PCC March 2022 to Northeatern Cambodia

March 26

Left PP at 7:45 and arrived in village about 6. We a left late because Luke had a flat tire. Went across the ferry at NagaWorld and turned right. Lots of water there and everything seemed to be well irrigated.! New rice was coming up which usually only happens in wet season. Also saw a huge Ferris wheel off to the right as we traveled south. Not sure where that is? Met Dennis at the meeting point and had a coffee. Went to Memot and ate there then on to Snoul. Out of Snoul Yong had a flat tire. Mostly nice forest roads but on the way Sergey had a flat rear tire. The group waited for Sergey, Luke and myself at a drink stop/house and had a good visit with that family. They said that people can stay there in the future if they want. Sergey was red and hot and tired from changing the tire so we took a break. We made it to Svay Chhuuk right at sunset.

The pastor lives in this village. I had met him before in April 2017 in Gah Ngeth on a ride with Dave. (I have a video of Dave talking to him about spiritual warfare during those days) His wife is the middle school teacher 7,8,9 and she teaches English right now and the pastor just stays at home to take care of their 2 year old son. He used to be in full time ministry in Gah Ngeth and I think supported by the KEC. He says he still misses his life in Gah Ngeth but that it takes 5 hours to get there if he takes his family and 4 hours if he goes by himself.

We sat and talked to an older gentleman who was 72 and his wife was 65. He came to faith by healing of his back. They went to the provincial hospital and the doctor gave some medicine, but he said that the doctor also prayed over him and he was healed. All his kids believed as well. Their youngest child looked to be about 6-8 years old but they also had 8 grand kids.

We dip bathed at the church and 4 of us slept out in an open building and the other 4 slept in the church.

They had a short service on Sat night, and we joined in that.

We talked the restaurant people into bringing food to the church so that we did not have to get on the dusty road to go back to eat. Rice and soup for dinner was good.

Short meeting to debrief about the day. Reminder to watch for those behind you and try to keep track of those both in front and behind. Also, we need to be aware if someone has a problem on the road that we may have the tools or medical supplies to help so there may be times where we need to go back if we aren’t already with the group having a problem.

Plan is to have church at 8:30 and then eat and then start toward Gah Ngeth.

March 27

Picked up from sleeping in hammocks the night before. 5 of us went to look for coffee/breakfast. Found a noodle shop a couple of Km away. On return to the church we started worship at about 8:30. The service was good as the youth, children and adults performed special singing presentations. There were introductions of all the leaders in the church, about 5 people. The pastor went through several passages of scripture expounding on them to give further meaning. Dennis spoke on 2 Peter 1:2 to encourage the congregation of about 15 adults and 25 children. The church provided some pork and rice for lunch. We paid 50,000 for the lunch and gave a gift to the church to encourage them and pay for the electricity and privilege of staying at the church. I talked with the pastor briefly. He has a farm in Svay chuuk growing cassava to support his family. He is Bunong. All the service was in Khmer. He came to faith through his neighbors sharing with him.

We headed out from there and got out about 20 km down the road and Jenna hit a tree and knocked her over and she hit her head. We rested there a while, got her some meds and just recovered a bit. It was pretty hot at this point in the day.

We got going again and made better time as the road Improved but then Yong got a flat. We pulled over to the forest Ranger station to fix the flat. We pulled the tire off and it appeared the metal from the tire was bent inwards creating a ridge that would pierce the tube. Philip had some duct tape that we put on the double ridges on the inside of the tire. Yong had used his rear tube previously, so I gave him a rear tube to put back in the tire. We got the pressure up to 40 to pop the bead and then kept it high at 30 to keep the tube from having friction and wearing it out again. Philip, Jenna and Steph had pressed on while it was still light to find a village for the night. On the way Jenna got rutted and off balance and took a fall. The engine burned her leg a bit. She was also trapped under the bike and Steph could not lift it so they had to wait for Philip to return to help. They got her unpinned and on to the village that Philip knew . Philip arranged a place to stay and pulled a lady out from attending a birthday party to cook some fried eggs and banana shoots for us, and dried fish. All was good as we were pretty hungry. Yong had given us an appetizer of sausage from Dan’s meats which was great. While waiting for the food the sky broke with big rainstorm. It rained hard for about 45 min and then bits and pieces after that. We were all dry though. Yong took rain shower, but I think everyone else was more civilized. The house across the road allowed us to use their covered bathroom to shower and toilet and there was a uncovered shower place at our house as well. Slept well and the plan is to go to Gah Ngeth today. Maybe Philip’s house first.

March 28

We slept well at the village . Jenna had a nice bed and Philip had a good setup with his camping pad and a mosquito net. The rest of us were in hammocks. It was great to have a dry place to sleep in the midst of the hard rain . We started out at 9:15 and

The roads were a little wet from the night before so there was plenty of mud, bamboo stands and rocky terrain to navigate. It was very hot as I sweated all the way through my jacket and Luke poured half a cup of sweat out of his helmet. Jenna took a couple of falls as the mud made things a little slick. We decided that it was best to moto dope her out of the forest when her moto wouldn’t start. I stayed behind with Stephanie to wait for someone to moto dope another rider to get her bike to Philip’s house. Everyone else went on ahead to Philip’s house. I tried to jump the bike with my power bank but could not get it to start. It took some time (1.5 hr) for Dennis and Sergey to come back to help us with Jenna’s XR. Dennis’s power bank powered the bike right up and he rode it out of the jungle. The last of us finally arrived at about 3:15. We hung out the rest of the afternoon talking about the area and how ministry was going in this region. Fiji and Leah are Philip and Kim’s girls, and they seemed glad to have some guests. We were able to play some games and hang out. Yong became more civilized and took 4 dip baths. Philip brought out his guitar and drum and Sergey and Luke provided some praise songs for us.

On our arrival from the forest ride, we were greeted with cool drinks and Lasgna! Later in the day we feasted on Lok Lac. Great food! It has been great to meet and get to know this family.

Tomorrow we will ride in some areas that we are not very familiar, so we’re hoping to meet some folks along the way and have some talks. Praying for good conversations.

Jenna will probably take the day off to rest.

March 29

We started out with a great breakfast of pork and rice. Then headed out about 8:45? Not sure about the time. We traveled along some tracks that Philip hadn’t traveled before to go to a Tmoan village. One of our purposes on this trip is to try to find usable pathways for Philip to travel between tribal villages in which he works. We made many river crossings and there was some mud and many ruts to navigate. Philip says in the wet season that you just can’t travel to some of these villages. We got to Phum Kon Va at around 11:30 and were able to visit there for a while. P had said that there had been believers there who had been baptized but when no one came to teach and work with them they stopped meeting. They was another village where there had been work going on and when the missionaries left the people said it is like they don’t have a post to tie their cow. So, they stopped meeting. P said that he had talked about this with some villagers and asked what they thought about this and they said maybe it’s like the seed that took root in the soil and the plant just dies but it’s not really dead. When the rains come maybe it will come to life again. So that was our prayer for these villages yesterday. I talked to one older gentleman named Vee. He had functioned as the village leader for about 40 years. He could read and write so administrative duties fell to him for the village.

He told us about a seminar that was done in 2011 where 5 people came for 10 days to do a teaching for 6 days. This was done by Steve Hyde. They said they had to translate from Pilipino and English. He said he had heard of Jesus but when asked further he did not express further understanding of who Jesus is. He also said that the people of different language groups can understand each other but P says this is not necessarily true. Some of the older men who travel and pick up the other languages can do that but the women that stay in the village can’t fully understand the other languages. He has some ways to test this out to know for sure how much cross-over comprehension is actually happening. This was a very hospitable village and we ate some noodles here and 4 cases of water. The kids were a little shy to come up but Sergey pulled out his guitar and they came around to listen. We talked briefly about the gospel as well. Shared some trail mix with them so they could have some “American food”.

We rode in from there and stopped to pray outside a village Sey Hiu? My Moto started having fuel issues as the engine would not run. Hobbled into a small village as I really struggled to move the bike forward. Dennis was very helpful in troubleshooting the problem as we pulled the tank off to shift gas around and blow out the fuel filter. It ran fine after that but after a short time started acting like it just could not get fuel and started sputtering again. In retrospect I think the fuel pump was failing.

I moved up to second in line behind Dennis so that if I totally could not keep the engine going then people would not have to backtrack to find me. I had to clean out the filter again on top of the mountain, which helped but eventually nursed the bike slowly back to P’s house as I struggled to keep RPM’s high enough to keep the engine running. Cleaned the filter at P’s with carb cleaner so hopefully that will help. I will try to ride today but may have to put the bike on a truck to PP. Luke also had a clutch cable issue that he repaired once we got to P’s house so hopefully that will be a good fix for him.

Overall a great day of travel and had a good visit in Kon Va.

We were greeted at the house with great meal of chicken, rice, vegetables and a special dessert of date cake with delicious Carmel sauce and whipped cream. Yong had 2 pieces. It also rained again and it registered “talk-real-loud-to be-heard” on the tin roof rain loudness scale.

Tomorrow we we will sort out how to get bikes and people back to PP and beyond. Very thankful for a good trip and visits

March 30

We strapped Jenna’s XR on the back of Philip’s truck and got it to Kratie. I was able to get Leroy going in the morning and he ran fine …..for about 5 min. Soon it was evident that I could not ride him all the way back to PP. Once in Kratie, I found a van to put the KTM on and we unloaded Jenna’s XR for me to ride to Phnom Penh.