Srae Ambel Church Camp - Day 1

 We had our first nation-wide all ages church camp.  Srae Ambel is the area where the camp was located.
We left Phnom Penh at around 8:15am and arrived at the camp at about 12:30.
My sister, Julie Broyles and her staff at the BEST Center organized and hosted the camp.







Of course, the trip wasn't without incident.  For those of you from Broken Arrow and have been on some of our youth trips, or are familiar with them, it is not unusual to see Rich being under a vehicle.  And, so it continues.  On this particular trip, part of the muffler fell off and it was dragging the ground, so we had to wire it up.

 But we did get to camp.  And, since this was the first time any of the Khmers (Cambodians) had stayed in tents, it was quite exciting.
Of course, in the early evening, when it downpoured and some of the tents flooded, it wasn't quite so much fun.  But they were all good sports, dried out things the best they could, and were excited to be spending time with their brothers and sisters in Christ at this pretty place.

 We enjoyed the beautiful creation that God made.  Such a peaceful place.
In the afternoons each day, other Khmers came to enjoy the ocean and the beach area.  Thankfully, the area was a good size, so they didn't interfere too much with our camp. (There were several different groups of people who came over and looked at the tents. Some even took their picture by the tents.)

 Everyone was divided into 4 groups.  The groups were used for doing chores (water prep, serving food/washing dishes, cleaning bathrooms, and trash cleanup.
Also, some of the activities were split up the same way.
This picture is of a game where each group had to get in order.  The first game was in order by height.  This picture is of the 2nd game and it was in order of age.  Since I was so much older than any of them, I stood way back!

We got all the tents put up, lunch eaten and cleaned up, and then had some free time to settle in and enjoy God's beautiful creation.

 In the evenings, we had a Bible Study.  The theme of the camp was Qualities for Strong Marriages.  This is Kimsrun, one of CBI students, leading the singing.

 And this is a picture of the group.  The front empty chairs are mine and Rich's, as well as a couple ladies that had just had to take their children out.  But we had over 100 people there.  The Khmers have never been in a place where there were 100 Christians in one place.  The singing was great!  And everyone was encouraged by getting to see old friends and meet new friends.

Rich was the keynote speaker for the camp this year.  The first night, he spoke on Communication.  He did a great job.
Most of the Khmer Christians are young; and the majority are not yet married.  So this camp was good for both the married ones, to help strengthen their marriages, and the unmarried ones to know how to make their marriages strong from the start.  Rich did a good job of giving them tools to use to help the communication in their marriages.
Veasna, Rich's coworker at CBI, did the translating.

So, this was the first day.  I'll post more in later blogs.  Much love, Ronda