Maria celebrated her 3rd birthday this week. She has been looking forward to her birthday for a long time. When asked what she wanted for her birthday, multiple times she said “cards!” This year Maria got her first birthday countdown calendar. She loved opening the doors for a week. One of her days said, “New bed.” We finally moved Maria out of the pack-n-play and into a bottom bunkbed!

Maria started her birthday morning early with excitement about the signs and balloons, including a special ladybug balloon, at her door. She played with Clara and Anna in their beds and running back and forth letting the balloons hit her head.

Maria was delighted to decorate her cake. The day before we baked the cake, and on her birthday morning Maria put the sprinkles on to decorate her princess’s dress. Maria ate many sprinkles saying, “I’m just testing them.” This is our first child I let help decorate his/her cake this young.

In the afternoon, the kids played with Maria, and Anna gave her an early birthday present – bubbles, so they played with that. Dinner was hotdogs, mac&cheese, beans, and veggies, with a special drink. After dinner we gave Maria her presents. She was very happy with all her cards and gifts from others. I gave her one of my childhood dolls that was still in good condition. Then we had cake! And we ended with Maria’s birthday slideshow. It was especially cute to watch her laugh watching videos of herself.

Maria is a sweet, spunky little girl who is loved by all. She’s very clever and has an advanced ability to listen and follow books above her age level. She loves to be read to and is currently enjoying our reading of the Little House on the Prairie series. Maria also has a good imagination and does well playing with Little People or Playmobil and having her own adventures with them. She also loves listening to kids songs and singing along while dancing.

We started the new school year on July 6th. It was a bit of a wobbly start, and we actually weren’t sure until breakfast that morning, if we’d be able to start. I came down with dengue Friday afternoon and was out of commission Saturday and Sunday. But on Monday, I was at least headache-free and decided we should at least do what we could, since it was likely others would get sick later in the week. So for most of the week, I pressed through teaching in the mornings and then slept a good part of the afternoons. We cancelled all our afternoon appointments with our Khmer/Jarai friends. What a way to start the school year!

So – this is the reason we only have pictures of some of the kids and their signs. The others were still working on their signs when they got sick. Turns out Maria was the next victim (though a very short case), then Clara on Friday, Isaiah Saturday, and our latest to fall is Ezra this past Monday. Actually Micah was the first one to be sick before me. The rash and itching has been bad for some. Maria was up crying two nights because of itching, and I didn’t sleep well two nights due to my own itching (especially the feet). Hopefully we can post them next week. We’re looking forward to everyone feeling better and recovering full strength from post-dengue fatigue.

Clara just finished her sign today and even could smile for a picture!

Last week we celebrated 12 years in Cambodia. We celebrated a day early, since the next evening was our Khmer service. I made chicken cordon bleu, and we had salad. Then in the evening we had popcorn and played a game together. It was a fun time. We are thankful for God’s care, direction, and love for us as we’ve lived and served in Cambodia these past 12 years. Our family has grown, and we’re all grown in maturity and in loving God and others.

Sadly, during the late afternoon, I started not feeling well. We suspect I either had dengue or chikungunya. I’m recovering, but it’s slow going!

Sunday we celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. Sundays are usually very full days for us, but my reading ladies canceled, so we had some extra time together. We played two games (both I’d not had a chance to play yet and one Josh hadn’t played yet), and we made and wrote our anniversary cards to each other. We bought beef for dinner for everyone for a family supper.

Thankful for the marriage and friendship God has given us. Thankful that we have each other “till death.”

We celebrated Father’s Day last Friday night, since our Saturdays and Sundays are always too full to add any extra celebrations. Supper was pulled pork sandwiches with potato salad. Ezra made lemonade with the lemon Aunt Ayra had given him in PP. Clara made a yummy apple pie for dessert. After dessert, everyone gave Josh his cards and his Father’s Day Celebration calendar. They will spend the next 8 days giving Josh gifts to celebrate. We’re every thankful for Josh and all he means to our family.

Josh is a wonderful Daddy to our seven kids…and he’ll be a GREAT DADDY TO EIGHT!

Yesterday we had our dear friends, JD & Kim, over for a last lunch before they head back to the States to start their retirement. We had beef stew, and Isaiah made challah bread. We hope to have more times together, as they plan to return to Cambodia once or twice a year in the future.

Last Friday night the Ban Lung expat community met for a fellowship meal to say goodbye to the Crowleys – they have ministered in Cambodia over 32 years. After we ate there was a lovely time of testimonies, memories, and Scripture.
Becca painted a card for the Crowleys as they head back to the States.

We took our yearly trip to PP between last week and this. Our two main goals were dentist appointments and spending time with the Nhoemvan family. Two of the Nhoemvan girls had put their birthday celebrations on hold for a few weeks so they could celebrate with our family. Kolianne took the older 4 kids out to breakfast and then returned for cake at the guesthouse. Jodanai wanted everyone to go to the Phnom Penh Safari. The kids really enjoyed the animal shows and taking pictures with the animals afterwards.

Our kids spent quite a lot of time with the Nhoemvans practicing for the Sound of Music musical that they will perform together in the fall. We also enjoyed seeing the Queys during their time at the guesthouse. Always nice to see friends from our Ban Lung.

This week we celebrated Isaiah’s 14th birthday! We’ve been enjoying his countdown calendar with daily challenges from his siblings. Maria did a dice challenge and was very pleased to win. Clara also whooped him on her jumprope challenge. But at the end of the two weeks, Isaiah still came out on top and won the game of Risk.

Isaiah made his cake – he’s a minimalist when it comes to frosting. He chose a brownie cake with peppermint frosting. It was very tasty. On his birthday he made a Magnatile tower with the boys that reached the ceiling. He chose hamburgers for his meal. We had his meal, then gifts (he really wanted a black cape), cake, and then ended with his birthday slideshow.

Isaiah is a great young man, and we’re so proud to have him as our firstborn son. He’s a good rolemodel to his younger brothers and takes time to be with them, even has a Boys’ Meeting Club with them once a week. Isaiah is very creative and makes all sorts of things from bamboo. He also is an avid reader. He has a tender heart and meets weekly to have a Bible study with Josh. We’re thankful for our son!

Last Friday we had our end of the school year graduation program. We are proud of all our students. We had a spaghetti dinner and then our program. Each student gave a recitation during our program. Afterwards certificates, diplomas, and gifts were handed out and then we had dessert.

Rebecca Jensen – Tenth Grade: Poem – The Highwayman – Alfred Noyes
Isaiah Jensen – Eighth Grade: Poem – The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late – Bilbo Baggins
Anna Jensen – Sixth Grade: Recitation – John 14
Clara Jensen – Fourth Grade: Poem – Reedy River – by Henry Lawson
Ezra Jensen – First Grade: Recitation – Psalm 121
Micah Jensen – K-5: Recitation – Psalm 3
Maria Jensen : Poem – an original composition

Tuesday we started Isaiah’s countdown calendar. This year’s theme is the game RISK (one of Isaiah’s favorite games). It’s Isaiah (green/blue beads) against the WORLD i.e. the rest of his siblings (pink/purple beads). Each day there is a challenge and the team that wins the challenge gets to remove two of the opposing team’s solders (beads). At the end of the game, whoever has the most beads on the board is the winner. The challenge for the day is always age appropriate to whichever sibling is on to go against Isaiah.

Last Saturday I spoke at a church ladies leaders’ event. There were about 42 ladies there from about 17 different churches, covering three different tribal groups. My theme statement was “Every work God has given you to do, you can do, because the Holy Spirit dwells with you. He will help you.” Anna helped me with two skits to illustrate different points in my talk. The entire thing was done in Jarai, as almost everyone understood Jarai.

A Jensen tradition in our home is that our kids make a countdown calendar for Mother’s Day. It always starts with “New Book.” The new book is always an original story, written page by page by all the kids (minus Maria). The story always has twists and turns in it, and we laugh a lot. Other days on the countdown calendar were separate gifts from each of the kids, plus a play based on the book, The Seven Silly Eaters.

Mother’s Day evening the kids and Josh made dinner (twice baked potatoes, apple pie, special drink) and bought steak strips to go with it. It was a very lovely meal. Afterwards they gave me cards. Thankful for all our seven kids who have made me a mother and are fun to be with and grow with.

April 30th Micah lost his first tooth! It popped out pretty easily.

Yesterday we had our Elementary Music & Art classes, with lunch and a moms’ prayer time after lunch. Becca’s art lesson was a watercolor rabbit that the kids drew first. Music covered more rhythm and Summer from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. We were delighted to have Aunt Kim attend this month.

If we look back over our last 11 years, this month has been our fullest party month ever. Besides two family birthdays, Passion Week, Easter, and Khmer New Year, we had four weddings, a birthday party, and two goodbye parties. Most of these include morning services and a lunch. We had two weddings for youth from our church. Weddings – ceremony and meal – are usually done at the bride’s home. The family rents a tent and sets it up right outside their house. Josh preached at both weddings. Also the brother of one of our translators got married – we just sent the boys, since we girls were tried of parties and the weddings was not in our village.

At the wedding meal, you have to wait until the table fills up with 10 people before they start serving the food. This is a problem for our family, since we already take up 9 seats, and it’s hard to find a single person who wants to join our group. Thankfully at most of the meals they took pity on our children and let us be a 9-person table. Our kids usually enjoy the food, though if you look closely enough you can see Micah suspiciously eyeing the fish. What our kids really love is getting their own can of soda and then being handed multiple cans of soda as we leave!

We had two goodbye meals; one for Plin (which was just a lunch) and one for the Crowleys. The Jarai churches gathered together to have a Thank You Celebration for the Crowleys. It was a nice time – JD gave a challenge and then church leaders gave testimonies.

We also attended the Quey boys’ joint birthday party. The kids had a great time playing water games, and Maria was very tired when we got home.

And let us not forget our 3-day Khmer New Year celebrations. This year the kids decided to decorate the front of the house. Clara made a great drawing of the Cambodian flag and then made copies of it for everyone to color. Later Ezra decided to make one too and spent a long time drawing his flag, using Clara’s as an example. We enjoyed our Cambodian Cola as we celebrated Khmer New Year (Josh was gone for the week at Bible School).

This month we celebrated Anna’s 12th birthday! We started out the celebrating with her countdown calendar (which overlapped with Passion Week and Josh’s birthday). Anna chose to delay her birthday movie (Caddie Woodlawn) until the week after her birthday, since things were so full, and that worked well with Josh being away at Bible school too.

We celebrated Anna’s birthday a day early, since we have a ministry commitment Saturday nights. Then on Anna’s birthday she went to an all-day KEC regional youth event, so that was special for her. Anna chose to have a different cake this year than her normal panda. She made a beautiful hibiscus flower (peppermint frosting with homemade dark chocolate accents). She did a great job decorating it. Anna’s three siblings made her birthday chalkboards (Becca, Micah, and Maria).

Anna’s birthday meal was tacos. It’s avocado season, so we could have fresh guacamole! We also had a bag for corn tortilla chips from our time in Siem Reap. Everyone ate so much at dinner that people only had a little bit of room for the cake, and we ended up only eating 1/4 of the cake (which is unusual for 9 people!).

Anna is a very sweet girl. She is helpful, and I often find her with one of her younger siblings doing an activity or something else they needed assistance with. She’s creative with crafts and art projects. She’s a diligent piano and flute student. She is also very diligent in accomplishing her daily school tasks. Anna is our “sleep-in girl.” We found out that if Anna sleeps past 8, she avoids getting daily headaches. Anna is doing really well with her Jarai language learning and is bold to speak to others and practice her language skills. WE love our girl and the gift she is to our family.

We had an unusually busy Passion Week this year, with the addition of an overnight guest, Josh’s birthday, and Anna’s birthday countdown calendar. It was also a very hot week – hard to sing songs each night while sweating! But we were able to keep up with most of our family traditions and we survived the heat. Each night we read from Noel Piper’s Lenten Lights. Palm Sunday we decorated our tree and reenacted Palm Sunday. Monday we had our Jesus overturning the money changers reenactment. Maria was a little shocked and we made sure her table was not overturned. Everyone enjoyed a chocolate coin afterwards. Tuesday our guest arrived. Wednesday we had Josh’s birthday. Thursday was our Maundy Thursday service, and Friday we celebrated Good Friday.

Sunday evening we combined our Easter celebration service and Easter egg hunt (since we couldn’t fit it in on any other day). It was a long evening! Maria especially enjoyed using her eggs to buy things from the “store.” To end the evening we exchanged cards and gave the kids gifts. Thankful for the life-changing resurrection of Christ!

Last week we celebrated Josh’s 45th birthday. We had an evening meal of hamburgers (have to grind our own beef) and chips. Everyone enjoyed the meal. Afterwards we gave Josh his gifts and cards. Last week we also had a guest with us for a few days. Lap is the man who helped Josh study Jarai (the dialect they speak in Vietnam) for his dissertation research. Lap was visiting with the Cambodian Jarai to learn more about their language and culture.

We’re all thankful for Josh and the way he leads and loves our family.

A few weeks ago we decided to plan a little vacation to Siem Reap. I feel like we’ve been going non-stop since October and the next few months are pretty full. We were able to squeeze in a getaway from March 21-25. The trip was part of Clara’s and Anna’s birthday countdown calendars – “swimming.” It’s been harder to find a clean pool in Ban Lung for swimming, so to Siem Reap we went!

I didn’t take many pictures. Our goal was to rest. We swam a lot, ate good food, took hot showers with good water pressure, and went to bed. We were also able to visit with the Burkes for a few hours.

The kids love this pool. Sadly Swensens no longer exists in Siem Reap – but Josh found some really good Australian ice cream at a store, and the kids ate their fill. We also found a really good Mexican restaurant and went on their Taco Tuesday.

Our kids were so delighted with our getaway, which Josh started calling Spring Break, and they said thank you multiple times a day for the different things we were able to do. I especially appreciated the break from daily life and ministry. Thankful!

Last week we met for our monthly Music/Art/Prayer Day. Since the spring equinox was the next day, we had a spring theme (though we really dont’ have spring in Cambodia). The music lesson introduced 16th notes, and we studied the first movement of Spring from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Our art project was a 3D beetle on a leaf.

Rebekah provided the main lunch this month, and after lunch the kids played outside, while the moms had a prayer time. I was surprised how content everyone stayed all afternoon.

We celebrated Clara’s 10th birthday last week. We started the celebrations two weeks before with Clara’s countdown calendar, which was themed as a masquerade ball. Each attendee came with a quote to help Clara guess who he/she was. There were only a few that stumped Clara.

We celebrated Clara’s birthday the day before her actual birthday, so we could attend a graduation party for another MK in Ban Lung. Isaiah made a fantastic balloon arch for Clara’s doorway. Becca, Micah, and Clara each decorated a chalkboard for Clara. Clara spent the morning decorating her birthday cake – chocolate cake with peppermint frosting.

Clara requested bratwurst, mac & cheese, and beans, , and a special drink for her birthday meal. The Yamadas had brought us some Veleeta cheese, which our kids were suspicious of, to make mac & cheese. It was so much better than the Kraft box mixes, and all our kids thought it was great! No leftovers. After dinner we did gifts. Micah made Clara 10 cards…each different than the rest. He’s been working on them for a few weeks. Clara was pleased with all her gifts. Then it was time for cake, and then we ended the evening with a slideshow of pictures and videos of Clara’s 10 years.

On Clara’s actual birthday we went into Ban Lung to eat supper at a restaurant, and then we spent the evening eating yummy snacks and fellowshipping with others, celebrating Bella’s graduation. One of the snacks was cotton-candy which the family had made – a huge hit!

Clara is our daughter who is full of life, loves to laugh, and is quite vibrant. She’s excelling in her piano and violin playing. She’s doing a great job taking responsibility to get her school work done each day, and she’s a good older sister to her younger siblings. Clara also doing a good job with learning Jarai and becoming brave to actually use what she knows when we’re at church. We thankful for our sweet daughter, Clara Grace.

The fan in Clara’s hand was a homemade gift from Isaiah.

We’ve been enjoying almost two weeks of counting down to Clara’s birthday!