Dear Kiddos

As promised I thought I would do a quick post explaining what we are doing in Cambodia!

Last year Dillon got a job as a student facilitator for the BYU South East Asian public health study abroad/internship program. The Kennedy Center made changes to the program this year so although the student facilitators (and their wives) in the past were able to go with the students they told Dillon when he got the job that it wasn't in the budget this year for us to go. We were disappointed but Dillon accepted the job anyway and was excited to contribute to the program. A few months later Dillon called me after a meeting with his boss and told me that they shortened the program to only summer semester (instead of spring and summer semester) and that it was now in the budget for us to go to Cambodia! To say we were excited would be an understatement. Dillon served his mission in Cambodia and we were really wanting to make it back there before we started having kids. However, it just didn't make a lot of sense with us trying to save up for medical school to spend that kind of money on a trip. So when we found out Dillon would have a scholarship that would be paying for us both to go, we were obviously beyond thrilled!

We spent the next nine months preparing for Cambodia. During winter semester Dillon taught a prep class to nine students where he presented on basic Khmer language, culture, and a little bit about Cambodia's history and recent genocide.

We are now finally here in Cambodia! It seemed like this summer would never come and now we are already a month in. All of the students are doing different (public health related) internships. Dillon and I (as well as another student Amy) are working for an NGO (non-profit) called CEDAW. Dillon has been translating legal documents as well as teaching English classes to the staff here. I found out when we got here that I would be teaching two design classes a day, I've been teaching basic Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. It's been very interesting due to the language barrier, but I feel like over the last few weeks the classes have been going a lot smoother.

It has been so fun for me to be here in Cambodia and experience for myself the country Dillon fell in love with. It has definitely been an experience we will never forget.