Happy November!

How is everyone? We love getting feedback from you, and little updates on your lives, so when you have time to hit reply, we look forward to hearing from you. October went by quickly, and was filled with some fun adventures around Cambodia, both for work and for pleasure.

We were honored by two different invitations this month. First, we were invited by Foursquare Missions to attend a missionary care weekend in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. This is a beach city that is about four hours by car, but only two hours by train, so of course we took the train! Trains in Cambodia are quite old-school compared to what we’re used to in Switzerland. They still need people to raise and lower the road barriers by hand, as well as manually stop and switch the tracks when there is a crossing. But even at this slower pace, it was a great way to travel. The cars have been recently upgraded and now have air conditioning, everything was super clean and the staff were friendly. We very much enjoyed our first adventure of traveling across part of the country by train and seeing a different view of the landscape. Once we arrived at the conference we were treated to a weekend of encouraging teaching, worship, fellowship, excellent childcare and amazing food! Sometimes we feel alone here in our work, like no one understands our challenges, but we were encouraged by the weekend of community with so many people living a similar life as ours. It was also great for Benjamin to meet some old friends and make some new friends who are also growing up as Third Culture Kids.

Second, we were invited through our connection with the Swiss Partnership in Cambodia to join a film screening for White Bird, and a live interview with the Swiss film director, Marc Forster. Smiling Gecko is a nonprofit organization which has an arts and culture program for young people, and the movie was hosted there. We stayed overnight at their Farm Resort, which was very impressive. They use the income from the resort to help support the elementary school and Farm School. Our volunteer Lia also joined us and watched Benjamin so that Lukas and I could attend the movie screening. The next morning we all enjoyed a breakfast conversation with the general manager, and a tour of their farm and projects, and learned about the opportunities they provide for the community. We were all impressed by their work, and would love to partner with them more in the future.

In the last year we installed four water filters with YWAM, and in October we could service two of the filters. We also enjoyed seeing how YWAM is growing and expanding in Kampot. They’ve increased their soccer (football) clubs to include more needy children in more villages. They’ve also launched a sewing program for mothers in the community, while continuing to maintain their ongoing English classes. It was great to see them again and to catch up. Lukas also had the idea to build a large water cooler for their main center where they serve around 100 poor and orphaned kids each day. Because soccer is a large part of their outreach, he thought that having cold water for the children and staff would be a blessing. They were very excited about this idea! YWAM had an old fridge that they weren’t using, and Lukas was able to convert it into a water cooler. Now there is cold, pure drinking water available 24/7 for all of the little athletes. ❤️

Our volunteer from Switzerland, Lia, continues to teach English at New Life Church where we sponsor the Lunch and Tutoring Program. All of the kids headed back to school on November 2nd, and we were able to sponsor 30 Back-to-School Kits for needy children through the church. The Lunch and Tutoring Program also celebrated the graduation of four children who are now moving on to the 7th grade. The middle school is too far way from the church, so they can’t attend the program any longer. As a final goodbye, they were gifted a backpack of supplies to encourage them in their further studies. ❤️

Benjamin had a two week school holiday, so we took a well-needed vacation. Since our home construction consumed most of 2026, we hadn’t taken a vacation since December 2025. We decided to explore one of the local islands here in Cambodia. We took a speed ferry to get there, and once we arrived we could only travel around the island by boat or by foot, and we did both. It was a wonderful four-day vacation in paradise! One of our highlights from the trip was the snorkeling and swimming in the glowing plankton. Benjamin is finally a good enough swimmer that we could safely “release him into the wild.” 😜 🤿  This was his first time snorkeling, and our first time to experience swimming in the dark with glowing plankton! We also did some jungle hiking, which was a wonderful experience but much more challenging than we anticipated. At the end, we decided to hire a fishing boat to take us back to our hotel. Good memories were made, and we slept well that night!

Well, this letter got long. I better stop now before I lose the few of you who are still reading. Have a wonderful November! Here’s the photo link.

Blessings,

Jenny, Lukas and Benjamin