Number 3.
It's hard for me to believe that it has been more than a week now since Josh and I saw off our 3rd team of the summer! The group was comprised of 7 students and 4 adults from Ireland, America, Scotland, South Africa and Malaysia, all of them currently residing in Hong Kong attending Union Church.
We worked together for 4 days doing what we will call a "generous" amount of scraping and painting at the Pdau Penh Church Orphan home in the Kompong Speu province :)
We were grateful to discover that what we anticipated being a 3 hour ride in the back of the truck, became in reality a 45 minute ride to the guest house...don't tell the Santa Rosa team about this :)
"Whitening creams" can be found on any number of supermarket shelves throughout Cambodia as well as Whitening Deodorants because you just can't be too thorough when striving for that perfect pale complexion so highly sought after in Southeast Asia.
Dale, however, has found a cheaper alternative to such methods....sanding the cement wall of a church home for 3 hours...
The students on the team worked incredibly hard, following the examples of their team leaders. 
The team gave the kids new toothbrushes (to take care of the effects of the candy they gave out :) as well as new clothes for each child and care giver!
Many of the youth on the team were the same age as the youth at the home which made for instant and deep connections through games, times of connecting through a translator, and crafts. It was powerful to watch how quickly friendships formed despite not having a common language and a variety of cultural backgrounds.
We worked together for 4 days doing what we will call a "generous" amount of scraping and painting at the Pdau Penh Church Orphan home in the Kompong Speu province :)
We were grateful to discover that what we anticipated being a 3 hour ride in the back of the truck, became in reality a 45 minute ride to the guest house...don't tell the Santa Rosa team about this :) 
"Whitening creams" can be found on any number of supermarket shelves throughout Cambodia as well as Whitening Deodorants because you just can't be too thorough when striving for that perfect pale complexion so highly sought after in Southeast Asia. Dale, however, has found a cheaper alternative to such methods....sanding the cement wall of a church home for 3 hours...
The students on the team worked incredibly hard, following the examples of their team leaders. 
The team gave the kids new toothbrushes (to take care of the effects of the candy they gave out :) as well as new clothes for each child and care giver!Many of the youth on the team were the same age as the youth at the home which made for instant and deep connections through games, times of connecting through a translator, and crafts. It was powerful to watch how quickly friendships formed despite not having a common language and a variety of cultural backgrounds.It made for quite the moving, tearful goodbye at the end of our time at the home :)
We left our guest house for the grueling 45 minute drive back to Phnom Penh (again, don't tell the Santa Rosa team who are probably still paying chiropractic bills for the roughly 873 hours they spent in the back of this same truck....) and took the team to one of our favorite places for authentic Cambodian food in Phnom Penh.....The Pizza Company! Our new staff member, Ryan, successfully built his very first "1 time through so you have to build it as high as possible within the confines of a ridiculously tiny bowl" salad bar salad!
Well done friend, well done.
We left our guest house for the grueling 45 minute drive back to Phnom Penh (again, don't tell the Santa Rosa team who are probably still paying chiropractic bills for the roughly 873 hours they spent in the back of this same truck....) and took the team to one of our favorite places for authentic Cambodian food in Phnom Penh.....The Pizza Company! Our new staff member, Ryan, successfully built his very first "1 time through so you have to build it as high as possible within the confines of a ridiculously tiny bowl" salad bar salad!Well done friend, well done.
It also happened to be our staff member Jock's birthday! And nothing says "birthday" in Cambodia like ordering seafood macaroni at the Pizza Company followed by an acapella, tambourine-driven rendition of "Happy Birthday," complete with hand clapping and the full attention of an entire restaurant.
I will miss these distinctly foreign cultural traditions once we return home.
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