Cambodian Christmas

Hello friends!!

I pray you all had a wonderful Christmas with lots of snow! I wanted to share with you all the details of my fantastic Cambodian Christmas J For those who don’t know, our team stayed in the same building with team Kindle. We decided that we wanted to do something for the other team. So we started working on stockings about 2 weeks from Christmas. We went to the Russian Market (which I love!) and bought t-shirts for $2 each. We bought shirts that say SAME SAME on the front and BUT DIFFERENT on the back. When something in Asia is the same they say same same…even if it’s slightly different it’s still same same…but different lol. It gets confusing. Anyhow, I made a pattern for them and then bought needles and thread at the market. We cut them out using the scissors from our utility knives. The same same/but different we used for our stocking and then used the bottom halves of the shirts to make one for the other team. They were all hand-stitched and turned out really cute. The one I made for JD may or may not have been partially made out of a pair of ladies underwear…

On Christmas Eve Samantha and myself cooked dinner for our two teammates. We are on tight budget but was given 5 jars of spaghetti sauce from our contact at the AS Center! That was exciting because it meant we could afford to feed all 12 of us a great meal. The sauce may or may not have been expired for 11 months already…

After dinner we did a white elephant gift exchange. We had a great time! After the gift exchange we gathered around the sofa and sang Christmas carols! It was a great end to a wonderful Christmas Eve.


Christmas morning we wanted to all eat together. We had banana pancakes! (super delicious J ), bacon, eggs, and juice. After breakfast we opened our stockings and poured out all the loot from the inside. There were candy canes and chocolate and encouraging notes!

 

Next was time for gift exchanges with my teammates. We drew names and made a short list of things we might like. I drew Carmen’s name. I got her some bracelets, chocolate, and head bands. Jenny got my name! I received a new pair of earrings, dark chocolate, and q-tips…

Our day was still not yet finished! We headed down the road to celebrate Christmas with another team that was near by. They prepared a feast! We had chicken, salsa, apple pie, puppy chow, salad, mashed potatoes, and a few other treats J We even had a special visit from Santa…

 

And just when you think the day could not get any better…it does! Our contact, Prasad, invited our team over to his house to eat Christmas dinner with his family. He was born in India and raised in Singapore and now lives Cambodia! He’s awesome. I love the ministry he does and the passion he does it with. Dinner was amazing! We had turkey, dressing, brown gravy, potatoes, and a few other wonderful things I can’t remember right now…

I pray you all have as many memories as I do this Holiday season!! In just a few hours I will be on a bus headed towards Bangkok to catch our midnight flight to Kenya! Our flight it scheduled to leave Bangkok at 12:01 am on New Year’s Day!! We’ll be in the sky and cross over 5 different time zones as they celebrate new years! Much love to you all and many blessings in this new year J Please pray that our bus does not experience the same malfunctions as the one that got us here lol