You're never going to believe what's happened this month!

It will knock your socks off!

Gambles Newsletter                                    03/11/18                               Volume 4, Issue 3 serving Cambodia through engineering design and discipleship Pix EMI office now - not quite finished, but it's getting there! One of our team members in his go-kart.  Yes, there are go-karts in Cambodia! Since Chesna is headed off to college soon, Chad has taken on his next protege - Miriam, who will drive the scooter to school next year. The very handsome Moses all dressed up for MUN (see corner kick).  Watch out, ladies! A Khmer university student being mentored by an American architect during Chad's recent project trip.  Discipleship is one of our core values in EMI. [Starbucks gift card to the first one who can name the city in Vietnam that Chad just went to] Blessings... Office Beginnings Just over a month ago we received keys to a completely vacant 4 story row house.  We celebrated the next step towards opening the new office then began getting to work.  Now that space that was so empty just a month ago contains desks & chairs, bookshelves, 5 a/c's, nearly a mile of network cable, high speed internet, a computer server, and lots of white boards.  Our staff has been incredibly busy pulling together to get so much accomplished.  While all that was going on at the office, we received word that the business registration is nearly finalized and that our visas were renewed for another year!  As if that wasn't enough, we also hosted the CEO of EMI and his wife for a week of team building and meetings, the EMI IT manager came for another week to help set up our computer equipment, and next week the EMI finance manager is coming to train our new accountant (see below). Staff On Monday we will welcome our second Khmer staff member - Rathana!  We hired her as an accountant to do the bookkeeping and payroll and are looking forward to getting to know and work with her.  God has also led us to hire a Khmer architect who will start May 1st and a Khmer intern who starts on Tuesday to help with a construction management project and another project in Myanmar.  This brings our in-office staff to 5 expats and 4 Khmer.  We're hoping to be 50% Khmer staff when we open the office May 1st and we are almost there - Praise God! First "Project" Trip On Saturday Chad returned from a short project trip to Vietnam.  During this trip he was fortunate enough to take along a young Khmer architect and an experienced campus master planning architect from the USA.  The small team was able to help a very young, growing Bible school make some informed decisions about their campus growth.  With very little information they were able to put together a simple site plan that shows what a future campus might look like and what size land that they should purchase to fit their vision.  Hopefully, this is the beginning of a long term partnership where we are able to help them over the next 5-10 years as their vision becomes a reality through land acquisition, design and construction.   Please continue to join Shanthi in praying for discerning what God wants her to do in Cambodia.  Please pray for our office as we add new people and begin project work.  Pray that we are able to work well together and make good decisions.      We're looking for housing in the Roseville area for our family of 6 for July and a car to use for June and July as we return to the US for a time of reconnecting and rest.   Please pray for our housing situation in Cambodia while we are in the USA.  We need to negotiate with our landlord to sublet our house or if we can't come to some agreement, we'll need to move all our stuff into storage for two months and find new housing when we return. រយោង ដូច សម្ល កំពឹស sounds like "roe-yong doik som-lah kom-puh" Tangled together like crayfish soup A knotty issue where everything seems to be fiendishly interlinked.  Small shrimps and crayfish have long hairs and hooked tails so that you never get just one on your spoon.  Some problems are like this: one thing leads on to another. Miriam's Massages (or was that messages?) You know that kids say the darnedest things.  Here you will get a few funny quotes from our kids. "If I could skip a grade, I would be in 11th grade." ~Miriam                                                                                "I just want to marry rich.  I'll be a trophy wife." ~Chesna.  This was her exasperated answer to what she wants to study at university. :) Moses' Corner Kick Last week I tried something new and it was very fun. It is called MUN or Model United Nations. So basically you dress up formally and they will assign you a country. Then they will give you three current day problems that you will debate on. The thing is you have to act like you are the delegate of the country. It was three days long and was very tiring because the people that I went against were very smart. The food there made everyone sick but the snacks were very good. I really enjoyed spending time with my friends and trying something new. I think that I will do it next year because then I can go overseas for the next MUN meeting. Another accomplishment is that I ended the school quarter with all A's and two B's which that means I still have honors.