Okay, so are any of you on to me yet? Can you see through all my happy little Cambodia posts? Have you realized that I have a lot of serious things, HARD things to write, but that I just need to ease my way into them? Have you picked up on the fact that I’m stalling, wondering how on EARTH I’m going to put my deepest thoughts and feelings into words? Wondering how I’m going to take images that are seared into my mind (but not on my camera, since we weren’t allowed to take pictures in many of these hard places) and do them justice in some blog post.

Sigh.

So, for now, let’s talk about The Sanctuary (The Guest House we stayed at for 7 nights–the other 3 nights were spent in airports and on airplanes). We were spoiled stinkin’ rotten, that’s what.

Here’s the gate that leads to the courtyard that leads to The Sanctuary. This is me and Panha (Pawn-YAH, or however you feel like saying it), our 17-year-old translator and one of the finest (and funniest) young men I know.

Here’s a not-so-great view of the courtyard. This is me and Kimmy doing some sort of Bug Spray Dance. We all sprayed ourselves down every morning (and it may or may not have helped).

Here’s the team coming out the front door of the guesthouse, ready for another Big Day.

This is the entryway/dining room/meeting room. Notice the beautiful shade of blue. This is where we prepped for our day and debriefed before bed. You can see the bottom of the stairs on the right of the pic. Kim, Lindy and Erin shared a room on the 2nd floor. Doug and Jason shared one on the 3rd, as did Gabe-O and me.

This is where Gabe and I slept the sleep of angels, with freezing cold air conditioning blasting all our troubles away. It was every bit as comfortable as it looks. And yes, those are towels in the shape of elephants (LOVE). And yes, we really were in a third world country, not on a Caribbean cruise.

This is a big meeting room on the third floor where we unloaded and organized suitcases (we each brought a suitcase filled with supplies for schools and orphanages). This is the team assembling gift bags for the 130+ kiddos at the state-run orphanage.

This is me one morning at 6ish a.m. writing a blog post. We also Skyped with our girlies four or five times while we were there.

Breakfast! Every single morning, included with our lodging. I told you we were spoiled.

This is me tasting Dragonfruit. I’m not a big fruit fan, but this one was probably my favorite. Gabe liked mangosteen the best.

For those of you concerned with rats, spiders and king cobras, this is the scariest thing we saw (creature-wise) while we were there. These harmless little lizards (about 3 inches long) would run up and down the walls at night (mostly outside, but we had one in our room, and Erin has a great story about one that ran over her foot while she was on the toilet).

Here we are, making cards for the kiddos’ birthday party.

And last, but not least, meet Fanny. I know I have a better picture of her somewhere (like where you can actually see her face), but I can’t find it. Fanny is a sweet girl who runs The Sanctuary and has plans to attend university in Denver, Colorado this fall if everything works out with her visa. We would looooove to visit her while she’s there. Awesome young woman of God.

The Sanctuary is run by an awesome organization called Asian Hope (not to be confused with Asia’s Hope who runs our orphanage). Their mission is to raise up Cambodian leaders in the name of Christ who will bring hope and a future to their country. The Sanctuary is specifically for people on missions trips to Cambodia, and they do an absolutely amazing job. FIVE STARS. Gabe said he felt guilty staying there when we were supposed to be sacrificing, but hey, I’d stay again in a heartbeat. Because I love what they stand for and what they’re doing. (And their A/C works really, really, really well.)

Have an awesome weekend, friends! More Cambodia (among other things!) next week!

If you only knew how giddy I am over what you’re about to read (giggle giggle clap clap).

I have my mom’s (reluctant) permission to “reprint” this letter in this particular forum. (Typing as fast as I can before she changes her mind.) I found this treasure a couple months ago when Bethany and I were at Mom and Dad’s helping them wade through (and purge!) years of clutter.

There are some things, though, that should never, ever, EVER be thrown away.

This letter is one of them.

Let me set the stage. Mom and Dad graduated from the same high school in 1969. They supposedly met for the first time in the church nursery, but they weren’t exactly childhood sweethearts. Their first date was their Senior Prom (Spring 1969). In the fall of that year, they both went away to college. Dad started at Cedarville College (an hour from home), and Mom headed off to Grace College in Indiana. For those of you who know my own story, this may sound oddly familiar to you. Yes, I went to Cedarville and Gabe went to Grace.

So, not long after they went their separate ways, Dad realized there were a lot of other fish in the sea and felt the urge to go out with one of them. So he broke up with Mom. Mom tells me now that they weren’t really even “committed” to each other, but apparently, she was just crushed by his decision.

HOWEVER, just prior to February 2, 1970, she made a conscious decision to MOVE ON. No more whimpering and crying over some dumb boy who obviously didn’t know how good he had it. Who needed him anyway? Certainly not her.

In a big, long, paragraph-less (I broke it up for you. You’re welcome) letter to her parents (that has me ROLLING every single time I read it), she fills them in on her new, happy, independent life.

Without further ado… Oh, one more thing. Take a mental tally, if you will, of the number of times she says, “Well.” Quite comparable to my over-use of the similar “Anyway.”

Monday, February 2, 1970

Dear Mom and Dad,

Hi! How is everybody back home? I’m just fine. You know–you were right! You said I hadn’t given anyone a chance here because I was always hanging on to someone back home. Well–I quit hanging on to anyone back home and boy did it work! I can hardly believe it. I wish I woulda let go a long time before this.

Well, I’ll tell ya all about it. First of all, there was a music recital on Friday night, January 23rd, and this guy named Joe asked me to go with him. Well, I’m really not too wild about Joe, but I had to go to the recital anyway, so I told him I’d go. Well, see, I didn’t want Joe to ask me out again, so I thought if I looked real icky at the recital that he wouldn’t ask me out again. But I decided that wasn’t such a good idea so I wore my new outfit and coat.

I prayed about the evening ’cause Joe has a reputation for being fast and conceited. Well–I was sure glad I was dressed up! I had washed & dried my hair Friday afternoon, so it looked neat. Well, we went to the recital and sat in front of a whole row of guys. They all whistled at me. One guy especially told me I looked beautiful. His name was Dave.

Well, after the recital was over at about 8:30, Dave asked me if I wanted to go mess around on the piano with him. (We were supposed to play a piano duet in the Talent Show.) Well, he looked at Joe and then at me and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Joe, you probably wanted to take Chris back to the dorm didn’t you?” Joe said “yes.”

So he took me back and I ran up and got my music and went over to McClain with Dave. [I told myself I wouldn't add commentary, but I'm dying here. Really. Truly.]

We played piano and sang together until midnight. He plays beautiful! Just like a dream! Well, right before we left, he asked me if I wanted to go to the basketball game on Saturday night with him. I said I’d love to. So he picked me up at 7:45 and we had a wonderful time. We smeared Los Angeles Baptist with a score of 122-108! Afterwards we had a victory party in the gym. Dave had to play a honkey tonk piano for entertainment the first half hour. It was really neat!

The party was over at 11:00 so we went to McClain again and played the piano and sang together until midnight again. He told me I had the tuffest voice. (That’s pretty funny.) Then I went to church with him Sunday night to the Fellowship Baptist Church. We doubled with his roommate, Jim, and one of my girlfriends, Brenda. After church we went to Penguin Point and ate. We had a riot.

Well, I saw him through the week and we talked and stuff. Then Friday night, January 30th, we were together from 6:00-12:00. Part of that time he had to work in the college building, so I talked to him. Then we watched T.V. in the lounge and played the piano & sang until midnight again. It was so much fun.

Well, [I'm up to 11 "Wells." How about you?] the freshman class decided they couldn’t get two pianos in the gym for the talent show, so I played for Dave to sing a solo–”You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.” It was so tuff! The spotlight was on him and everything. He’s got such a tuff voice. I also accompanied a girl to sing “People.” She did a beautiful job.

Well, after the talent show, Dave and I doubled with Ken and Pam to get a pizza. It was really a lot of fun! Then yesterday morning I went to church with Dave again and we went to dinner together. It was really great! He treats me like I’m worth something. (Unlike someone else I used to know.) [That would be my father.]

I sat down and added up all the hours I spent with him those 2 weekends and it came out to 29 hours and 15 minutes. Wow–how’s that! [Wait. It gets better.]

I like him, that’s for sure, but there’s some others I like too. Like: Daryl, Larry, Gary, Asher, and Keith. I don’t want to go steady with Dave because I don’t want to get tied down with one. Understand? [Totally.]

I hope you don’t think I’m a big flirt. [Why in the world would we think that?] Just making up for lost time. The next time I come home I’ll explain everything in more detail–whenever that is. I miss all you guys a lot. I’m behavin’, believe it or not and I’m much happier than I’ve been for a LONG time!

God Bless You–every one!

Love, Chris

Two months later, my mom and dad were back together. Sometime later they got engaged. And on August 26, 1972, they got married and have been SUPER-HAPPILY married ever since.

Thanks, Mama, for enduring embarrassment just so I could get a few laughs on my blog. You have done a great service to the world. And you’re one of the tuffest women I know.

So how do you prefer to say/write it–mission trip or missions trip? Me? I like the s. I think it encompasses having multiple missions on a single trip. Just kidding. That’s just how I’ve always said it, and I’m too old to change my ways.

Anyway. (I wonder how many second paragraphs of my blog posts consist of this one six-letter word that I use whenever my introductory sentence/paragraph gets long-winded, bunny-trailed, and/or nonsensical?)

Anyway (not to be confused with anyways).

Gabe and I took over 3,000 pictures on our trip to Cambodia. I know. And while you can rest assured that I won’t subject you to even 1/20th of those photos, I can’t imagine letting all of them languish away on Gabe’s external hard drive either. So, as time allows, I’ll do themed posts here and there with a few random ones thrown in for good Marla-measure.

Today’s picture post chronicles our entire journey FROM Columbus, Ohio TO Phnom Penh, Cambodia. 30+ hours of joy and excitement. (Actually, it wasn’t too bad at all.)

Our fearless team in the Columbus airport at 3ish pm on Wednesday, July 7. Front row: Lindy, Erin, Me, Kim. Back row: Doug, Gabe, Jason.

Our first stop was a little layover (and dinner–Auntie Anne’s pretzel!) in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, but apparently we didn’t take any pictures. Hard to believe.

Here are Lindy and Erin working hard in the San Francisco airport making flashcards to help us learn the names of the kiddos in our orphanage. I was totally intimidated by the flashcards and never did use them; I just learned their names as I met them. Hard to imagine now not always knowing their names.

I don’t remember how long our layover was. Three hours? Four? Anyway, we had plenty of time for shots like this:

Taken by this clown:

The 12+ hour flight to Taipei, Taiwan wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had, but I can’t complain. It reminded me so much of my flight from Alaska to Seoul, South Korea back in 1997 on my way to student teach in Okinawa, Japan.

Here’s me writing in my journal. Not sure if this is before or after my “night’s sleep.”

This is a shot of the little radar screen in front of us as we got ready to fly over Okinawa. I got so excited because I could actually see the Naha airport (where I landed 13 years ago) from the plane!

Here we are in the Taipei airport. None of our stomachs felt all that great by this point, and Lindy’s coffee that tasted just like GREASE didn’t help.

Here’s me (with bad gas) writing this blog post, thrilled to be having my picture taken.

This is the friend Gabe made when he got tired of taking pictures of us.

Meet Sam, a Cambodian man who married a French woman and has lived in France for 30 years. He was coming home to Cambodia for 5 months to visit family. He kept saying his English wasn’t very good, but since I knew about two words in French and zero in Khmer, we made it work.

Then finally! Phnom Penh! And that part of the trip (our arrival) is such a blur to me. Savong and Pisey, the orphanage directors were there. So was Savorn, the country director for Asia’s Hope, and his wife Sony.

And since the older kids were on vacation from school, they came along to help with our bags, give us beautiful wreaths of jasmine and shower us with hugs and smiles.

I love looking back on this picture now that I know all these beautiful people so personally. It’s cool to recognize someone from a photo, but I can’t wait to go back someday and see people I KNOW.

And there you have it. A really long journey that was 100% totally worth it. I’d travel a hundred hours straight to see those faces again.

So, tell me. Have you ever been on an overseas mission(s) trip? If not, do you feel God tugging on your heart to go? Where?

If you didn’t catch yesterday’s post (and you care two hoots about my family get-together), check out more pics here.

I wish we would’ve thought to take a big family photo before Grandma (and several other people) had already headed home. Oh well. Next time. All of us in this pic add up to less than half of Grandma and Grandpa’s descendants. They have 7 kids (+ spouses), 26 grandkids (+ spouses) and a crazy-exponential number of great-grandkids.

Gabe took this pic with a timer and his mini-tripod, and I am SHOCKED that you can see everyone (except beautiful little Abby tucked behind Asias) and that almost everyone is smiling. Miracle.

Did I mention that Saturday supposedly set some sort of record for July 24 in our small town in Ohio? It was close to 100 degrees (I hear you Texans scoffing), and we had 56 people and NO AIR-CONDITIONING. And you Texans are no longer scoffing, because you can’t fathom being outside (or in an un-air-conditioned house with 55 other people) for 10 hours in the heat. Am I right?

I must confess that some of us did find some relief midway through the day.

My brother Josh, my cousin Sara and I took our nine kids plus my Aunt Jeannie’s three over to my Mom and Dad’s to swim for awhile. So much fun.

Another shift of people came over after we went back to Susie’s. Not sure what the limit is for Mom and Dad’s pool, but I’m pretty sure it’s less than 56.

Next on the agenda: Magic Show with Uncle Rod! Always a good time.

I love that my girlies looooove their first cousins and second cousins and first cousins once-removed. They play and play and play together until they drop.

And they have such a beautiful place to play. We may not have beaches or mountains or deserts (thank you, Jesus!), but Ohio is awfully pretty in its own right.

Can you guess what we’re all doing here? Okay, I’ll tell you. Watching my brother-in-law, Stewart, fly one of his remote-controlled airplanes. He’s amazing, really, and it’s always a HUGE hit with any crowd.

And last, but not least, a sweet pic of two of my favorite girlies.

Thank you, God, for the amazing blessing of family. A family with a godly heritage, full of wonderful, beautiful people. I love you guys!

It’s going to take something pretty spectacular to get me talking about a topic unrelated to Cambodia for the next long while.

My extended family fits the bill.

Saturday was our Annual Yoder Family Summer Get-Together at Uncle Tim (my dad’s brother) and Aunt Susie’s (isn’t that a sweet picture Gabe took of the field behind their house?). Not all of Grandma and Grandpa’s descendants could make the trip, but over 50 of us did. And for the first time in a long, long while, all of Grandma’s seven kids were together.

And Aunt Jeannie went to great lengths to bring Grandma from the nursing home. It was a super-special day, and I don’t think Grandma’s grin disappeared for one second of the two-ish hours she got to spend with all of us.

Here she is with the youngest of the Yoder clan, Heidi Jaye Mayo (my cousin Rachael’s youngest of three girlies):

And with all seven of her kiddos. Doug, Chris, Jeannie, Nick and Tim in the back. Ron (my daddy), Grandma and Terry in the front.

And Grandma got her socks knocked off when her “baby brother” Russ showed up and surprised her. Word has it he wasn’t supposed to be driving, but I won’t tell. Grandma had two brothers, but Uncle Tom and his wife Betty are gone. And so is Russ’s wife, Miriam. And Grandpa. So Russ is all Grandma has left. Well, him and her oodles of descendants.

Here are some of those characters doing what they do best. Eating.

We Yoders do a lot of eating. And hoo boy, is it good! (This is my brother Josh, my sis-in-law Jess and their kiddos. And my mama.)

Here’s cutie-pie Preston and his pretty mama, Christy. We like to tease my cousin Brian (Christy’s husband) that he is sooooo lucky to have snagged her (but it’s true). Love you, Christy! You too, Brian.

Here’s Grandma leaving to go back to the nursing home. It’s easier not to think about how things used to be. Getting together at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm (right down the road from Tim and Susie’s). Grandpa taking everything in from his seat on the porch. The days when we were the ones who left, not Grandma.

Bittersweet for sure.

I heart my family.

More pics tomorrow for you cousins, aunts and uncles stopping by! (Magic Show! Pool party! Flying airplanes!)