Team is home!

The team is back in Wooster!

I praise God for their safe return. May God help them adjust to our time zone and to work through the culture shock of what has happened while they were away.

Please keep them in prayer for the next week as they recalibrate their lives to life back home. It's not easy to encounter a BIG world, to expand your vision, and then to resume life as it was. Life will be different now. May the Lord be praised with their new commitments to develop into fully devoted followers of Christ.

A couple comments/and pictures from FB from the team:

"Back home safe and sound, praise God for such an awesome opportunity and great time with the 2012 Team Hope Asia Trip! Missing my new friends in Cambodia & Thailand... ready to sleep in my nice warm bed =)  Thank you for all who prayed for me on my trip it was greatly appreciated! The Lord was able to do many awesome things threw our team (Carlin Tiano)."

"Great, not only am i in cleveland with sandals on and it's snowing, I just realized i left my jacket in Korea (RAD)."

Steve Knight changed his profile picture.

Pastor Bob makes it to SE Asia

Pastor Bob Fetterhoff is in Cambodia with Jim Pike & Roger McManus. Read his first post on his blog. Please keep this team in your prayers too.

Pray for the team returning. They are in the middle of a thirty-hour odyssey as they come home. Ask God to help them adjust to our time zone, adapt to what has happened here, and to try to share what God has done in them with passion, grace, and tact. 

I glorify God for His work through us to impact the peoples of the world for Christ!

Pastor Ivanildo & his wife Naza arrive in SE Asia

Just an update: Pastor Ivanildo posted on FB. They have arrived safely in SE Asia for their vacation.  You can follow him on his blog. Post a comment to encourage them. 

More pictures from the Harley's in Thailand

Harley's visit the Killing Fields & the Homes of Love in Cambodia

It was important for today that I arranged for us to visit Tuol Slang and the Killing Fields to get a better understanding of what people here have experienced and what lurks in their memories.  For those of you not born yet in the mid-70's or for those who really didn't learn what had actually happened here, I will only briefly share now. Basically the Khmer Rouge, a group of Cambodian people aligning themselves with the Communists, attacked their own people killing 2 million of them in the worst possible ways.  The educated, the professional, the wealthy, the leaders, and their families brutally murdered.  The vision of the Khmer Rouge was to reduce Cambodia to a non-thinking group of slaves who did whatever the Regime told them to do.  They set out to destroy Cambodia financially, socially, spiritually and physically.  They wanted to destroy the culture and make pure, innocent, loving people into killers.  Just about everyone you meet here has been directly effected by this event.  Some lost their parents, some fled the country, some were taken into the military where they were taught to steal and kill.  It was a great tragedy and still has its ugly evil fingers trying to grip the people of Cambodia.

After an emotionally heavy morning, we decided a visit to the Asia's Hope Christian School would be a great way to end the day and lift our spirits.  We played with the children during their recess. Tim and Zac played vollyball using the tree branch as a net and a soccer ball. Then we visited the classrooms, Nathan, guitar in hand, and played some songs they knew in English ,and they sang some we knew.  It was a great time of fellowship. [Please note that Pastor Daron will post pictures later]

Tomorrow we head up north to Siem Reap. Thank you so much for your prayers. Keep them flowing please! So please leave a comment of encouragement.

On the way to see our kids in SE Asia (Guest Post)

We made it to San Fran a little tired and very hungry as we went from dinner Thursday night to 3:00 pm Ohio time Friday afternoon without food as the airline didn't serve any meals, not even a snack. So when we arrived at the hotel and saw a Denny's next door, we joked that it looked like Hyde Park to our stomachs. It was the best Denny's food we ever ate.

 

When we heard that our students here in San Fran were serving a meal to the homeless, we decided we counldn't miss the opportunity to begin serving even at this point in the trip.  So we took a cab downtown and met up with with the team at Youth With a Mission.  It was great to see everyone from Grace!  I can't wait til they get back to Wooster and have a chance to tell everyone what this trip did for them because the students have grown by leaps and bounds in their spiritual lives.  

 

Nathan & Zac with homeless friend

It was so encouraging to see.  They are so excited to be here doing what they are doing! Zac joined Nathan at a table as hosts where they engaged in conversation with the hungry, homeless who sat at their table.  Val and I took orders, went to the kitchen to fill their plates, then served the people at the tables. We took the opportunity to talk to people too. 

 

The students then took time to pray for our trip.  What a blessing that was to us. Afterwards, the students had a debriefing meeting while Pastor Nick took us to get some dinner and catch a cab back to our hotel. It is now Saturday morning and in a few minutes we leave for the airport. Steve Knight is escorting Nathan to the airport to meet up with us. We will have a 12 hr 20 min flight to Seoul then a 5 hr 25 min flight to Cambodia.  We should arrive in Cambodia 10:00 am your time Sunday morning.

 

San Fran Team prays for Harley's

I want to thank everyone now for following us on the blog and praying for us.  We are bringing so many hugs with us from all of you to give to all the children, we can barely wait to give them out. Pray for the usual health and safety, but more so for the encouragement we can be to others and the love we can share from Christ.

 

God Bless All of You,

 

Jeana Harley for the Harley family