Back Blogging

Hi friends and family,

This is Michael, posting a blog that should summarize my journey up to the previous blog.

Well prior to our pre-trip (May 12-13), I was under immense stress from finals, final projects, papers, Resident Advisor checkouts, packing up my place, saying goodbye to friends and raising funds for this trip. After getting through graduation weekend, with all the family and friend-outings of last goodbyes and making the excueses of "I may never see this person again!", I still had one last essay to complete and had to pack and finish cleaning (after my amazing roommate and his parents cleaned the place rather well). And I still had not nailed down a place to store all my stuff :P

Well, Tuesday was the day to complete most all things. So after visiting Le Cordon Bleu to finalize some things before I left, I got my Typhoid shot (coincidentally with Kristie from Team Vietnam!) and went back home. Finished my essay, emailed it off, and felt like I graduated! Well, that was short lived as I looked around my appartment and saw the mess I had to pack. I was truly blessed by my friend Nick as he helped pack and move all my belongings to another blessing - my friend Alli and Whiley's appartment garage. I stayed up till 2:30 that night, packing and moving, and still had 2 trips left of belongings.

Wednesday was our pre-trip day that began at 10am, but first, I had to empty my appartment. SO, up at 7 am, more packing and cleaning...got it all done, but still had not packed my pack for Cambodia!!

10am hits and I managed to pack a day pack for our beach outting. Metting at OWM was good to see everyone there, and then we discussed our finances. Prior to this we were, as a team, $5000 short of going. Yet after everyone's efforts, blessed by God, somehow, a lot of money came in! At that time, each team member was approved to go, this meant that each team member was either fully paid, or enough money had been raised that team members owed $250 or less. Praise God!!!!

We spent the majority of the day out at Huntington beach, just chillin' soaking up the sun and getting some much needed rest. That night, we were blessed to have Hannah from Team Cambodia 2009 and her parents open up their house for us! They cooked us food and gave us a great place to stay near the beach.

Thursday morning, my team and I embarked early for APU, so that I could get one last needed haircut in. My team used my empty appartment as a base while we all took care of last minute details. At 4pm, we all met up at the Office of World Missions (OWM) and we were commissioned by our dear friends and family. Following that we went to dinner with those who could join at the new Chipotle and said our goodbyes afterwards.

At 9pm, we walked our packs to OWM and met Justin Blomgren to drive us to LAX. Our flight was at 1:15 AM and we were all exhausted as we realized that it was just this morning that we were all leaving Huntington...a super long day. But it made for a good amount of tiredness that led us into our 13ish hour flight to Taipei.

I think we all passed out within the first hour of the flight. We all tried to stay awake as much as possible to begin to match the 15 hour difference between Cambodia and the US. I began to watch the movie Book of Eli, and passed out midway. We woke up to dinner, or lunch being served and enjoyed some rather delicious food. I finished watching the movie and began watching Percius something-rather...about a kid who is a demi-god...one way to pass the time.

Landing in Taipei was great, or atleast I remember it as great. I was rather out of it, but we made our way, winding through the airport, to what seemed the other side of the island...with 30 minutes to spare in our layover, we boarded and got back to sleep. Our flight touched down in Cambodia at 10am. We were immediately greeted by the heat and humidity...a little too friendly...

But we were all too excited to be there to be brought down by the weather. Going through customs was nothing special, though all the custom's agents could use a smile as they were very serious. Outside of the airport we got our first glimpse of Cambodia as we waited for our contact to meet us. Many, many, many men came and offered their services to us as tok tok drivers.

After 20 minutes, we meet Bopa, or as she likes to be called, Bazooka! She is a volunteer worker for YWAM (Youth with a mission) and is rather fluent in English and her native language of Khmer. We took one toktok, with 8 of us piled in the back with all our packs and Steven and I up front with the driver. If you don't know what a toktok is, it is a motorcycle, and sometimes a mopede that has a passanger cart towed behind it. Super fun way of getting around the city!!

YWAM base in Phnom Penh is a 7 story home that is amazing! Steven and I were blessed to receive a room (that we shared with two other men) that had AC, while most do not have it :P

I will have to write more later, as it has been an hour and my team needs to head out! Keep us in your prayers!!

Love,
Michael