Update on Life in Cambodia

March 21, 2011.
Dear Friends and Family,
I’m so pleased to be updating you on my life in Cambodia. A new and rather exciting change has come into my life. I’m engaged! YAY! My fiancé is Mark Twine, a teacher here in Cambodia with me. We are both very excited about the future God has planned for us here in Cambodia. We plan to live here together until God calls us elsewhere, which might be many years from now.
We are so busy right now though. We’re planning a wedding that has to include three countries. I am getting my Master’s of School Counseling. Mark is running a dormitory for young adults in need, and we are both working full time with middle school kids all day long. It is a very overwhelming time in our lives, but we’re very excited about getting married in July.
One rather odd arrangement is that after we’re married we won’t be living alone. Six months ago Mark opened his home to young people in need. We both feel like this is God’s calling on our lives. So together we have decided to keep the boarding home open, even though it will be our first year of marriage. Although we realize this won’t make our first year of marriage easy, we really feel it’s what God wants us to do. We will need a lot of prayer for patience and long-suffering. Most of his boarders are between the ages of 17-25. They live semi-independent lives, and we provide housing and food for them. Not only will it be a challenge to live in a full house immediately after we get married, but we also have to financially support the household which is a bit beyond our income. We are going to need as much prayer support as possible in the coming months!
The house started off as something Mark felt God speaking to him about. So he rented a 5 bedroom house for him and two young men that needed a home. The house is next door to another teacher who is doing the same thing. She is an older woman who has nine people living with her in a 5 bedroom house. He wanted to keep the house open only to boys, but the situation arose for a friend’s sister and friends to move in. So then it became a full dorm home, and they have connected the two houses to make it one giant family-style dorm.
Recently we have been able to rescue two girls in need. One girl was a former sex worker who became pregnant. Since then she’s become a Christian and has gotten a job. She is doing really well, and has been living in the house for 1 month. She’s only 17 though and really needs a family. The second girl is moving in this week. She was sold into sexual slavery as a 12 year old. At age 16 she was rescued from a Brothel. She now trying to rebuild her life. She moved into the house last week. And the day after she moved in, she accepted the Gospel of grace!
So even though it will be a hectic first year of marriage, we really believe that it will be worth the stress because the emotional reward of helping these girls is so great! I love seeing their faces when they realize they have some place to go and that they can have a home that is safe. It is a really exciting thing to be part of. Because we have some many contacts with people working to end human slavery, it’s possible that our dorm may morph in the future. That would be my goal. I would love to focus our ministry on girls in need.
In other news, we have a wedding to plan! We’ll be getting married in July in Australia on the smallest wedding budget in the world, or least to an American girl. Also it’s a huge challenge to get married in a city I’ve never seen, so there are lots of things to be done. We will be coming to America for a reception sometime the week after July 23rd. We hope all of you can celebrate with us.
Pray with us for the many new developments in our lives. Our coming wedding and marriage. My graduate studies. Mark’s dormitory and the girl’s who have severe emotional scaring. The financial struggles of housing and feeding nine people. Please pray that God will provide a sudden influx of financial support. There is one apartment next door to us, that we would love to annex if we had the money to pay for it. And of course pray for our work with the students. We still have to encourage and enlighten them everyday.

Love and Blessings,
Carrie Cordell
(The future Carrie Cordell Twine)