2010 Mission Trip to Cambodia
from Victoria Kaelin
Well today we finally got to sleep in! If you consider 8:30 sleeping in that is. However, it was greatly appreciated after several long days in a row. After a pretty laid back morning, Peip took us to the Royal Palace. The palace was closing at 11am and we got there at about 10:25, so we quickly saw as much as we could. They were telling us the history and random facts about everything as we passed by, which was helpful cause there were very few signs and if there was one it was probably in Khami. When we were gathered around one tree listening to Ronnie talk about the uses of the flowers, we just so happened to look up to see them closing the gates and were about to lock them. So we all went running across the courtyard out the gate before they could lock us in the palace.
After our fun at the palace, we went to the villa where all the ex-patriots from the hospital live for lunch. It was nice to spend time with people that you can always understand what they are saying. We had some good American-ish food. We all laugh and joked about our adventures in Cambodia. Then Grace and Katrina asked if we wanted to go to the Russian Market so we were, like sure, why not. We can always shop of course so we took the market by storm again.

Last thing of today was church. Mrs. Taplin was invited to talk to the church about finding your purpose in life. Then we all sang for them, even thought most of them couldn’t understand us i think that they really enjoyed it. Then Sovann and Peip gave us all beautiful handmade silk scarves as a token of gratitude from the entire church. This was the first church service that made me emotional because so many people told us how grateful they were for our service and our gracious hearts. Everyone here is so generous and kind. I am really not ready to leave, but i know that Cambodia will always stay in my heart. I want to come back here some day to serve some more to these great people and to visit all my new friends!
Love,
Victoria