Random Photos from the Jungles

Angkor Wat

This is Ankgor Wat! There are over 100 temples there! It would take forever to see them all! These temples were built over 600 years.
This was one of the places that Indiana Jones was filmed. There were so many tourists there that it was hard to take pictures.
This was outside the local hospital there in Siem Reap. Dengue Fever is a day biting misquito and I got several bites while we were there so I really hope that I don't get it!!
Well in 2 days we are off to the remote villages until Nov 18. I probably won't be able to update this before then. Thanks for your continued prayers:) God Bless!!

Phnom Penh

This is Vicki Penwell and I at our team dinner!! She is one of the most amazing people I have met!! She lives in the Philippines and has started midwife clinics and other health clinics in several countries! I would love to go and work with her!!
This is Jodi, Steph, me and Seang at the Khmer wedding we went to! Jodi was my roomate in Kona. Steph is one of my teammates from Hondurus. Seang was my translator last time I was in Cambodia, when I was in the town of Battambang. He came down for the wedding and it was such a nice surprise to see him!!!
This is Kom Saut!! He is an AIDS orphan at the AIDS hospital that we went to. He was so serious the first day we were there, but the next day I got a few smiles out of him and the last day he was laughing!! He is so sweet!! It broke my heart to leave him!! I want to take him home!! But AIDS children are not allowed to be adopted outside of Cambodia:( See you in heaven, Kom Saut!!:)
I went to see the Killing Fields this week! That was emotionally heavy!! But it is essential to understand what the Cambodian people went through in the past! This is a picture of the many, many heads that were uncovered in the mass graves from the people that the Khmer Rouge killed!! Now the majority (about 80%) of Cambodians are under the age of 30 because 30 years ago, the Khmer Rouge tried to kill off most of the people! They especially targeted those that were educated! Cambodia continues to struggle to rebuild it's economy. The children and youth are the future of Cambodia and many of them do not even have enough food to eat each day!!
On our way to one of the orphanages we worked at we would have to take a ferry accross the river and we would pass this floating village. The river rises about 12m every rainy season but these people's homes float so they don't flood like many of the other homes!! There were also whole villages of 'house boats'!! So many of the people live in such extreme poverty! Now that our official training is done, we are focusing on providing health care to those who don't have access to it. This often involves doing teachings on basic life saving things such as hand washing, oral rehydration solution to prevent deaths from diarrhea and dehydration, (the solution is just water, sugar and salt!!) and breastfeeding! People in Cambodia have traditions that they have been practicing for generations that are often quite harmful. One of the latest ones I learned about, from the director of a hospital we have been working at, was discribed to me as the 'baking mom'!! In the villages, right after a woman has had a baby, they build a fire under the stilts the house is on so that the heat and smoke from the fire go through the wooden slat floor boards and cook the mom! They get this idea from the concept of when you cook meat it stops bleeding!! In reality, the woman's temperature rises which increases her heartrate and makes her pump out more blood!! Also, the baby often dies because it cannot fight the heat and the smoke to breast feed! This is just one of the ideas in the villages here in Cambodia that is increasing the mother and baby mortality rate!! It is so sad!! As we are preparing to leave for the villages next week, I am wondering what other things we will encounter! I don't think there will be internet access there, but I will update this as soon as I can! Some prayer requests for the next few days and weeks would be: for safe travels as we take a bus up to Siam Reap to see Angkor Wat and then back to Phnom Penh, for team unity and health, and safe travels up to the province of Ritana Kiri and around to the 20 some villages we may treck to when we are there, also for protection because some of the local people in the church up there are being persucuted for their faith. I am really excited to be going to the villages!:) I pray that God opens the doors to go to all the places he wants us to go to and that those we meet see his love through us! Love and Prayers, Sherina!!! :)

Cambodia

Back in Cambodia!! It's always an adjustment getting used to the weather! It is still the end of moonsoon season so it rains a lot!! Feels like a humid sauna!! LOL We are in the capital city of Phnom Penh. It is very noisy, dirty and busy! Lots of traffic! Gives a whole new meaning to the term, traffic jam! lol It is pretty common to get respiratory infections here because the air is so dirty. One of the girls on my team has had a couple scary asthma attacks:( We are still in school so we have classes every day all day long! This week is childbirth and neonatal care with Vicky Penwell. She has been a midwife for 30 years and has opened many clinics in different countries in the world! I think it's really neat that she is here teaching us because when I was 15 I went on a missions trip to Mexico and worked with her in a clinic! She currently lives in the Philippines and has helping to deliver over 12,000 babies in poverty areas! She is a wealth of knowledge! I would love the opportunity to shadow her and see what she does! She has told us some stories that I will never forget!!! She is probably one of the most amazing people I have met! I am loving this week of classes!! It is stirring up even more all the passions I have for pregnant moms and babies! We heard the statistics for how many mother die in childbirth related causes!! Most of these deaths could be prevented if there were more trained birth attendants! Simple things like showing the moms that their babies need to be dried off when they are born, kept warm and breast fed would save about 30% of the babies that are dying!!! People like Bill Gates have started programs getting ladies in North America to knit caps and blankets for babies to help save lives!! It's so hard to think that something so simple could make the difference in the HUGE number of babies that die every year!!! I could keep going with all the facts and sad stories we are hearing about, but it would be really overwhelming! I have spent a lot of time crying this week! One of the nice things about this school is that we get to cry, pray and learn all at the same time! Very holistic learning! lol

We are being very well fed and housed here in Phnom Penh!! We have 4 local girls who cook most of our meals during the week! They even cook my food special without garlic because they know I'm allergic! They are so sweet!! One of the girls is married and 5 1/2 months pregnant. We did a prenatal exam on her and bought an instrument so she could hear her baby's heartbeat! It was the first time that she had heard it! She was very touched! She is going to bring her husband so he can hear it too!

Next week we are learning about AIDS. We have already learned that AIDS doesn't kill near as many people as diarrhea or malnutrition though!! It is actually a really small percentage but seems to get all the media attention. That's one of the nice things about coming to a developing country, you can see for yourself what is really going on and not just what the media wants you to think!! We will also get to work in a hospital here and do some clinics in the slum areas!!

Thank you for reading this and for your prayers, support and encouragment!!:)

The above pictures are from our day on the river cruise. The first one is of raw pig on the back of a motto!! Anyone hungry?! lol The second one is me on the boat. Sorry it is sideways, couldn't figure out how to turn it! The third one is a river shanty town. It was so poor! The fourth one we were having dinner at this restaurant and it started raining so hard!! We had to run for cover!! But it was a beautiful view until then!! The fifth one is of one of the palaces here! I hope you enjoy!! Love, Sherina