What a day

I don't have much time to post right now, but I'll try to cover everything next time. I got up this morning at about 6am to get measured for my suit. I brought a magazine to illustrate the general idea, and I'm feeling okay about my chances of getting something presentable.

I stopped by the bakery and picked up some pastries for the team's breakfast and returned to the guest house for a quick meeting and time of prayer with the team. We headed off to Tuol Sleng, Phnom Penh's notorious genocide museum. I'll post more later, but it was grim and grotesque and very moving. Lots of tears.

At lunch we talked about the experience, and had a brief communion service at the table. Afterwards, we headed out to the Killing Fields at Cheong Ek, about an hour's drive on the the worst roads imaginable. Again, an amazing experience. We walked through the mass graves and touched clothing and bones that had been freshly washed up by the season's monsoonal rains. Such an evil place. Such a sacred place.

We returned to the guest house at about 4pm, and I threw together some sort of pasta dish. We wolfed it down and rushed out to the orphanage in time to welcome the kids as they returned from school. When we arrived, Sopal and Narun introduced us to a little boy named Lin Da, who had just been admitted to the orphanage. He's ten years old, a little grubby and more than a little frightened, but when the other kids arrived home, he was accepted and treated graciously. By the end of the night, he was trying to sing the childrens' songs and he even cracked a smile or two.

Oh, God! I'm so thankful to be a part of something as profoundly wonderful as this.

Well, I have to choose between uploading pics and writing more about this right now. I promised the pics, so I'll be going now. More later...