I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are having a great start to the new year! Curtis and I had an amazing trip back to America for the holidays. It was a great time of catching up with friends and family and getting refreshed. 6 weeks flew by! We made sure to get our fill of burgers and junk food while we were home.We have been back in Cambodia for 2 weeks now so it’s time for an update!

So far being back in Cambodia has been great. It’s been so nice seeing everyone again and seeing our pup, Jax, is always a bonus. Huge thank you to Dot for keeping our dog alive even though he destroyed a lot of your stuff> I tried to raise him right. Cambodia welcomed us with some really cold (for Cambodia) weather too which I welcomed with open arms. I’m praying this cooler weather will last forever, but just in case it doesn’t, I’m currently saving this cold air in jars to store until deadly April arrives.

We celebrated New Years Eve with the Water of Life crew which never disappoints. Calvary Chapel Murrieta came over with Christmas presents for all the boys and girls of WOL. It was SO much fun to watch them open their presents. Curtis and I were still struggling with jet lag so I don’t even think we made it to midnight. We are like an 85 year old couple. But! Curtis’ birthday is on New Years day so we were saving all of energy for his big day. I think that’s a pretty good excuse… Curtis had a great birthday! Curtis found a place called Kids City that has a huge rock wall and obstacle courses (Curtis can sniff out a climbing rock or rock wall like a bloodhound. It’s impressive) so he grab 2 boys from the boys home and gave them the adventure of the year. These boys had never been rock climbing let alone climbing 50 feet into the air! They all had a blast. I bowed out because I can’t even look at people climbing that high without my hands sweating so I took him out to dinner which was safe away from any heights. Happy 24th year on Earth, Curtis!

The 5th semester of the bible college started on the 6th. Well it was supposed to anyway. There have been a lot of protests going on lately from the factory workers coming from the villages and basically calling out the prime minister. The government had enough so they shut down all entrances into the city on the 6th so only 2 Khmer pastors made it through. Pastor Matt Taylor from Illinois had a nightmarish trip here due to the massive storms going through Chicago. It took him 3 days to get here and once he landed he found out half of his luggage never left America, so he was happy to take Monday to adjust a little bit more to say the least. He has been such a good sport about it. On Tuesday school resumed as normal. Pastor Matt is teaching the book of Judges and 1 Timothy and Curtis is teaching Nehemiah. Our students are in for a really good semester, the main focus is leadership. Leadership is such a broad subject, but I think these 3 books touch on key instructions and examples of how to be a leader in Christ. So far the pastors are loving it. The Lord has perfect timing. While a lot people in their villages might be getting caught up in the political unrest these pastors have great opportunity to show Christ in their leadership roles. Please keep these men in your prayers. The calling they have is not an easy one. Also a little fun fact: after doing a night bible study with the khmer pastors and pastor Matt, I found out that I weigh more than half of the men in our classroom. I told one of the students, Han, who is the jokester of the class, that I weigh 10 pounds more than him and he looked at me like “yeah that seems about right”. That being said, the workout starts tomorrow! Haha.

Thank you for all the of the prayer and encouragement you guys have given us. We feel very honored and very blessed to be sent back out here for our 2nd year. This is the only home Curtis and I have known as a married couple and I wouldn’t change it for the world. We celebrate our 1 year anniversary on Monday!! Yay! We made it to a year and what an insanely amazing year it was! I’m praying there will be at least 80 more :)

We love you guys. We are praying for you every day. Keep fighting the good fight. If you guys are needing a good book to read, I suggest Nehemiah. It’s a great book to start off the year! God bless!