halo camp

well howdy.

sorry about the delay in posting. the internet crashed on my last post, so i've been waiting to get back to the hotel to do something about it.

well highlights since my last post include:

seeing 'some' of the temples at siem reap. including the one where tomb raider was filmed. pretty spectacular. its amazing to think that they were all built about 2000 years ago over a period of about 400 years, scaling a land area similar to modern day new york city! wowsers!

we have also just returned from the 'project halo' youth camp. now 'halo' is a nice acronym but i can't for the life of me remember it. the mission is to surround orphans (due to HIV/aids, landmines, kymer rouge) with a support network to help them through life, one of the ways they do this is through pairing them up with an older christian youth in a big brother, big sister partnership. so we had approx between 120 - 150 kids at camp, and had a great time with them.
some also surrendered their lives to Christ so that was awesome. the times of worship were just amazing, and in a sauna like atmosphere, we spent most of our time dripping, but well worth it for the cause. it was just a joyous occasion really.
very tiring though, due to the heat, the busy schedule, wrestly kids, 8 flights of stairs to get to my room and mornings initiated with running and aerobis exercise.
me thinks i will sleep well tonight.

well say hi to the team for me, and we'll catch up later.

and alana - you have a new teaching job? congratulations.

ok kids, take care eh?

peace out.
carl.

thanks phillipa and jennie

word.

we made it to siam reap yesterday, (the place were the temples are for the unimformed), one of the tomb raider movies was partially filmed there - which one i'm not sure cause i've seen neither, but it might be something to look into when i get back.

anyway, back to the heading. on our bus trip we stopped for lunch and whilst using the facilities phillipa and jennie saw an opportunity they couldn't refuse, so when i arrived back to the team i had none other then a roast tarantula waiting for me. hmmm. not to let a crowd down i gave it a go. it wasn't a big one, - probably about 10cm in length all up, but still pretty intimidating. although i must confess i didn't eat the whole thing, an abdomen and poison sacks don't really tickle my fancy, so i many just ate the front legs. look out for a video coming near you shortly. was a bit overcooked, but oh well, you get that.
seeing my attempt credit must go out to phillipa and jennie who obliged by eating a couple of legs each. shot girls! sorry if i've offended anyone, but i'm the type of guy that will give most things a go.

anyway, cambodia is corrupt. (if you didn't already know.)
to catch our bus from the centre city on monday morning we hired 3 tuktuks, and split the team between the three. craig told them all exactly where to gom but with a little extra on the side, two drivers took us to another bus station expecting that we would by a ticket and get them some extra coin, (cause they have special deal with the bust companies), but alas we already had our tickets, so we were in the wrong place at the right time. which all added to the stress levels of a few of our team. but God looked after us and we made it too the right place eventually.

the trip it self was quite uneventful. note for future reference - don't get a seat where you can see out the front window. theres all kinds of stuff on the road and buses aren't the most manuoverable. i thought we were going to crash into heaps of stuff, kids, animals, moto's, cars, but our driver proved himself time and time again. what a good dude.

anyway, i could go on but i'll leave it there. hope all our well. the temples are amazing.

take care kids,

carl.

fried snakes

yeah well. as part of our phenom penh adventure we had to drive round and take photos of a list of 20 things:

one was a follows:
- a kiwi eating a fried snake

so with phillipa and joyce also in my team, i guess i was the chosen one.
tasted pretty good, it had a nice marinade, although it was a tad chewy. might ask for it to be not so well done next time!
our team came an unbelievably close second to the winning team of hamish, alex, and bonza. guess not being able to find that fried cricket really cost us. oh well, maybe next time.

the last few days have been really fulfilling, - donating blood was quite highlight. i don't normally do it in nz, but it seemed the right thing to do over here, and should hopefully prove helpful to somebody. i 'being such a big, burly man' was allowed to donate 400mls, so my good circulation proved its worth, and had me finished quite alot faster then some of the others, phillipa was pretty quick also - must be the southern upbringing. now if only we could fit in an airconditioning system? haha.

i went for a drive with my host father last night, his name is panit, and westerners aren't encouraged to go out alone after dark, because they are an easy target for theives etc, so it was a highlight to have the fresh breeze as we navigated the streets on 'moto' (motorbike). he took me past the royal palace, the independance monument, the british embassy (where he works), the river side - quite lively on a fridasy night, and a few of the other spots. it really is a beatuiful city, with lots of detailed buildings and greenery.

anyway. i better going. our involvment is picking up abit in some of the groups, so please pray that we can communicate effectively, and that we would love like jesus did.
hope things are rocking where you are.

take care all.
carl.

post two

hmmm well.
yeah, these updates don't seem to be working quite as well as anticipated. oh well. its hard to compress all the stuff, emotions, experiences, highlights in a small text fromat to convey all thats going on over here, but some stuff thats gone down follows:

last night we had the mean thunderstorm, i don't think you appreciate the full power of torrential rain until you sleep under a corragated iron roof with no insulation, ceiling, or anything. gets quite loud, and with thunder booming away in the background it formed quite a symphony.
quite a humbling experience.

whilst waiting to lead devotions at the prayer meeting this morning, me neil and hamish were hanging with the locals, apparently we found out later, they thought we we're pretty handsome, (it musta been early in the moring before we got a good sweat up, yea-uh!)

this afternoon - we also had the opportunity to go to the genocide muesum. wow. its very crazy, to imagine what went on there. its all still like it was at the time of the kymer rouge, with the cells, barbed wire, quite a dispicable place. in its former life it was a school, then the turned it into a prisoner camp. i'll leave you with one disturbing statistic - of 20,000 people that went in, only 7 came out alive.

on a lighter note, me and neil are slowly communicating more with our host family. we managed 'delicious' in kymer - chng ung after last nights meal and found out all the ages of the family. its pretty cool. i'm really enjoying living in the slums, i'm not quite sure why exactly? maybe the sense of community? it would be pretty hard to live there and work fulltime for 4 dollars a day, but the way they have looked after us so far makes for a particulary enjoyable experience. its gonna be sad to leave.

anyway, hope all you fullas are well. keep up the good work at home, and look after my flatmates for me. chur guys,

a lee how a / goodbye
carl.

cambodia

hey kids,

can't talk long, but just a quick note to say we made it safe.
we've found our host families and it should be a pretty awesome time, have nearly worn myself out playing soccer with the local lads. the people are so warm and friendly, and the climate is also. ha! anyway, just letting you followers know that all is well.

i'll talk more later.

cheers,

carl

three strikes - you're outta here

well, for those of you that have requested here, here, here it is:

sam duthie's much beloved bmw.
hopefully i won't write off any more cars in the near future.
for full story see below.

in other news: 2 sleeps and i'm in cambodia. yours prayers would be appreciated.

carl.

unbelievable

ok. we all know my life has been crazy lately. but try this one on for size:

my third car crash in 2 months happened on wednesday night.

YEAH WHAT?
exactly. here goes.
ok, so i went with sam to willie and alex's for tea in his bmw and whilst there my homie brotha tubbs txted to ask what time he should ring me, (cause he'd been trying for the last couple of days) , so i told him 9pm, and approximately 8.45pm me and sam made our way back down mahia road.
we were just turning off onto christmas road, when we heard sirens come from the roundabout, and then nek mintue. the car was shunted forward and i banged my head on my passenger window and sam suffered mild whiplash.
what happened was the cops were chasing this dude, and it turns out he was doing 120kph down mahia with no lights on, (alas why we didn't see him), so he saw us and must of premediated that we were going to carry on down mahia, and he would turn up christmas to escape from the police, but he obviously miscalculated and rammed into our backside, doing pretty much the same damage as to my corona.
but we found our later, that the police had two warrants for his arrest, so as soon as he crashed, he gapped it on foot up christmas road, and eventually the police couldn't find him. so, how crazy is that? i couldn't believe it. i don't really know whats going to happen to sam's car cause the other dude probably won't have insurance and didn't own up to the crash either - and i'm not sure whether the police have a policy for that.
but luckily it was his big bmw, or we coulda been carnage. God provided once again. if it was his corolla i think we both woulda been in intensive care today. far flaming out.

so yeah, its pretty crazy. i'm alright thou. i actually thought i would have hurt my ribs on the seatbelt, but they're not sore at all, so that's all good.

so yeah - i'm not sure what's going on at all. God's obviously trying to get me to rely on Him for strength, which i'm trying to do. but i just can't believe whats happened over the past month.

just goes to prove that we don't have no control over anything that goes on around else.
so make sure you are right with God - thats my advice right there.

ok, keep up the good work kids.

i'm out. peace.