Day 4

Today was absolutely a great day, although tiring.  We left the apartment before 6:00 a.m. to travel to the dorm to catch the bus to travel to Srey Neang's village.  She is a young woman who accepted Christ and then stood up to her family and village when they wanted her to marry a non believer and worship in the Buddhist temple.  Her grandfather is the chief of the village.  Greg and Jane went out to the village to talk to her parents and the end result was an invitation to bring the puppet teams out to give a presentation.  We arrived late due to the bus being an hour late to pick us up.  Approximately 150 people were all sitting there waiting for us when we arrived.  I was just sitting next to Jane watching the videos she took from the performance.  The joy on the people's faces was amazing.  I was telling Jane I loved this performance because it was inter-generational from the very young to the very old.  They all seemed to love it.  After the presentation, we passed out snacks and finger puppets to the kids (and some of the adults because they all wanted them too).  While we were doing this, several of the team members prayed with several of the women of the village who had health problems.  We then started to pass out shoes and hats to the women and men of the village.  I looked over at the other side of the tent and there was one of the students sharing the gospel with a group of approximately 10 women.  Praise the Lord.   They did tell the student that they did believe in Jesus but they had no one to teach them.  The students did bring several Bibles to give out.  The Chief's wife kept coming over to me, grabbing my hands, bowing, and holding my hand. 

After the performance, we were taken to Srey Neang's family's home for lunch, although we brought our own lunch.  They had made sticky rice treats for us and the Chief shared his lunch with some of us.  We had chicken and rice, duck, and some delicious sauce to pour over the rice.  The students on the other hand, kept giving me this sour fruit to eat, that they dipped into a hot sauce. They all had a great time making fun of my facial expressions.   At the end, it poured rain and we had to slosh back to the bus through mud.  We had a great time laughing at each other.  On a serious note, please pray that the spiritual seeds planted today will take root and grow.    By Karen Knodel

"We love our fuzzles!"

The village chief teaches DoDo the dragon how to brush

Another puppeteer down