It Is Great To Learn From Each Other

As we arrived in Cambodia fourteen months ago the Self Reliance Initiative was so brand new. Phanna was a new Self-Reliance Manager trying to understand his role as we waited for permission to move forward. Sameth had been helping the previous PEF Senior Missionaries but he had a completely new role as well. In many ways we were all just trying to feel our way along as we tried to identify our individual roles.

In our new assignment as the Asia Area Communication Couple we are again trying to understand our responsibilities. Last week Hong Kong got a great new Senior Couple, the Chandlers from South Jordan Utah. This is their second mission, their first was in Tokyo Japan. Today we Skyped with them for the second time and when we asked when they wanted to talk again they immediately said next week. We understand that feeling completely, it is good to be able to talk to someone that has gone through what you are going through. We try and train each time, but we are also a listening ear to listen to concerns and feelings. It is also amazing that as we talked with them they shared with us something that they do that we are going to try. If we just listen the Lord will provide learning opportunities in many different ways.

Even though we try and somewhat plan out our days, there are somethings that we do every day, most of the time we have to be very flexible with those plans. We never know when we will need to adjust those plans to meet a new situation or assignment. We had a fairly tight plan today, because of planned Skype calls and the Asia Area web call, but those plans had to give way to other items that came along. We figured that the Lord put things in our way to trip over, we better take care of them and not just ignore them.

One interesting person that we see all the time on our morning walks is a woman in a wheel chair with a bathroom scale. The scales is her way to give a service for pay instead of begging. We are told as missionaries that we are not to give money to those who ask, but for her we use her service and weigh ourselves.

Our morning walk was fairly uneventful this morning. We were a little earlier so that we would be back in time to call our son this morning, and the sun went from a beautiful red to a gold color in just minutes. It is common to see pedestrians cut across the road wherever they want and even stand on the barrier in the middle as they cross. The moto in todays picture is hauling new washing machine still in its box, most likely the store's delivery service.