In the Middle of Nowhere

So most of today was spent inside of a van driving throughout the Cambodian countryside. Our group wanted to go visit some of the churches in Cambodia, which are located in more remote areas accessible only by dirt roads and river ferries—another adventure for us! The exciting thing about these churches was that some of the children there are Garuna Kids.

Garuna Kids is an organization that helps children who cannot afford to go to school. Under the Garuna Foundation, Garuna Kids connects donors in the States (and hopefully globally soon!) with children in Southeast Asia. For $30 a month, these children can attend school, buy uniforms, purchase school supplies, and get the books that they need. Right now, 50 children that we visited at the two local village churches are Garuna Kids! Praise God. Check out the pictures below to see how beautiful they are. Maybe the Holy Spirit will tug at your heart to sponsor one of these children as well. For more information contact Jeff Ehlers at j_ehlers@yahoo.com. (Start at the BOTTOM of the pictures to go in order...they were uploaded backwards.)

The children were adorable and so eager to learn about us.

We all worked together on the same ABC connect the dot project. They had so much fun!

The kids led us up into their community room where they have their Sunday school class.

They were entranced by Karen's I-Phone. Apple would've paid BIG bucks for their reaction as they watched a video Karen had taken of them singing "Jesus Loves Me." They thought it was hilarious to watch themselves sing!

After another 1 and a half hour drive, we ended up at our second church destination. There were about 30+ kids here to meet and greet us.

This was the WHOLE group at the first church that we visited. They were wonderful. It was sad to leave.

Tracy (and her helpers) taught the kids "Jesus Loves Me" in sign language. They caught on quickly! The teacher asked Tracy to write the song down so that they can keep practicing it in English.

20 of us were packed into these 2 vans. Thank goodness for air conditioning. 6 hours of driving today!

After some singing, we all worked on an ABC connect the dots projects together. Fun bonding time.

We handed out school supplies while we were there. The kids were SO EXCITED to receive some paper, colored pencils, and a pencil. They were even more excited about the cookies.

We had to use this river ferry to cross the Mekong River to get to these churches. People as well as cars use the ferry. They tried to sell us things as we rode across.

This was the first church we visited in the village. There were 100 kids there to see us! Some parents came as well.

Amy and I were especially excited to meet these children because our school, Zion Lutheran School in San Francisco will be sponsoring Garuna Kids (and the Garuna Foundation) for our chapel offering. Christ Lutheran School in Phoenix Arizona sponsored the organization last year and was able to support 30 kids! They started a school in Cambodia!