This post is mostly going to be about Kam-Air.  If you are not already following us on Facebook, I recommend that you do.  For those of you that don’t “like” liking things on Facebook (cough, cough, you know who you are) then this will be a recap.

Near the end of September, things were going well for Kam-Air.  We had booked the next six Saturday’s in advance and we were actually close to breaking even on our monthly expenses with the increased business. Then we came across an electrical issue that plagued us for the next four weeks.  The crazy thing about this is during this entire process, we were preparing Kam-Air to have four professional wakeboarders help us with a grand opening of the park.

Flashback – In early August, Bill Yeargin (CEO of Correct Craft and Nautique Boats) came to Cambodia for a quick five hour tour of Phnom Penh and Kam-Air Wakepark.  At the time, he brought up the idea of sending a team to our park to help us out.

Fast forward to early September and we got the news that six people would be joining us in Cambodia near the middle of October;  Shaun Murray, Bob Soven, Emily Durham, Raimi Merritt, Brian Sullivan, and Ryan Malone.  The first four names listed are professional wakeboarders, Brian is the director of marketing and Ryan is the director of Aktion Parks.  Feel free to Google or Youtube those athletes, go ahead, I will wait…………………………..

Ok, now that you see how awesome those folks really are, you will get a little bit of perspective on how Alf and I felt going into that month.  Now onto the week of the big event on October 17th.  Up until this point, we had spent over $1,000 on our electrical issues that just didn’t see to get fixed.  The team would be arriving late Wednesday night in Cambodia.  On Tuesday, less than 48 hours before we would be hosting this team, our system still didn’t work.  To say that Alf and I were kind of freaking out would be an understatement.  We were out of money, out a time and out of solutions.

All of this buildup simply so that God could show how awesome He really is.  The team arrived safely Wednesday night and we got started first thing Thursday morning.  We took the team to Svay Pak (directly across the river from Kam-Air) which used to be titled “Disneyland for Pedophiles.”  Great strides have been made in this area through NGO’s working to stop trafficking and abuse.  We then moved on to the local brick factories which employ individuals in a form of bonded labor.  Nautique provided money to feed about 150 families living in those factories.  Later that afternoon, we held a small private wakeboard clinic with several of the local missionary kids living here in Cambodia.  What a special treat to have these pro’s pouring into the lives of the kids here.  Oh yeah and guess what, if you didn’t already know that God was awesome, the system performed great.  48 hours prior it was a wreck and Alf and I walked away and gave it to God.  That afternoon it ran like a champ.

Friday was another humbling day with the athletes.  We hosted a second wakeboard clinic but this time it was with about 15 girls who they had seen in Svay Pak the day before.  These girls don’t get to have fun like this often and all of them had never even heard of wakeboarding before.  But this day, they learned to wakeboard from the pro’s.  Later that afternoon, Thy, Tha, Alf and I got a chance to have our own special time on the water with the athletes.

Then came the big event.  Cambodia’s first ever wakeboard competition and event.  The athletes showed off their stuff to about 100 people that packed the side of the lake.  Then the youth and adult competition started.  Trey (Alf’s son) won the youth portion of the competition and Thy (our employee) won the adult portion of the competition.  Mike’s Burger House came out to serve food and it was a blast.  The system performed well all day and God got the glory for it.

That evening, the Nautique Cares group headed out and we couldn’t say enough about how awesome it was to have them with us for those days.

All in all, it was amazing.