We had originally planned to travel back to the US in March of this year for our first home leave. There were many reasons we couldn’t do this in March but they all have the same root cause; as Charlotte has come to say with weary disgust, “because of COVID.” That remains true now as we feel homesick seeing photos of baby Amaryllis, know that many of you are able to meet in person again, remember past church retreats, and think ahead to nephew/cousin Clayton’s wedding.

Sadly, it’s still not feasible for us to travel back to the US for home leave and we’re expecting that will carry through to 2022. The Cambodian government is still requiring a mandatory two week government quarantine on entry and the cost of that has steadily increased towards using up most of the required $2,000 USD per person deposit. If it were just Crystal and I, we probably would have made it work but it’s a different proposition when traveling with two little ones. Mandatory government quarantine with two loud and energetic girls would be…difficult. Especially with fears that we could be exposed on the plane and end up not at a quarantine site but at a treatment site (I’ll include photos of two below; neither would be a good experience with the kids). Then there’s the $8,000 deposit, that we’d likely get very little of back, on top of air fare and travel expenses in the US. Finally, because of COVID-19 restrictions and related budget cuts, our C class Visas have become difficult to obtain and slow to renew, so we can’t travel for two months prior to their renewal date in October for fear that we’d be unable to reenter to Cambodia and last renewal we got our passports back a month late.

So, basically, we’re not planning to leave Cambodia until self quarantining is an option again. There is talk that the Ministry of Tourism is trying to convince the Ministry of Health to waive the two week government quarantine for fully vaccinated visitors. But with the delta variant spreading rapidly around the world I doubt that this will be a reality here in Cambodia until vaccination rates are much higher.

Until then – please know that we miss you and that our thoughts are often with you.