Twenty four members of the medical missions team brought 46 pieces of luggage. Although we had permission to be overweight, we were over 300 kilograms over. By God's grace we were able to get all of it through customs.

A week before we arrived, Cambodia was hit by several successive days of heavy downpours. Many huts and harvest-ready fields flooded. The villagers, who were poor and ill-fed to start with, suffered unspeakably. The first two or three nights after we arrived it also poured down heavy rain. Seeing this kind of situation, the missions team could not help but cry out in prayer during our evening prayer times. So, we decided to give the villagers our left-over rice and use compassion funds to purchase more rice for them. We also distributed the used clothing we had brought to the needy in the villages and churches.

For six days we provided medical and dental services to five villages. A total of about 900 people saw a doctor; another 180 had teeth pulled or filled. One afternoon we gave the one hundred children of the "House of Love" physical and dental checkups, and gave appropriate medical and dental care. During the checkups we discovered that almost all of them had head lice, so the doctor provided all of them with anti-lice shampoo. Actually, head lice are extremely common in Cambodia, and even the adults have lice. So, two or three people are often seen sitting under the eaves of a house picking off each other's lice. This is a normal activity in the villages, but it was "interesting" to us.

Through the afternoon household visits and evening evangelistic meetings, a total of 20 people believed in the Lord. Please pray for these new believers. One of them lives next to the Prek Thei church, but his landlord is a Buddhist leader and forbid him to go to church. So, this new believer hopes to find another place to live. Please remember him in prayer.

A mother came to see the doctor. She looked ill and desperate and the little girl she was holding was in the same state. The doctor's diagnosis was that the several month old baby girl was suffering from a serious case of tuberculosis and needed to go to a hospital immediately. The mother, poor, ill and pressured as she was, looked on the idea of coming up with the $1.00 bus fare to the next district like it was a one ton burden added to her. She looked at us with dull, hopeless eyes, and one of the nurses nearby couldn't help crying for her plight. We prayed for this mother and daughter, gave them $10, and told her to take her daughter to the hospital immediately. On Sunday when the team split into several groups to attend worship in the various villages, eight families said that they had believed in God and starting attending church because of the witness of the medical team. We also visited the ill mother and daughter of the day before and found that the daughter was already much improved. Praise the Lord. But, because they live in a remote place and the dirt roads are hilly and rough, it is not easy to visit them. All we can do is pray for these poor people and ask the Lord to have pity on them and watch over them.

During our travel on the eleventh day we had an accident. When the team split into groups on Sunday afternoon to visit various home worship services, one group went to Prek Ambel on a road that was already rough and difficult to drive. With the rain and mud it was dangerously slippery. Two of the group were sitting on the back seat of a motorcycle when it fell over. One sister burned her foot against the hot exhaust pipe, but thank God, it was not serious. Missionaries say that in Cambodia, because the roads are in terrible shape and no one pays attention to the traffic laws, it is taking your life in your hands to drive a vehicle. I think about our missionary, Rev. Paula Guazon, who is serving alone for a long term assignment under these conditions. We really need to be praying for her safety and the safety of her local fellow workers in traffic.

Team members especially enjoyed worshipping with the local believers in the two Sunday worship services. Both adults and youth numbered over 80 people, and the church was already crowded. They entered into the singing and worship with enthusiasm and activity, just like King David dancing before the Lord in praise.

We are looking forward to your participation in the April 2000 medical missions team, so that you may also experience God's grace and the joy of service.