be busy handling the jobs that the absent staff members will not be here to do.

Update on Lizi:  We haven’t had her back to the doctor for another weight check but we will soon.  She is eating with a ferocious appetite but it is obvious from her bowel movements that much food is not digested.  She doesn’t appear to be growing much at all.  We hope the scale shows us something differently.  We have had trouble getting rid of the scabies she came with.  Unfortunately, it appears that Mark may have gotten them from her.  Itchy!  Her lungs are staying clear though and so that is a definite answer to prayer!

Update on furlough plans:  Our plans are still progressing for our family to be in the States from the end of May to the end of August next summer.  Please pray for God’s will to be manifest in all the plans and for His provision of all needs to be in abundance.  It seems to be quite a large undertaking so there are many, many questions to be answered.

If you are desirous of a visit from our family or an opportunity to hear and see more in detail of what the Lord is doing in Cambodia, please contact us so that we can try to start on a tentative schedule.  We want to touch base with as many friends and family as we possibly can in the time we are there. 

If you have any ideas, advice, or offers of housing or transportation for the time we are in the States, please contact us.

Breathing in, Breathing out,

Rhonda