FCOP Update -- December 2009

Dear Friends and Family,

There’ve been old tricks, new tricks, good tricks, bad tricks, and dirty tricks. This has been one “Tricky” month.

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks!” so claims the old adage, but “Old dogs” better adapt or they’re liable to have a short tenure in this rapidly evolving world. Now, Spud, my dog, is old (91 years in dog equivalency). He’s so old that when I came back from America on Nov. 24th all he did was lift one eyelid to acknowledge me for about two seconds. “Spuddy, I’d say your about ready to ‘kick up your heals’”, I mumbled with about as much excitement as he had exhibited with his blink. I turned from his less than enthusiastic greeting and sauntered off. Then, two days later, came Thanksgiving. Forty-five staff and guests showed up for turkey and pizza (Cambodian’s like turkey, but they love pizza!) at our Phnom Penh home. Spud may be old but he’s no dummy. He decided to change, there was water! He loves chasing water spurts almost as much as he loves killing rats. His batteries got charged and it netted him a lot of new friends, a good feed, and a new lease on life: http://www.missionreports.com/thanks_giving_09  Change is good. I can learn from Spud!

Sometimes “Old dogs” just get jaded with the wonder that surrounds them. At sixty-three, I qualify. Forty years ago, I was more than passionate, as I wrote to my, US born, German blooded father and my mother of Scotch/English ancestry, attempting to solicit their blessing on my upcoming marriage to a Laotian Princess. I got rebuffed. Dad counseled, “You’re just lonely and making an irrational, emotional, decision that you will soon regret”. The most amusing response was from my Methodist, English bred, grandmother, “Teddy, you simply can’t marry that girl! It’s like a pig marrying a cow!” I was not dissuaded. Call me a “Bone head”, but with zero family approval, I went ahead and ‘tied the knot’. I mean, look at this! Who’s going to walk from that?  http://www.missionreports.com/mak_thom/index.htm Although we still joke about who’s the ‘cow’ and who’s the ‘pig’ (“Oink”), it has been a very good forty year run! “… Wisdom is justified by her children” (Matt 11:19).

The problem is the “Old dog” (pig?) has been doing a lot of traveling, twice to the US this month, once last month, a month in Kenya, several trips to Europe, gone for more than a dozen week long+ treks here and there this year, and I shamefully admit that my returns were more like Spud’s recent welcome than the ardor of the young expat of forty years ago. I was ignoring ‘the love of my life’ and running around giving others the best of my attention, while she worked her heart out, keeping the fires stoked in Cambodia, slogging it out with a dysfunctional thyroid, unappreciated. This “Old dog” got his chain jerked. Peter (our national church president), Sou, my kids, all had a “Talk” with ‘Pa Thom’. Well, call it a ‘wake up call’. This “Old dog” may be moving a little slower, but he’s not dead yet! “New tricks? Bring’em on!” This afternoon we head out for a five day replay of our honeymoon in Laos (O la’ la’, Francois). Like Spud, I may be old, but I’m not stupid! I don’t want to mess up the best thing I ever found!

Tricky staff developments! Kris Warner, Bob and Christal Hollandsworth, and I are the only native English speakers left on staff. Bob and Christal are wrestling with a call to Bangladesh , we’d hate to see them go, but we love Benjamin in Bangladesh , and he needs help. Ryan Brown decided that leading teams was not his “Call” and returned to the Sates, but may return to help out in Malaysia . Sopheia, our “Technology wiz” has married an American/Cambodian girl and leaves for the US on Tuesday. That leaves Kris and me, and Kris is over his head with ESL classes. So, guess who gets to answer all email and do what I hate most in life; “Reports”? Me! I feel like singing the old “Hee Haw” song: “Gloom, despair, and agony on me Deep, dark depression, excessive misery If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all Gloom, despair, and agony on me ...” Yuk! What a lousy way to think! It’s an even worse way to live. Sorry about that burst of self pity! God is in control. I’ll just, “Buck up and do what I must!” But, if I sound terse, and a bit grouchy, give me a little grace and realize that it’s not personal. I just hate what I’m doing. I want to be in the countryside, harvesting rice, visiting the churches.

We need some “New tricks”! It has been one tuff month! Last month we lost a boy to meningitis, and sickness has been a curse. We’ve been fighting TB of the bones, typhoid, dengue fever, cancer of the mouth, kidney failure, and now Japanese encephalitis has Seri Nieung in a coma for five days. The hospital doctors don’t give us much hope. Please pray with us! Parents should not outlive their children. http://www.missionreports.com/pray_kids   Life must go on. Truly, looses are painful, but the miracles we see make them pale in comparison. Thank God for our clinic and two overworked doctors! What is really discouraging is to have those you could help, but simply don’t have the resources. We have two boys with a condition called “Elephant nose” in common slang, but “Meningo encephalocoele” in medical terminology. We had three boys with this condition but one died before we could he could receive surgery. It is a rare condition only found in Thailand and Cambodia , and there are very few surgeons in the world willing to operate. It is extremely expensive, as it requires the removal of the skull and pulling back of the brain to repair a leak in the cranium along side the nose. Risks are great. One of our boys suffered from a severed optic nerve, and both from damage to the pituitary gland. They have simply quit growing. One boy is sixteen and the other fourteen. They look like they are five and seven. We finally received a foreign trained endocrinologist in Cambodia , but without proper testing equipment and an expensive regime of hormone treatments, he can’t/won’t help them. We need $30,000 for the blood and serum testing equipment plus hormone treatments that I have no names for. Again, Please pray!

“New tricks” have become a necessity for water management in our rice fields. It looks like we’ll need several miles of additional canals, dike construction, and large water retention basins to maximize our rice production. I think we may have to purchase an excavator. First came early drought followed by late floods. Many of our neighbors are not even bothering to harvest their fields. Some replanted twice only to see their crop wither. We were blessed. Our rice looked pretty good most of the season, miraculously staying green while rice next door dried up, although we lost much of the natural weed control provided by the normal water cover. Our big problem came with the late floods in the East. The water backed up the Tonle’ Sap River and raised ground water levels in or fields to as much as one meter above grade. The indirect flooding cost us dearly. Much of our rice had to be hand harvested in waist deep water and yields were hurt. We will be blessed indeed if we can feed everyone with what harvest we have, as we lost all the rice along the rivers in the eastern part of Cambodia . We are still trying to cut about thirty hectares (75 acres). These pictures were taken early in the month before the waters rolled in. http://www.missionreports.com/harvest_dec09

Let’s get all the bad news on the table! Anyone know of some “New tricks” for tractor financing? With a lousy world economy, and a greatly reduced rice harvest, in a country where 80% plus farm, our outlook for tractor sales is not predictably rosy! Many want to buy, but can’t get credit, and we can’t finance them. So, we build inventory. We could shut down, but then we just have to feed unemployed workers.  With about $400,000 in saleable inventory, we know what it is like to be a Humvee dealer with a full lot in Michigan . But, call me stubborn, I’ll never say whoa in a pull. We just unloaded six containers of rebuildable equipment. http://www.missionreports.com/tractors_arrival_nov09

Now, the “New tricks” we’ve learned. There really is good news! I am, despite my previous whining, a natural optimist. The church keeps chugging on. We’ve officially topped the 3000 level of established churches and home groups in Cambodia . http://www.missionreports.com/church_nov09_activities . We called in all the 100+ church/home directors for three days of instruction on abuse prevention and treatment at our national training center. While the topic (Child abuse) was not good news, the reception of it was, and we sent back a charged up leadership corps to make sure our kids, and the churches that we operate, teach that children are to be treated well! http://www.missionreports.com/meeting_chomchao

Twenty Cambodian cows are about to really learn a “New trick”. They are being prepared to disavow the 3000 year old Cambodian cow tradition of fathers marrying daughters, mothers marring sons, brothers marring sisters and cousins marrying. Did you ever wonder why Cambodian cows look like scrawny deer? We have imported a liquid nitrogen canister to store frozen bull semen, a squeeze-shoot, purchased 40 acres of good pasture land, and these young bovines are about to experience artificial insemination. In two generations we shall have separate blood lines that are 75% form foreign sources. If we can combine this with some feed grade urea, and an energy source as plentiful as rice straw, I believe we can come up with cattle of size and actual meat on their bones. I know, cattle are not politically correct, but then since global warming isn’t, I’m not so impressed with political correctness. So, bring on the cows and give these people some protein.

Now a relatively “New trick” for Cambodians is dental care. Almost all of our kids have now seen a dentist at least once and we are bringing in regular dental teams to establish regular care. Doctor Mike Callan, our good friend from Clinton, Iowa led a team that included our retired cattle A.I. technician, Chuck Williams, and all kinds of great things happened as eight of our church/homes received recurring dental care: http://www.missionreports.com/dental_kspeu  A big thanks to Dr, Mike for two new dental suites which we snuck in with out tractor shipment.

And finally, this is not the least bit tricky; we do have a lot to be thankful for. Mostly, it is your faithful love for the Cambodian church and orphans. We look forward to a very ‘Merry Christmas’ and pray the same for you!

Blessings! We love you guys!

‘Pa Thom’ (me) Ted Olbrich

“Mak Sou” (my wife)

And the rest of our crew that does all the work!