Happy Thanksgiving!

What a wonderful way to bring in the Christmas season with the opportunity to start with Thanksgiving! As we consider our many blessings this year, we truly have been placed in a situation that has opened our eyes and humbled our hearts as we consider the overflowing abundance of things we feel to express our gratitude for....

As we travel through Cambodia, we are constantly bombarded with the extreme contrasts that exist side by side here. Even in the short time we have been here, we see influences changing the lives of the Cambodia people- some for the better and others that we morn over. We are grateful that we have had the opportunity to be here at a time when the province people are still largely untouched from less desirable influences. The capital city, Phenom Phen, is quickly becoming an international city- complete with all the associated "baggage".

Here in the provinces, the rice fields are turning golden and the harvest season is beginning. The fields are filled with reapers and the more prosperous farmers hire thrashing machines that resemble a large blue barrel with a few gears attached. They feed in the rice stalks and it spits out the rice on one end and a virtual snow of rice stalks out the other. After the rice head has either been thrashed by hand or machine, they place it on thin woven bamboo matts to dry- the most desirable drying place being a paved road. As we traveled to Seam Reap this week, Highway 6, Cambodia's best and most traveled road was pushed into almost one lane (it has only one lane in either direction to begin with!)with miles of drying mats. After the fields have been harvested, the water buffalo, Cambodia's work horse, are put out into the fields to graze- it is an amazing sight to see these huge animals, 50 to 60 in a field, grazing.....

We have been blessed with the opportunity to teach several investigators here in Seam Reap. One is a family with an American husband, the other a Cambodian with excellent English, and a family we are meeting today for the first time who are Americans from- of all places! Indiana! They are here for about a year with their two children working with a Mennonite organization teaching pottery as a potential marketable income. We are thrilled to visit with them and more to follow as we met them....

We are thrilled to report that we have two buildings submitted for approval for a new meeting house in KT. A more suitable building will be such a blessing for our branch there. Right now we met in a store front location with a massage parlor beside us, and a butcher shop in the back. Theft of bikes is a common occurrence, so the bikes and motos have to be brought into the building for safe keeping- I could go on with a host of problems, but sufficient to say, we are thrilled! The lease is up in February, so that is the target date for the move...(The most likely candidate of the two buildings is just down the street from us- to think we came all the way to Cambodia to be able walk to church!)

In our photos this week, we are including two of the rice fields- you can see the color change as the rice matures. The other is a cow drawn wagon comming down the street we walk down (KT) The last is a funeral procession we passed on our way from KT to Seam Reap this week. The casket was being lifted up into the "boat" and you can see the women and men in their traditional Khmer cememonial dress.

WE love you all!!! Hugs! Elder and Sister Dickerson