escape to bangkok

last month daniel's ultimate frisbee team joined a tournament in thailand, so we spent a really fun weekend enjoying the sights & sounds of bangkok (& a few fun comforts from home, like starbucks & a movie in a real theater & mcdonald's cheeseburgers!)

[transport]

[tea]

[strawberries]

[an incredibly spicy & delicious thai meal at the market]

[avatar in 3D!]

[a polite asian mcdonald's greeting]

MCC BC stories booklet

[here is an excerpt about our work from the MCC BC Workers Prayer Booklet, click on the picture to download the stories booklet]

I do not at all understand the mystery of God’s grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

-Anne Lammott, Traveling Mercies

Daniel & Amanda Talstra, MCC Cambodia

Our MCC assignment involves spending the majority of our time working at the Royal University of Agriculture in Phnom Penh. In addition, Daniel works with the Returnee Integration Support Center. This organization assists Cambodians who were admitted into the United States as refugees and then later deported back to Cambodia. Amanda works with Women Peacemakers, an organization that provides training in rural provinces about women's rights, domestic violence, and conflict mediation.

We see God working in the people we meet who are working for the poor and marginalized in their own country. Cambodia is trying to recover from the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, while at the same time speeding into the globalized world. It is also a country that is leaving behind millions of poor farmers in rural provinces and disrespecting the human rights of many. The Cambodians we meet who are choosing to sacrifice of themselves and to stand up for the rights of their brothers and sisters remind us that God is at work in this country in a million small, but powerful ways.

Prayer requests:

• that Cambodian leaders will be wise and honest in their work.
• that God would provide for all those who are hungry, especially children who have high rates of malnourishment.
• for the Cambodian church to work in unity and serve as a powerful witness to Christ
• for us, that we would be diligent in the work we have been called to do and loving to all those around us.

jungle temples [beautiful & broken]

at ta prohm temple we observed the epic struggle of the jungle reclaiming its territory (in slow motion).

uprooting the massive temple in a strangely twisting, bulbous & yet enchanting embrace.

it seems a fitting metaphor for cambodia itself.

beautiful.

&.

broken.