On January 31, 2025 the first group of riders gathered at the Sokimex gas station at the north end of Prek Pneau where they have a nice restaurant and fuel pumps on the Tonle Sap River. Dennis had left Kampot at around 5 am and arrived before the 8 am meeting time. Dave, Wendy, Yong, Scott and Luke joined from their Phnom Penh locations. It was mostly hard top road all the way to Stung Treng. We picked up Philip at the PTT gas station just north of Kratie and then Peter joined us later at The Hope Center where we spent the night in Stung Treng. So we were 8 riders by Friday evening and we went out to eat at a restaurant and then bunked for the night.
1 Feb 2025 Saturday
We made a loop to see several churches that Jared had pinned for us close to Stung Trang. Our first pin was for a place called Moen but people around this location did not seem too sure of where this group met. They told us it was behind their house, but when we went back there, we only found a cassava field and the workers there did not know anything about a group meeting in that village. After a short while, someone came by on a moto and said he knew where the church was located. We followed this young man several kilometers to a 7th Day Adventist church that had just been built by a Korean group in November of 2023. I don’t think this was the church that was associated with the first pin at Moen because it was so far away and pastor John at the 7th Day Adventist Church in Anlong Chrey had not heard of any group meeting at the Moen location. The church building was built for this group by Koreans with no strings attached as far as responsibilities for working or reporting to the Koreans. John had been the pastor for a couple of years and was anticipating being moved to lead another fellowship in a couple of months. A new pastor would then be assigned to lead this group in Anlong Chrey. Being a 7th Day Adventist Church and this was Saturday, they were holding a worship service when we arrived. They invited us to join. We slipped off our boots and tried to slide in the back, but the intrusion of 8 foreigners in moto armor was difficult to go unnoticed. Yong introduced our group to the fellowship as the service resumed. Pastor John preached a sermon on the feeding of the 5,000. Before the service was over, we tried to slip out. As we geared up to take off, we paused to pray for this fellowship and then take a group picture. We were able to visit briefly with the church members as we said our good-byes to get on the trail again.
We stopped in another spot where Joyce Meyers Ministries, Hand of Hope, had provided a well for a location in Onlung Chrea Village. People were meeting here but were out and busy on this day.
Next place was in Anlong Chrey district and I think the village was Veal Sakrom. The small wooden church had feed bags over the windows and it made it look like they had stained glass windows with the color variations in the bag. No one was around to visit with us, so we moved down the road and got some noodles.
At the noodle shop I added about ½ liter of oil as some in our party had noticed that I was spraying oil into my airbox and it was leaking down on to my control arm. Note in hindsight, I should have paid more attention to this.
After noodle break we went on to Veal Pou where we met You Terah and his wife. They had been part of Ywam and their training for several years and now they were out in this village trying to start a meeting group. They had a medium sized storefront for selling clothes and also a Wing money exchange as well. Their numbers for attendance had been dwindling. They tried to adjust meeting times to fit when people were off work, but if they met too late in the day the people were too tired from their labor and just did not have the energy to come for worship. They have kids program from 8-9 and the worship for adults from 10-11. They had just shifted the meeting place to the building across the road from their business because people would just come and interrupt the worship time if they stayed in their home where the shop was located. At present this family and sometimes one other family would come to join for worship. We prayed for good health of this family and for their numbers to grow and many to believe in this village.
We headed back to The Hope Center, where Sergey had just arrived an hour earlier from his moto trip to Laos. Everyone got cleaned up and then went to a BBQ riverside restaurant for the evening. So now we were 9 riders in total.
2 Feb 2025 Sunday
Sunday morning Sergey told me his dream where there were demons and different kinds of angels surrounding each one of riders in our prayer group. In the dream, the moto riders would get together as a group, and this would cause the demons to fight one another, and the angels would just watch the chaos and enjoy each other’s company. This seemed to be especially true when we stayed together in bunk beds at the Hope center. The demons were battling it out and the angels were hanging out and chillin’.
We went to Sleeping Cow for breakfast and folks got either the Go Dike (Beef, Egg on a hot plate served with rice) or boiling Keuy Tiew noodles. Highly recommend both choices.
Dave shared an experience where a moto parts distributor did testing on motorcycle chains. The faceplates on the chains don’t stretch, but the lengthening of the chain over time is due to the wear on the pins holding the plates in place. Lubricating the chain does not help with the wear and may even contribute to the wear on the sprocket/chain. The front sprocket will probably be changed at least twice for each rear sprocket change. RK chain was the one that was deemed best? I forget which one was recommended.
We then started on the ride up to Siempang. We saw Philip Scott there as he was coming out of the worship service at a small church and visited a bit. He said there is a good chicken and sticky rice place there in town and invited us to join him. That seemed like a good idea, but folks said they were still full from breakfast. Philip told us that he and other M’s in town are reaching out to Kravet people. Ali, who lives in Siempang, went out with her friend to visit a Kravet village and were returning to Siempang that afternoon. Philip was heading out to a Kravet village to visit folks that afternoon as well. It would have been good to visit more but we were looking to visits ahead that we were hoping to make.
Dave then had a nail in his tire. While he was fixing that with Dennis, the rest of us hung out under the bamboo shaded bank by the river. A local young man came over to visit a bit and he had been to the church Philip Scott went to that morning. He said that he could not believe in God because of his family. We talked some more and I asked if he had any questions about God. He asked “Who came first, Jesus or Buddha?” We talked a bit about that.
My moto had been using oil. It was showing oil leaking out of the airbox. I checked the oil level and added about 1/2 liter at our noodle stop on Saturday. On Sunday we were headed to Siempang. I should have checked oil/water on our arrival in Siempang while Dave was getting his puncture repaired but wound up talking to a local guy and then to the Canadian brother of Ali the M that lives in Siempang. Once Dave’s flat was repaired we headed down the old road from Siempang to Vansai.
Earlier in the day, Philip’s bike had no power so they took off the silk covering from around the air filter and that seemed to restore some power.
I had trouble starting my bike early in the morning at the Hope Center in Stung Trang, but I eventually got it going. It ran fine all the way to Siempang.
On the track to Vansai there was a lot of sand and rough terrain. We ended up stopping to rest for a short time into this track and after some water and rest, we were ready to go again. Everyone takes off except Luke and myself as I have trouble getting my bike started. I try for 20 min to get the bike going but can’t get it to kick over. Initially I was using electric start but as the battery got weaker, I had to kick it as I was trying different fuel strategies to get it to start. When none of that worked, we pulled out a tow rope to see if a roll start would get her going. The sand was very deep at this point so I was not sure how this would go. About that time Peter and Sergey show up. Peter hops on and tries a few strategies and finally she kicks over and starts. We catch up with the group a short way down the track and Dennis and I get waved on by the group so as not to have to shut down my moto for fear of it not starting again. We start out and it seems like everyone is traveling with us close as I see two bikes in my rear-view mirror. Pushing forward, we are moving at a steady pace when my moto just dies like it has run out of gas. We decide to wait for the group because if I started the bike then I would want to take off right away. We waited about 30 min and found out some people had crashed in the sand and delayed their progress. When we were all together again, I tried to kick Wynona to life, but it was futile. Peter tried again but to no avail. I think it ran out of oil and the overheating depleted the water in the radiator and blew the head gasket thus causing all the damage. About that time, a 2-wheel tractor (Go-yuan) with a trailer was coming down the path. They said they could take me to the police station in the forest, about 8 km down the road, for 30,000 khr ($7.50) and then I could negotiate with the owner of the tractor to get to the ferry crossing in Vansai.
Dennis stayed with me and the tractor, but we sent the rest of the riders ahead towards Banlung to try to arrive before dark. We put my bike on the trailer on top of my Giant Loop bag for padding and strapped it down with ropes and ratchet straps. I threw my backpack and tank bag on the trailer and stuffed all my loose stuff, phones/GPS/gloves, in my jacket pockets and hopped on the back of the trailer. It was obvious early on that this arrangement was not going to work. I was getting pounded severely and I thought my spine could not survive the jackhammer effect of the combination of this potholed jungle trail, no-suspension trailer and the speed this teenager was pushing ahead. I changed positions to kneel/squat to absorb some of the impact. This arrangement was much better, but I was still sustaining substantial airtime. One of these bumps launched my rugged Doogee smart phone out of my pocket and on to the flatbed trailer. I immediately grabbed it and tried to stuff it in my jacket pocket. It took several attempts in between bumps as I was trying to maintain a tight grip to keep myself on the trailer but finally got the phone in the pocket and the jacket zipped. A short time later I was trying to find my iPhone, but it wasn’t in the usual pants pocket nor was it in the jacket pocket. I remembered I had placed it in the jacket pocket with the Doogee when loading up the trailer and I immediately think I had lost the iPhone to the jungle trail. The motorcycle was shifting all over the trailer, so I thought there was no way a lightweight phone could maintain presence on a flatbed. I was wearing my helmet at the time and there was a break in the jostling enough for me to turn on my Cardo communication unit. I heard the status “connected to phone” message when it powered up! I thought the iPhone still had to be somewhere close if it could connect to the phone so there was hope! I forgot about the phone when we got to the police station as I had to negotiate a price to get to the ferry. It was $7.50 to get to the station and then another $22.50 to get to the ferry for a total of $30. The young boys who had driven to the police station were offered the job of taking me to the ferry, but they took off and the tractor owner just took me himself. He drove much slower, and the ride was smoother. When we got to the intersection with the new road, there were a few homes in that area and a youth playing volleyball came over and took the job of driving us the rest of the way to the ferry. It was getting dark by now and we weren’t sure the ferry would be running after dark, but we pressed on, realizing that we may need to string hammocks in Vansai and wait for daylight to get across the river. The new road was better than the old Jungle track, but it still took us a while. We arrived at the ferry and as we are unloading everything, I find my iPhone wedged under the Giant Loop saddle bag! I was so grateful for that! Truly answered prayer!
They charged us $2 to cross the ferry and kept making runs until about 9 pm. They talked about bumping the price up since it was night, but they said they would give us the same price they gave the 7 others in our group that had passed through earlier. The ferry in Siempang had only been 2,500 khr ($0.62) and we had also traveled a floating road but I don’t know how much that was for each of us to cross. (Dennis had paid for those crossings.)
Meanwhile 20km up the road, Sergey’s battery had died, so he, Peter, and Luke stopped at a house asking the road to try to buy a used battery out of a local’s moto, while the other riders pushed on to Banlung (Philip’s moto was being stubborn to start and they thought it might be an ignition coil issue so they didn’t want to shut it off). Sergey successfully bought someone’s moto battery from them and got it installed. They weren’t sure if Sergey’s moto was charging the battery, so he left his headlight off and instead Luke gave his portable headlight to Sergey to mount on his helmet to ride by. Peter and Sergey continued up the road to Banlung, but we agreed that Luke would ride back to the ferry crossing where we were to help with the night-time tow up the dusty road to Banlung.
Once Dennis and I got across the river on the ferry, we pulled out a tow strap so that he could pull me up the hill. Luke showed up shortly after that and offered to tow me the 43 km back to Banlung and use his headlights to light the way. Dennis’ headlight was also now not working, but he did have a RAM mount LED light that I had lent him so he wasn’t totally traveling blind. But Luke has two LED light bars to really light up the road at night and we used his long length of webbing as a tow strap.
When we started, it was not too bad as the road was in pretty good condition and well packed without too much dust. I practiced dropping the line to make sure there weren’t any catches in case things went sideways. We got down the road a way and my left hand started cramping so I adjusted my grip to get relief. I forgot that was the hand holding the tow strap, so we were all surprised when the tow strap flew off and we had to re-group and strap up again. All was going well until a car coming the other direction came into sight. We were on a section of road where we were in deep, talcum powder dust. The bright lights of the oncoming car really reduced visibility and when it passed, we were in a whiteout, zero visibility where I could not see Luke and the tension in the tow strap. This made for very loose wheel traction as well. Instinctively, I hit the brakes which pulled my handlebars left and shot me to the right. I quickly let off the brakes and just hung on. Fortunately, we all stayed vertical and pushed on. Soon after that we hit hardtop and then it was an easy tow to get into Banlung. Dennis and Luke went out to get something to eat but I just had some trail mix and stayed at the Prak Dara Guesthouse. We got in about 9:30.
3 Feb 2025 Monday
I was out the door at 6:40 to see about what could be done for my moto. I took off my tank bag and saddle bag and Yong came out willing to give me a tow to a shop. I had asked the guest house clerk where a Cheung for big Motos would be and so I had Yong tow me there. The Moto repairman was gone for a funeral, but Dennis messaged and said he had found someone to help him with his headlight and maybe his cheung could do something for my bike. On arriving at Dennis’ Cheung, that guy sent us back to a Cheung a block away from the first guy that had gone to a funeral. This new guy looked legit and knew Sang and Leng. He spent about 5 hours working on the bike but in the end, he did not have the parts or ability to take care of the problem.
I decided to truck Wynona back to Sang’s for $30 and the moto shop made the arrangements to get it there. I took the night bus and paid for two spaces to have plenty of room and not have to share small space with someone else. That cost $28.
Dennis got his light fixed in Banlung and Sergey tested his battery and got a new LED light bulb.
Philip was unable to put on a new ignition coil because the Cheung was working on my bike. The Cheung didn’t want to stop working on mine to install the coil. Also, the coil was on another bike that they would have to hunt down and remove it from that bike to put on Philip’s bike.
Sergey left about 10 am to retrieve his car in Stung Trang and load up his moto to get back to PP. Yong, Wendy, Dave, Peter and Philip left about 1:30 to head to Philips village in Kratie. Dennis and Luke left about 45 min later after they had helped me get my bus ticket and back to the Prak Dara to retrieve my bags.
LUKE ADDS:
After we (Dennis and Luke) got Scott squared away for his bus ride back to Phnom Penh, we headed southwest from Banlung to Philip’s village, chasing the main group of riders that had a head start on us. On the way, we stopped see if it was possible to take a new, more direct, dirt road that follows a new powerline over the mountain into Philip’s village. We thought it might be possible to make up time on the group ahead of us and scope out the new powerline access road for Philip at the same time.
However, the road was gated and the guard there would not let us through unless we first got the permission of his boss, who was apparently to be found at a gas station several kilometers back up the main road we had just travelled down. While we were talking to the guard, several small motos carrying locals came out the road we were trying to get in to. The guard let them out and we talked to them about the road’s conditions (they reported it as passable). We decided not to try to go back to look for the boss to get permission to enter, and instead we rode on down the main road the longer way around to Philip’s village. A little further down the road, we unknowingly rode past the first group of riders while they were taking a break. So twenty minutes later Dennis and I pulled in to a roadside gas station for fuel and we were surprised when the main group that had left Banlung before us rode past us! They waved but rode on, expecting us to catch up to them shortly.
Unfortunately, in our haste to finish our fuel stop and catch up, I (Luke) rode through some wood chips on the ground at the gas station and demonstrated my ability to find a needle in a haystack, picking up a nail in my rear tire. So we pulled over at a farmer’s house to change the tube ourselves, which meant that we never did catch up to the main group as we had intended.
With the flat tire fixed, Dennis and I rode on to the turn where we left the main road and headed a half hour in to Philip’s village. With a flat-tire delay and a home-cooked dinner by Philip’s wife Kim on our minds, we turned off the main road a bit too soon and accidentally ended up on an old GPS track that wasn’t the good dirt road Philip led the main group down ahead of us. As darkness fell, Dennis and I found our dirt road devolving into a occasionally-used cart track that departed from our old GPS line. But we were both happy to end a “repair-shop-and-road-transit” day with a bonus adventure, so Dennis and I fired up our headlights and pressed on into the darkness. Several dry/sandy riverbed crossings and “that way feels about right” navigation decisions later, we rolled up to Philip’s house only a short while after the main group arrived. It was a good reminder that if you have a GPS pin of where you want to end up in Cambodia, it’s often possible to use intuition to string together farmers tracks to get there several different ways! Dinner was amazing, and Kim’s date cake with caramel sauce (paired up with a cup of Phillip’s coffee) is the stuff of legend. Seeing Kim bring food that delicious out of her kitchen that far in the jungle feels borderline miraculous to me! 😍
Day 5 85km loop through Philip’s “backyard”: (Philip you’ll write this, right? Highlights I remember: praying for Dave after he told us this was his last PCC ride in Cambodia, you praying to meet that couple and then here they came down the trail the other way, the snack stop at the place with the crazy cell signal booster antenna up the bamboo pole and the aluminum disk down below you put your phone under, stopping at the gold prospecting village, taking a new track you’d seen on satellite images, stopping at the house where only that boy and his puppies were home, and finally meeting your translation assistant that was the one who got bitten by the viper last year and Dennis praying for her and her praying for us).
From Philip:
I will add to the above highlights. The goals for that route were to pray in Kdaoy village, find the new Muslim community which I have heard about, and take a look at the new area being developed mostly as private plantations mostly by non-Kraol people moving in to take advantage of available land.
Regarding Kdaoy village, that is where we had our first drink stop and saw the steampunk phone network antenna. I first tried to find Kdaoy village in 2009 as part of a survey of Kraol people, coming from Kaoh Nheaek in mud in May. Our guide could not find the road and turned back to Kaoh Nheaek in the afternoon. We kept going looking for a turn from the main road, which we never found, and slept under a WWF house in the forest, where we were joined by a group of soldiers/lumberjacks. Anyway, we never made it to Kdaoy. When we got to a Kraol village on the Kratie side, West of Kdaoy, they said it was a 2-3 day ride in a buffalo cart. When we went on this PCC, I think it took less than 2 hours. So, in my mind, Kdaoy has always been a remote village. Now there is a car road coming to Kdaoy from Kaoh Nheak, though it is without bridges and eroded beyond what most cars would attempt, and the way we went on this ride, what I called “the highway” will probably be improved into a large graded dirt road with concrete bridges and powerlines along it, in the next three years. When I went through Kdaoy, and slept there one night, around 2018, with a group of Bunong and Kraol KEC believers from Kaoh Nheak, the village leader told the main KEC missionary that he was not allowed to teach the people. There were no believers in Kdaoy then. More recently, Jan 26 2025, a team of KEC outreachers on about 20 motorbikes from Mondul Kiri went through Kdaoy village, where they said they were allowed to speak the gospel, and though there are no believers, yet, a few people were interested.
Regarding the Muslim community, I thought it would be the first group of houses (seen on satellite images) we aimed toward, coming back West from Kdoay and then South along a road I had never been on. But that group of houses was not the Muslim community. That road had been recently worked on, improved, though still not a graded car road. One of the first buildings we saw was a gold mine building, belonging I believe to Renaissance Minerals, which runs the big mine at Ou Kvau, and has done research in this area, employing people from this area. The building was not just one of their temporary research camps, but more permanent looking. And, we came across a few intersections of recently cleared dirt roads. At least one of those roads, which we came across again later, kept going straight south, and I think is probably the main road the company uses to get to that area. After the company building, we saw several small wooden houses with red paint numbers on them, as if they belonged to the company for workers, maybe. But, as we talked to the drink sellers in a shop, they said that it was Kraol village called Tranh, something like that, which I had heard of, but never been to. So, the community was there before the mine, but they said they are not officially a village, they are not big enough. I think she said Kraol people had been living there for twenty years, though I am a bit uncertain of that. People in Tranh have their main connection, for supplies, school, etc., with Rovieng and Srae Chis, which are not close.
The Muslim community ended up being along the road going south from “the highway” to Kdaoy, seen on the satellite images, with a lot of ground being cleared into small blocks for family plantations. We came to this stretch of relatively new road from the south, having cut west from Tranh, going around what people in Tranh called Red Mountain. The tracks I had traced for that part didn’t turn out to be real options a couple times, but Dennis found a good way, just heading west to intersect with the new plantations road.
When we got to the new plantations road, there were houses along both sides of the road, and newly cut land for planting, as well as some land with cassava already. But, no people. We stopped for a drink at one house, and the only person there was a boy, maybe 12-15, who was talkative. His family is Khmer, from Kratie town. Sometimes he goes and stays in town for school. He said all the houses on the East side of the road were Muslim families, and on the West side of the road were Khmer non-Muslim families. I think that new plantation road continues south also, connecting with the bigger E/W road from Antrong (where we slept one night after Jenna hit her head). But, the boy said they go to the Ou Krieng, north of his house, to get water. We left continuing north to meet the Kdaoy highway again, and at that intersection, I saw a Muslim man I know because he lives a few houses down from me and is married to a Kraol woman, I believe a daughter of the village leader. That man was visiting the house there where there were a couple Muslim women and a couple men. So, he has some connection with the Muslim people who have moved in to live in that new area. Maybe it is through him the Muslim people know about the area, or get permission through the village leader, to set up there.
So, I know where there is at least one community of Muslim people now, I know what/where Tranh is, and that there is a station, more than a camp, of the gold company and they are establishing a road to the south.
And, as mentioned above, I specifically prayed that we would meet along the way a particular man and his wife, who are Khmer believers, who are working to set up their own plantation at Ou Ploung (half way to Kdaoy), and sometimes they join with us for church. I thought we would ask about him at a group of houses along the way, since I wasn’t sure where he lived, but we actually met them on the road. While we prayed for him, a Lao man from our village, who was curious, stopped to join us, and so we prayed for him too. He had just lost a hut and expensive tools/implements stored there, when his plantation had burned. As the forest burns every year, people with property in or next to the forest worry about losing their fences, huts, etc.
I would also like to mention, related to the discussion about group mission and individual reasons for participating in PCC, that the ride that day was probably one of a few, maybe the only ride this year, where I go relatively far from my home (no phone, few people), and go faster than I normally would, because I have people to ride with, and I get pushed a little bit by riding with more skillful people. Most of the improvement I have made in riding and maintaining a motorcycle has come from PCC rides. Improving in these things is helpful, because it means I can go to these places more safely on my own for work, when I need to, and I will probably be helping other people who join our team who are, at least initially, less skillful than me. So, I appreciate the patience and experience shared from other riders. I also said out loud to someone, when I first met the group on the first day at the PTT at Ou Krieng, that actually seeing the people, I already felt like something good had happened, that I could go home. I just meant that the good feeling of fellowship was apparent to me, almost surprisingly tangible. So, I appreciate your friendship and brother-sisterhood in Christ, and I am grateful that you guys take the time to visit my home and family, also.
Mission drift vs mission creep
Mission drift are small changes from the original mission. Starts with small compromises and then financial pressures can push to activities that might seem to make sense to generate funds. These activities may be different than the original goals.
Mission creep- Intentionally adding goals to the original goals to expand the objectives?
Unity vs Uniformity Uniformity-Do it like we’ve always done it
Unity-decide together on the direction we should go
Motos vs other transportation
People come on these rides for a variety of reasons. One is for the fellowship with the other riders. There is a common bond in getting each other through difficult situations and conquering problems and just hanging out. There is the fun factor of being on a motorcycle and making plans to go on a ride. And there is the ministry aspect of meeting and encouraging M’s outside your normal sphere of operation. Also, the show-up factor to find pastors in far reaching locations to encourage them through showing-up presence, the Word, testimony and prayers. We also strive to conserve energy along the way so that we can engage people with the gospel when we stop for repairs, meals, breaks or go to visit people in the village with the church members or leaders. Some people felt that if we did not have all of these elements, then they would consider other ways to spend their time rather than join on these motorcycle adventures.
Inclusive vs exclusive
To go on prayer rides with dirt bikes on rough tracks and sleeping in hammocks makes these outings exclusive for the riders that can handle those trails. More inclusive would be riding in a van and staying in guest houses or less stressful lodging. There is a sliding spectrum as to how inclusive it can be for others to join depending on the method of transportation and lodging accommodations.
Recruiting members
Dave has been a part of some Christian riding associations in Oregon. The one group he joined on a ride, rode on Harley’s and had long beards. They weren’t really looking outward to engage other types of riders that ride different kinds of motorcycles. Dave’s caution to the group leader was that they were going to age out of their current group in the next ten years. Dave said that he had met three guys during the ride that he wanted to discuss ways to change the current culture of the group in order to attract younger riders. The current leader said that wasn’t any problem and that Dave was welcome to talk to whoever he liked. These discussions are ongoing, and it is yet to be seen how these riders will respond to trying to do ministry in ways different than the ways they presently operate.
More photos & videos
There are many additional photos and videos here: Google Album.