Day 10: Journey to Hinton

A well deserved rest for Marie.

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The day began with a rather startling sight. While we packing up from Golden Baptist church, Minea flagged me down and began pointing at Moses, who was trying to avoid facing me. Minea began pointing at his own jaw, communicating to me that I should take a look at Moses' jaw. I was quite alarmed to see that Moses' right cheek was very swollen.

We discovered that Moses had a nasty toothache which had got out of control. Shelly was quick to call a dentist in Hinton (our next stop) to arrange for antibiotics and possible treatment. Moses seems more embarrassed than anything else, as he routinely tried to cover up the swelling during photos. I decided against putting a photo of him up to respect his feelings. He is still willing and able to perform, which I greatly respect. I was nowhere near that tough when I was his age.

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The day also marked my first day with a new phone!

Due to my hubris, I omitted the fact that I dropped my phone on the church parking lot pavement at Abbotsford. The phone still worked, but the screen was extremely cracked. This made taking photos rather difficult, as it was very difficult to gauge the quality of the photos I was taking.

While my new phone is a boon to my time on this trip, it did mean that I spent a large portion of the trip to Hinton setting it up. This means that I did not take the normal number of photos as I usually do. Granted, day 10 of the trip proved to be the most uneventful day so far.

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The bus ride to Hinton was lengthy. While the bus has built in wi-fi, the mountains made sure to continuously block signals from getting through, which through off my plan to blog on the bus. I played on my Nintendo Switch for a bit, but found myself distracted by the constant shenanigans of those around me.

The team then began to sing various worship songs. It was interesting hearing well-known worship songs be sung in Khmer, as I would recognize the melody quickly. I found it rather humorous how some the kids felt that singing was the same as yelling, which made for a rather ... unique sound. Despite having Sreyna and Chantha yelling very close to my ears, I still found the whole experience rather heartwarming.

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Our lunch stop was at Saskatchewan Crossing, where we ate outside despite the rather cool weather. Vernon gave us an abundance of food for our lunch, which resulted in most of the team becoming too full to finish their portions. Our spirits were lifted when we noticed that Leah was becoming more animated and was able to hold her food down.

Several members of the team began to snap their own photos, which saw multiple poses being struck across the area. I chuckled at how photogenic some of these kids are. No doubt there will be several photos across social media by the end of this road trip.

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When we arrived at Hinton Alliance Church, I went to a backroom to work on the blog, only to be set upon by the girls. The girls clearly feel comfortable around me now, as they all started trying to take my stuff and tickle me. What started with Neang has now extended to all of the girls, who think it is quite funny to pester me. The boys have also joined in with the girls in asserting that Sarah and I are in love, solely because we are around the same age and are on the team together.

I was able to get to work after shooing the girls away. The church provided as excellent supper of rice with beef, followed by a delicious ice cream dessert. I was surprised to discover that the team would be going to their billets rather early, meaning that I could only account for what Kapriel and Yusvae were up to for the rest of the day, as I was their assigned chaperone. Our billets put on some old VeggieTales tapes, which I may have enjoyed more than the kids, as it was a total nostalgia trip for me.

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Since I write the blogs to cover the events of the day before, I do not cover the events that happen for the day of writing. Today is an exception, as I feel that everyone should know that Leah has recovered and was practicing dances today. The details of tonight's performance will be on tomorrow's blog.

God bless & Jesus saves.