Our second last weekend here in Cambodia has been very eventful. On Friday we received an email from the Australian Embassy to say that two improvised explosive devices (aka bombs) had been found near one of the main Cambodian government buildings not far from the Australian Embassy. It’s believed that these bombs are part of the troubles that are continuing after the general election, the result of which is still being disputed by the opposition party.

So with a little trepidation we ventured out to visit King Norodom Sihamoni at the royal palace. The King was home but of course we weren’t allow to go and see him (I think some of the little ones were a little disappointed about that and couldn’t understand why we weren’t allowed to). Anyway, we got to have a look around the palace gardens, stick our head in the door of the throneroom, and walk through the silver pagoda which is named after it’s 5000+ plate silver floor tiles

In this peaceful little oasis we saw lots of buddhist monks all arrayed in their bright orange robes. We’ve seen them everywhere in Cambodia and finally we got to meet some. One of the monks could speak English which meant that we could find out a little about what it was like to be a monk.

But the highlight of the weekend was witnessing a baptism. On Sunday morning we joined the Celebrating church for a baptism of 10 of it’s members in a local school pool. Seven of those were youth involved in the program we’ve been running. It was a great joy to see these young people commit themselves to following Christ. After the baptism we enjoyed a swim in the pool, some lunch and of course some football.