In late January and early February Josh made two visits to Kachok villages in our province. The first visit was to the village of In. Josh had a very profitable time gathering words. He worked with the father of the village leader, a man whose Khmer and Kachok were very clear. They accomplished everything Josh was hoping to get done on the trip. It was an encouraging trip for Josh.

For the second village trip, Josh — along with a Kachok friend who’s attending high school close to where we live – drove to Kaoh Piek, a Kachok village about two hours from our home. They spent two nights there; recording words to compare with the data Josh has from other villages. It was said that the Kachok in Kaoh Piek spoke quite differently from the Kachok spoken in other villages.

Josh’s trip to Kaoh Piek village was a success. He recorded and transcribed about 550 words, and discovered that the differences between Kaoh Piek village and the other eight are not nearly as significant as he’d been told. While there, Josh learned that there are no believers in Kaoh Piek village of perhaps 1000+ adults (this is quite a large village for our province), though there has been at least some missionary activity there in the past. Josh and his friend shared the Gospel with two ladies, one of whom is the (distant) aunt/cousin of the Kachok young man who traveled with Josh. Josh’s traveling companion later overheard her talking to other villagers around the fire outside saying that she wants to believe, but is afraid to be the only believer in the village.

Please pray that God would open a way for some believers to make plans to regularly visit Kaoh Piek to share the Gospel systematically.

Please also pray that Josh would have success in finishing his analysis of Kachok sounds and begin working on the alphabet.

One of the things about living in a developing country is that it seems no matter how well we plan, unexpected things always pop up, whether it’s needing to take someone to Vietnam for medical treatment or a missionary get together. We expect this to happen more frequently when we move into a village. I’ve lost count of the Sunday mornings we’ve sat down and talked about our day, only to find out a few hours later that there is an extra church activity planned for the afternoon. So we move and groove and go with the flow and adjust…as do many do our missionary friends around the world.

I thought I’d give you a little taste of our past two weeks: some were regularly scheduled events, some were not. Nothing major came up the past few weeks — there were just little unplanned things. I’m not including any of our normal language learning activities that happen during the day. There were two nights we could have filled up with outside activities, but we kept them free for a family night and for an “us night.”

Saturday 1/24 – I met with a Khmer lady in the afternoon to help her with some ideas for teaching children’s Sunday school. In the evening we had our local missionary fellowship meeting.
Sunday 1/25 – normal Sunday (?).
Monday 1/26  – Evening family phone call.
Tuesday 1/27 – Josh left for an overnight trip to a Kachok village. Becca and I had a sleepover.
Wednesday 1/28 – Josh returned from the village early evening.
Thursday 1/29 – Josh had his weekly evening meeting with one of our Khmer pastors.
Friday 1/30 – Dinner with two other EMU families – confirmed that morning once we knew some of our coworkers would indeed be in town.
Saturday 1/31 – I was planning on meeting with my Khmer friend again to show her a model Bible lesson, but she didn’t come, since there was a family funeral. Fortunately I remembered about the funeral as I was waiting for her to come. We had an invitation to join our teammates for dinner, but stayed home and had our rescheduled family night from the night before. (Missionary fellowship had been cancelled.)
Sunday 2/1 – We went to a Krung village to see a teammates’ daughter’s baptism. We had the Farmers over for dinner. (Both events were decided the day before.)
Monday 2/3 – Kachok men arrived – they stay in our home when they are here to work, which means Josh gets to work with them for at least an hour in the evenings as well.
Tuesday 2/4 – Kachok men were here. The kids and I went swimming at the hotel pool where the Farmer family was staying.
Wednesday 2/5 – Kachok men were here.   Khmer men’s weekly evening Bible Study.
Thursday 2/6 – Kachok men left mid-morning. Josh had his weekly evening meeting with one of our Khmer pastors.
Friday 2/7 –  We spent several hours visiting with a missionary family in a village to see the house they built there. When we returned to town we went out for supper.
Saturday 2/8 – Two ladies and their kids show up for me to show them a model children’s Bible lesson. I was not expecting them, since the meeting had been scheduled for the week before and never rescheduled (see 1/31). When they saw I was busy cleaning for guests, we rescheduled for next Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening we hosted the local weekly missionary fellowship. I was very grateful that several ladies brought food to help me out.
Sunday 2/9 – Meal at church. Josh left in the afternoon for 2 nights at a Kachok village. Becca, Isaiah, and I had a sleepover.
Monday 2/10 – Josh was in the village all day.
Tuesday 2/11 – Josh at the village all day and returned early evening. We got together with our EMU teammates for dinner.
Wednesday 2/10 – Khmer men’s weekly evening Bible Study
Thursday 2/11 – Josh had his weekly evening meeting with one of our Khmer pastors.
Friday 2/12 – Family Valentine’s Party….we’ll see!

This next week will be full of getting things ready to travel to Thailand – wrapping things up here for our month away, and gathering what we need to take to Thailand.