Cambodia year details

Dear Friends and Family,
When we wrote many of you at Christmas, we told you about our upcoming year in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with Mennonite Central Committee (http://www.mcc.org/cambodia/). At the time we were planning a mid-June departure, but the current economic conditions have delayed our departure a bit. We now have tickets for July 18th, first a non-stop flight from JFK in New York, to Hong Kong, directly over the North Pole, actually. Then we will have a short flight into Cambodia. The later departure has turned out to be good as it leaves more time after the school year ends to get our lives and house in order. We will be gone until July of 2010.
I, Roseann, have a visiting appointment with the Chemistry Department at the Royale University of Phnom Penh (http://www.rupp.edu.kh/fs/faculty_of_science.php). While I don’t know the exact details of my year, it is likely that I will be working with Cambodian faculty on their teaching and curriculum, and doing research with their upper level students. Ron offered himself to do most anything for the Mennonite Central Committee. Just in the last weeks they have suggested an opportunity to “hang out” at a local youth center, helping the Cambodia youth practice their English speaking skills (http://www.mcc.org/cambodia/partners.html). This seems like a great fit!
Janaya, Austin and Acacia will be attending Logos International School (http://logoscambodia.org/) starting in early August. This Christian school is run by Asian Hope, a Christian non-profit agency out of Denver that works specifically to build leaders out of today’s Christian Cambodian youth. At this school, about 40% of the students will be Cambodian. The rest will be from all over the world.
The MCC Cambodia team leaders are currently looking for housing for us, somewhere between my work and Logos. I’ve used the satellite images on Google Maps to see our new neighborhood. Pretty cool! Thankfully, we will have people there, whom, although we have never met them face-to-face, will be helping us to settle in.
As we write this letter to you our friends and family, there are a couple ways you could “go with us” as we embark on this year of service. First, we ask for your prayers. One of our primary concerns is finding a suitable renter for our home. We had a good lead, but our inability to get good internet in rural PA stalled this arrangement. Second, we could use prayer as we make all our preparations for leaving – there are many. More recently, Acacia has developed some pretty significant, unexplained, joint pain, and we pray that this will go away before we leave, or that we will get a diagnosis and be able to treat it. Medicine in Cambodia is okay, but not great.
Our financial arrangements with MCC require that my entire ½ year salary go towards our budgeted expenses. Since we are only with MCC for one year, the children’s tuition is not part of this budget. We don’t want to home school them, as that would detract from their experience, but their tuition and fees for the year will total around ten thousand dollars. Our church has recently set up a fund specifically for this financial need. Whatever money is collected will be sent straight to Asian Hope for our children’s tuition. While we know the current economy has increased the financial challenges for all of us, if you would be able to support our year with Mennonite Central Committee by contributing to this fund, we would be very grateful. Any donations can be sent to: Slate Hill Mennonite Church, 1352 Slate Hill Rd, Camp Hill, PA 17011. The checks can be written out to Slate Hill Mennonite Church, with Cambodian Education Fund 02-4111 on the subject line. All gifts will be tax deductible. Thank you for all your support.
Ron has been using Facebook for a while to interact with his youth group. Janaya has an account, and I recently joined in anticipation of being away for a year. We will certainly post short updates and pictures there as we experience many new things. If you are reading this here, you have found our blog. We will take turns posting many of our experiences there, and hope that you might keep up with us, and pray for us, through that method of communication. While we don’t know if we will have reliable internet at our home, there are many internet cafes in the city, and the MCC office will have internet access as well. It might not be much difference than our having to go to the public library every time we want fast internet in rural Pennsylvania!
Again, we greatly appreciate your prayers as we finish our preparations over these next three months. If you would like also to be on an email list, please write us at ronroseannsachs@gmail.com. We look forward to keeping in contact with you.

Preparations

Our plans for the year ahead are falling into place. We have tickets, leaving from JFK in New York for July 18th. We will be flying nonstop to Hong Kong (over the north pole, actually), and then taking another flight to Phnom Penh. We will have two days of jet lag recuperation, then the regional Mennonite Central Committee retreat begins on July 22nd, in Phnom Penh.

We have a lead on the rental of our home. Please pray that this will work out. This is a significant part of our preparations. We continue to make house repairs, clean out closets and move all of our business dealings online. Acacia is suffering from some knee swelling and pain. We don't know of any injury, so she is being tested for Lyme Disease. This would not be a surprising diagnosis, as ticks are common at our house. Please pray that we will be able to diagnosis her condition, and treat it quickly.

Roseann