Hello peoples (if there is anyone out there still reading). I'm afraid I've been a naughty boy. I haven't updated my blog in almost a month. :-(. Bad Greg. But rest assured. My crime will not go unpunished. I have already taken the liberty of giving myself a cold for the past few days. There ain't no grace for this sin I assure you.

Now we've got that initial unpleasentness over, I'm pleased to report that my cold is slowly lifting (seriously though how can you get a cold when it's close to 40 degrees outside, surely it should be called a hot?), and that it has merely left a residue of a slight cough/ sore throat combo.

Apart from this I'm doing good. I'm beggining to feel the stress of being out here abit more than before though. The work is monotonous (theres only so many buckets of brick mix that you can fill) the weather hot and totally tropical (it's like English summer on steroids) and the Cambodians inexplicable (they sent someone to translate for us when we were doing kids outreach work. I realised he wasn't particuarly good at translating when I was telling the story of David and Goliath. He failed to understand the sentence 'once there lived a boy called David'. (with a classload of Cambodian kids expecant, a lesser man would have panicked.)) Hmm. Isn't funny how you can really go to town with brackets, and then totally lose the thread of what you were saying?

But yeah, it has been quite a long time now hasn't it? It'll be 10 weeks on Tuesday that I left the UK, but (and please don't be offended by this(!)) I am not really homesick at all. I have had moments of missing things British, but these have been very fleeting. As I''ve got to know the Cambodians and their culture better though, I've started to see how they are still heavily scarred from the years of the Khmer Rouge. Alot of them don't know how to make proper adult decisions for themselves, and many of the older Cambodians have heavily scarred bodies. We have seen people with eyes missing and many many missing limbs (both from landmines and from punishment amputations).

I am slowly but surely growing to love the town and people that I'm living in and with (glad I got that one the right way round!), though they do have numerous things which are baffling and infuriating! Every time I leave Poipet for more than a day or so, I am always glad to return - it really feels like home. Last week there was a three day public holiday in Cambodia, so the team decided to go to the regional capital of Battambong. Was really good, and is an example of how a Cambodian town can develop if the local economy is purged of corruption and violence. We visited a hill with some caves which was the site where the Khmer Rouge carried out some of their mass excecutions. As you enter the main chamber of the caves, you look up 60 feet to the roof of the cave and see a hole about 10 feet across where victims would be pushed to their deaths after first having their throats cut. The skulls, bones and clothes that remain are a chilling testimony to what happened just 30 years ago in what now is a beautifull, green and trainquil place.

As for my spiritual side, God has done what I'm learning to expect him to do and has gone and done the totally unexpected. When I came, I was anticipating big spiritual experiences and to have massive revelations of God and the way his Kingdom is spreading. Though I have had moments where God has shown me new things ( I have learnt so much about the nature of grace and righteouness for example), the main changes in my life, both physical and spiritual, is learning to see God in the day to day. I'm learning to see God away from the big spiritual experiences, rather than through them. I'm also learning more about what it means to be a servant, and how there are numerous things, which are completely uneseen and unappreciated, that God wants us to do. I think im developing more of a grit your teeth and do it faith rather than a worry because I haven't had my quiet time today faith. I think this is what is needed. I'm not sure though. Wouldn't everything be so much clearer though if we knew all the time exacly what God wants us to do? But we don't. I guess that's faith.

My dear mother has informed me that these posts get posted up on the Christ Church NM missionaries board, so if you're reading this in sunny New Malden, yoyo! Wasgwanin? I hope you are all doing well. Thank you for praying for me. I always try to pray for you guys and your Church. God bless y'all brother and sisters in Christ (how cheesy can you get Greg??ed.)

I am really sorry that all you guys have suffered such a news drought from me recently, and this will certainly not happen again! I promise!

Cyall latersssss.

.-""""""-. .' '. / O O \ : : : ', ,' : \ '-......-' / '. .' '-......-'