move over angelina

so here we are in cambodia - the most socially responsible leg of our sampler platter of southeast asia. blogs most certainly don't do this place or the people and things we have experienced justice. we got a cab to sr. louise's church (fr. heri is a jesuit priest from indonesia who also runs the church). he is a wonderfully short smiley man full of good humor and jokes. sr. louise is a french canadian who has been working here in cambodia for 3 years, with 26 years of high school teaching in japan before this. she organizes funding and programs for people of cambodia from meals and learning for children to jobs for former prostitutes. today we went to phnom krom, about 12km away, to help at a japanese-nun run school. we bathed somewhere near 60 children! got their tiny dirty bodies squeaky clean and then tossed and spun and played with them. they were a riot! so cute and rambunctious that they even melted jeff's heart and had so much fun with him that they tore the butt of his pants. he had a million children climbing him like a tree - adorable!

the work that sr. louise does makes it clear how important it is that people know about the situation here and how much difference we can make with just a little attention. i have so much more respect for her faith after seeing the way she tirelessly devotes herself to making the lives of these children even a little better. in reality she does loads for them and makes their futures much much brighter. i have become jaded to christianity by seeing how most americans treat the religion. on the other hand, you can FEEL sr. louise's devotion and sincerity and i have so much respect for her mission. i'm still confident of my own beliefs but i could imagine working with people of such faith and how fulfilling it would be to be around such staunch and confident committment.

we returned to the church and sorted almost 4,000 pens, pencils and pens to distribute to the schools (not sure how many, but serving around 1,000 children). tomorrow we go to a school to help teach english and... ballet! i can't wait to do ballet! hopefully we will have great fun and the kids will be into it - boys can be difficult in such large groups and these kids are crazy! i'll have to restrain ms. hess and try and keep it sarah. most of you haven't seen me teach but molly and a few dancers say i'm pretty... what's the word... STRICT. HAHAHAH! my mom says i'm good tho - so there! i can't wait! jeff is going to do an art class section with the new markers, colored pencils and water-colors. sr. louise has been trying to get an art program going so she is very excited.

in the afternoon we are going to the war museum and the mine museum. sr. louise will take us to an apsara dance performance and a really cool restaurant. we are going to a floating vietnamese village and church on tonle sap lake, and going to mother teresa's missionary orphanage (where we are excited to squeeze some babies!). we make soup on friday for the same kids from today and then off to angkor wat on saturday to see the most incredible temples ever! sunday morning we catch a very early bus to phnom penh for a couple days. whew! ur all caught up.

we're gonna go get some dinner and hang out before our 9 am bus tomorrow.

lots of love from all of us and thanks to those of you who posted - ur cooler than those who didn't!
s (and m and j)

sr. louise has so much planned for us that i can't remember all of it and molly's got it written down so i'll let her finish it up.