សួស្តីឆ្នាំថ្មី! Happy New Year!
One of the things I loved about Cambodia is the fact that they celebrate THREE New Year’s – International New Years, Lunar New Years and Khmer New Years! April is all about Khmer New Year – think of it as a cross between our Christmas and Thanksgiving holiday for a week-long celebration. Everyone heads to their hometown province to eat good food, play games and celebrate. Bullet and I took Sharron, my co-worker from MRO, to Kampot to celebrate. Sharron has only been in Cambodia for a few months so it was fun to watch her child-like excitement for our trip down to Kampot and even she participated in some of the water fights happening around the town.
Things are work has been chugging along. I’ve been working on creating a digital library for our Social Work team and partner organizations to be able to access for great resources MRO has created in the past and working to publish in the future.
I started Level 5 Khmer at G2K. I’m doing this session part-time and will finish right before flying home to the States. This module is completely in Khmer script which I’m finding a little difficult, but I’ve found grace in sitting next to the kind British woman, who reads the assignments out loud in Khmer for me to follow along. On the positive side, I feel like, between language school, work and prayer riders my speaking and comprehension has grown by leaps and bounds!
I went on an additional ride with some expats and young Khmer men to Mount Chissor. It was a beautiful ride, a great time outside the city and hopefully, some girls will join us for the next ride!
The last bit of news is that I’ve finalized my trip back home to the USA! Bullet and I will be leaving Cambodia June 30th and headed to my folk’s house near Boston, Massachusetts to celebrate 4th of July and recover from jetlag. Bullet’s travels end in Boston and he’ll be spending the next 2.5 months enjoying GRASS and CLEAN AIR with my parents. July 7th through 20th, I’ll be in Philadelphia attending a cross-cultural training session. I’m excited to connect with future missionaries and learn more about the North America team I’ll be joining. Then I’ll be back at my parent’s house catching up with East Coast family and friends until August 5th when I fly to Portland! I’ll be in Portland until September 3rd. When I’ll be flying back to the East Coast for a little bit of vacation and family time. Then Bullet and I fly back to Cambodia on September 16th.
During my time home, I would seriously love to catch up with all of you. I’ll be sending out a few more updates about events I’ll be at so you can learn more about the work I’m doing in Cambodia and how to get more involved. I’d also love it if your business, small group or church would be interested in partnering with me and what that would look like. If that is you, please let me know and we can set something up.
Enough about me, how have you been doing? What is happening in your life and how I can be praying for you. I look forward to hearing from you! As always prayer requests are below.
Hugs from Cambo,
ជេនណា / Jenna (and Bullet)
P.S. In April, I kicked off a month-long Bible Study about being a missionary and worldviews. I have a digital copy of the Bible Study if anyone is interested in joining me in the study or chatting about it.
I would really appreciate you joining me in prayer in the following ways:
1. Continued prayer for my uncle and his family while he battles brain cancer.
2. That I can get as much done with work and all the logistics that go into flying back to the States in six weeks.
3. Open hearts and finances while I’m home to reconnect with family, friends and fundraise.