Village Development

Imagine you are a 30 year old woman. Now imagine that you have 5 children from age 12 years old to 1. Your husband, and his income that you lived on, is suddenly gone due to his death. Your $60/ month in now down to almost nothing unless you can find some recyclables to sell. The unclean river water that is your primary water source is taking its toll on your family's health. School is not an option for your kids since you make almost no money and besides, they have to work to help make money. With your 3 oldest able to gather some bottles and cans to sell, you are all able to at least have 1 meal a day, maybe 2. Still not enough to have any of your kids go to school.  It breaks your heart to think that they are caught in the same cycle that you are in since they will not be able to receive an education. But still you are able to feed, clothe and house them, even though that means 1 meal a day and only one set of clothes.

One day you realize a growth on the neck of one of your children. After a couple of "expensive" visits to the state hospital, it is determined that the treatment needed will cost $200. That is an unfair choice to make...there is no way you could come up with that kind of money but there is no way that you can let your child go untreated. Then you remember some of your neighbors sending their daughters 15 km into Phnom Penh and returning a few days or a week later with a lot of money. All of a sudden that seems like a reasonable option.  But is it trading one child's life for another?

This is a fictional story compiled from different anecdotes of real families and real lives here in Cambodia. Many of these moms and kids are not sure exactly what awaits their child once they get where they are going. Often times it is prostitution or forced labor or factory work in poor conditions.

At Asian Hope we have a real heart for these families. That is why our family is so excited about the new VDP (Village Development Program) that AH is starting. We have isolated a community, Prek Pneu, where decisions like the one above are faced regularly. Our family visited a church up in that community and plan to spend one Sunday each month worshipping with and encouraging the believers there. Through the new VDP, Asian Hope will help bring clean drinking water, sanitary toilets and some minor health care to the 1000 families in the village. We will also start a "catch up" school which, in part, will help children successfully enter the state school in the grade that they should be in. Along with meeting these physical needs, we are already supporting an existing Christian home church in Prek Pneu and will use our partnership with them to bring the Gospel to this wonderful community. It is our desire to bring hope to the residents by meeting each of their needs; mental, physical, spiritual and emotional.

Please visit the link to view some pics of the sweet faces in Prek Pneu.

As a family, we are so humbled and excited to be a part of such an amazing ministry. We are also humbled and grateful for your partnership with us. Thanks for reading.  We will keep you updated.

Year and a Half

Thank you so much for checking back in with us.  It has been a while since our last post.  Our last few months have been extremely busy and it is good to through that crazy time. At 1 1/2 years in Cambodia we are definitely settling in here, which has both good and bad attached to it. One of the good things is that we just saw the kids finish their first full year of school at Logos.  Cameron is moving on to the first grade. He is really excited to be moving upstairs for his classes now. He and Rain, his best friend, will try and play a lot during the summer. Calli is moving on to 7th grade.  She really excelled in her class writing a 60 page book, among other things. She has several friends that she enjoys hanging out with and one really close friend that she hopes to spend time with over the summer.  Abby is moving into High School (Really?? I can't believe it myself). She really enjoys school and has many friends.  With her deep care for others, she really is in her element here.  There are plenty of opportunities for her to us her gifts. Alex had a great year and will be a junior in the fall. He played basketball and volleyball and also played one of the brothers in our Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat production at Logos. He is doing an internship with me over the summer as well as getting a 1/2 credit for Bible by doing the Truth Project video series.

Another good thing about getting settled in here is that it is feeling more like home.  The neighborhood that we have been in for a little more than one year offers so much to us in regards to the "home" feeling. We can walk and see neighbors, the kids can bike without concern, walk to a friends house for dinner, play a pick-up game of ultimate...etc. Carolyn and I are also finding our niche here and learning what it means to survive and thrive successfully in a foreign culture. That doesn't come without its struggles but God has been gracious to us and we are both still enjoying our lives here.

One of the bad aspects of  "getting settled" is the saying of good-byes. Especially in an international culture, this is just a part of life. With many of our school staff only staying here for a 2 or 3 year period, at the end of every school year there are always good-byes to be said.  And also, at an international school, teachers, students and parents become quite close. For so many, they are so far from home so your friends and peers become a very tight-knit community. In our kids' case, they not only see their teachers at school but often at church, social gatherings and sometimes even at our house for dinner.  Again, this is great for relationships but hard for good-byes.

This is also true for short-term teams that come and volunteer with us. As the primary host of volunteers for Asian Hope, our family gets to know a lot of the visitors better than they would otherwise.  This results in children who are mastering the art of getting to know new people quickly but also learning to grieve good-byes well. I am sure those are skills that God is instilling in them for the future.



This is a picture of me sharing the Easter message to a group of kids in Kraviek village. We had a great response from the villagers.




Alex helping kids in Kraviek village.



 All in all, we are still so thankful to be where we are. We are witnessing so many great things that God is doing here and are so thankful to be a part of it. Thank you so much for being along with us on this journey.

The whole family on a boat ride on the Tonle Sap river with the team of 51 from Seattle.