~Recently we had a couple from Canada visit us for about a week. They helped Srai Sim (our lady pastor) visit villages, and they helped out around the church a little. On one day they went to the “Center for Disease Control” (CDC) which is near the church. Often Srai Sim will go there and pray for the sick people who are staying there. There are people suffering from various diseases, and often there are people suffering from AIDS. The visiting couple went with Srai Sim to the CDC and afterward came back and told me there was a young girl who was very skinny, and very sick. The girl is there with her mother who is HIV positive. I went to the CDC myself to see her and I was heart broken at what I saw.

This little girl is only 6 years old, and her mother has been HIV positive for at least 10 years. I don’t know for certain if the little girl is HIV positive or not. Her arms are very skinny, maybe only 3/4 of an inch wide, and you can see all her ribs front and back. Of course you see a little girl like this and you are determined to do what ever is necessary to help her. Fortunately there are many Christian NGO’s who are potentially able to help her. I have spoken to a NGO worker here in Poipet, and he is going to look into helping this little girl. There is no guarantee that anything can be done, but there is hope… So that’s one thing that keeps me awake at night.

~And then there’s the short term mission team coming from Canada sometime in April, who, for some baffling reason, won’t return my emails. Yeah I kind of need to know the dates of your arrival/departure to Poipet so that I can actually make some sort of schedule!! Maybe I’ll just schedule a vacation mid April, and maybe I just won’t be here when that team arrives (I’ll try to keep a positive attitude)… So that keeps me awake at night.

~And then there is the ever growing revelation that I really don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. I never received any missionary training before I came here. I was an electrician. I just felt the call to go, so I went. It’s like an 18 year old who’s almost finished high school. He thinks he knows everything about everything. Then he goes out into the work world, and quickly discovers that he’s still just a boy (at least that’s how it is in western cultures). So I know that here in Cambodia I still have a lot to learn. So far 2011 has been like one long sleepless night of tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable position. It’s the same with the work-tossing and turning to find out just exactly what it is that God wants us to do here in Poipet… This keeps me awake at night too.