Visa Update

We got visas! Not the ones we requested, unfortunately, but better than being tourists. We received a combination of “employment” and “volunteer dependent” visas, which is a strange combination and might cause us some trouble in the future, so probably not a tenable long term solution. However, it gives us 90 days to think and pray before we have to renew them. We’ve felt since this started that God had some major change in store for us, and apparently the timing of that change is now.

We ended up being in Cambodia for a total of 10 days, which is crazy since a week before that we had no intention of going anywhere, more less a brand new country which we know nothing about. It was an anxiety inducing situation due to the visa unknowns, but also because of the uncomfortableness of being in a brand new country where we don’t know how to solve basic life stuff like transportation and shopping, nor did we know the potential danger points we needed to watch out for. We are incredibly thankful for the one family that we knew in the city. We had met them briefly seven years ago at the Juniper Tree guest house in Thailand, and then “accidentally” ended up reconnecting with them a week before this trip. Turns out, they live 15 minutes from the airport in Phnom Penh, which is 15 minutes from the Thai embassy, and they informed us about the C&MA guest house nearby where we were able to stay for the duration of our time there. We struggled with sickness throughout the trip, but were able to venture out of the guest house to get the kids to an English-speaking youth group, play ultimate frisbee, and visit an international church. We also took “homeschool field trips” to the Museum of Cambodia and toured the Royal Palace.

We got home in Chiang Mai Thursday night – praise God!

​-Lance, for the Baker family