Cambodia Day 8 - Sunday

We woke up before the sun! We met in the lobby at 4:30 AM to watch the sunrise. We hiked up this hill. No one could really tell me the name, but it's the hill where you can take the elephants to the top. But we were there before the elephants so we had to do it ourselves! We were the only ones there and it was AWESOME. We ran all over the temple, watched an indescribable sunrise, read Psalm 19 (my idea - ok - God's idea through me!) and had a little sunrise service. We said prayers of praise - the view of the sunrise was completely awe inspiring. Lord, please use the beauty of Your creation in Cambodia to draw Your people to You!
Then we climbed back down and drove to Ankor Thom and the Bayon temple. The Bayon is part of Ankor Thom - it is the one with the faces. It was really amazing - we climbed to the top and took pictures. The we had to find some H2O and some bathrooms, so we drove to the end of Ankor Thom. We explored some of the 12 small palaces built for the queens. Again - climbed (practicaly crawled!) to the top, took pictures, and came back down. The we explored the elephant fighting arena and another small but steep temple at Ankor Thom.
Then we got back in the bus and drove to TaProm. Here the temple and the trees are one. We they found this temple, they left most of the wildlife. Tomb Raider was shot here. The trees look like they are oozing over the walls! They have swallowed them up over the years. One bad thing here - walked through a door that was maybe a cm shorter than me and banged the hell out of my head. Hurt SEVERELY. I saw black and cried. But I survived. With 800 mg of ibuprofen's help. We went to a pretty gross lunch where I had what was described as a banana pancake.
Then we went to another really cool temple. Must look up the name for this one. Ok found it - Preah Kahn. It is less visited and better preserved than the others. It was huge! The walkway was lined with statues of men pulling a rope. The inside was shaped as a cross, with 4 long hallways. In the courtyard there was a 2 story building with columns. But no stairs. The architecture of this temple is different from the others.
On the way to all of the temples, there was a bunch of landmine survivors. They had these bank where they made awesome music! Pretty cool! I wanted to buy a CD, but they were $10, so I gave them $1 and took a short video instead.
Then we went to ANKOR WAT. Wow. The other temples were cool, but this one was built on a completely different scale. It was massive! The gate alone is massive. We climbed up a wall, pretty much, to get to the top. You have to crawl up on your belly. They wanted visitors to have to arrive prostrate. It worked - its the only way to make it up!

These temples got me thinking about the freedom God gives us. He gives great creativity. He gives the means to create such beautiful structures. But we get to chose to honor Him with it, or to use His gifts to worship a piece of stone! How He must cry to see it!

After Ankor Wat, we went back to the hotel and then to the Red Piano. More good American food! My stomach is not doing so good by this point! Cannot handle any more Khmer food.
Then we went back to the hotel for more debriefing. This time we talked about the highlights. Heartwarming to say the least! I have them all written down in my Northpoint journal. It was so good to immediately look back and see what we had accomplished!