Last month Tom and Scott (young, short term intern here from Minnesota) took a survey trip up to Kampong Thom and Preah Vihear provinces. The trip had its disappointments and encouragements. Travel was more difficult than anticipated. Tom had planned to take a regular pickup to the district town in the area he wanted to explore. But, lack of customers canceled that idea. They were able to get there by a more circuitous route involving a taxi and motorbike taxis. Once in that area they hoped to hire Kuy men with motorbikes to drive them around to various Kuy villages to gather information. They spent one night in a small village at the home of the village head man. There were no motorbikes at all in that village. Even in the district town it proved hard to hire motorbike taxis. Then they discovered that travel from one village to the other, even ones relatively close to each other, is really only possible by going back and forth to the district center. It is a kind of hub with roads leading out from it, but none connecting the villages. The rainy season is a bit early this year. It had rained hard for two days, further restricting travel. So, they never made it to their ultimate destination.

Nevertheless, some valuable information about this area was gathered. How else would we have learned about the transportation difficulties? Tom and Scott went equipped with hammocks and insecticide treated mosquito nets because of the prevalence of malaria in that area of the country. There were no mosquito nets in use at the village headman's house. Hmmm...could this prove to be an opportunity to help meet a real need of remote Kuy people? Two examples of poverty stood out. They ate at a "restaurant" in a Kuy woman's house. When they ordered noodles and vegetables with an egg, she sent her daughter out to buy the ingredients, not from a market (there is none), but from little stalls in front of peoples' homes. The second was a blacksmith they met. He has a useful skill and had ingeniously devised his own equipment. But he had no metal. If customers want him to make some thing, they have to provide their own metal.

Probably the most encouraging result of the trip was that Tom was able to make the acquaintance of a Khmer Christian man in that backwater. Sok works for a de-mining agency and travels a lot. He seems to be pretty vocal about his faith. He "happened" to know Rii and Srae Chhon, two Kuy men whom Tom had been sharing with in a very different part of the province. Could he be an answer to prayer for more witnesses to Jesus for these two men?