Dear Friends and Family,
Spud’s dead. He checked out while I was in
Kenya earlier in the month. The rats and
in
Cambodia have declared a three day
holiday! They hired a hit man. Unlike
Caleb of the Bible, taking the
mountain when he was 80 years old,
O’le
Spuddy was 91
(dog)
years old, he not
only took the mountain, but crossed over it as
well. Actually, Spud was more like “Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. He went
down with both guns blazing and died with his
boots on. You see, it was a cobra that took Spud
out, but not before Spud gnawed that sucker in
two. Spud’s my hero. He out lived the snake by
about 15 minutes. He died doing what he loved,
for him; killing rats and snakes. That’s a good
way to go (doing what you love). Well done
Spuddy! You were a
good old dog!
http://www.missionreports.com/spud_funeral
The rats are happy.
I went to Kenya to try and help my friend Julius
Mbagaya to find a way to take care of about 4500
orphans. It’s a tuff row to hoe when you have no
money. What is needed is what we are working
toward in Cambodia , some kind of sustainable
model. Granted we’re not there yet, but for us
it looks like the answer has come into view out
on the horizon. The solution relies on a series
of micro-enterprises, sustainable small scale
agriculture
projects that
range from fish production to quail, ducks, and
turkeys, to vegetable gardens for home use and
local sale. The big “Khahuna”
will be our commercial rice production which we
hope will soon
be able to feed our
kids, and eventually sell off a
surplus to support the church growth as well. In
Kenya the key is in white maize production. All
we need is the means to get there in both
countries.
Right now we rely on
the ever present help of hundreds of Churches,
Warm Blankets Orphan Care Int.,
Gleanings for the
Hungry, Lou Binninger, the
Butte County Rice Growers, Children of
Promise, and dozens of others who sacrificially
give to keep us going!
I returned home to Cambodia in time for a great
convergence. Valentines Day,
Chinese New Year, and Sunday all
coincided. It was a big deal for our Cambodian
kids, and they surprised us with a special
program at
the
Chom
Chao
church. One of the best parts of the morning was
the special angel dance put on by the younger
orphan girls. I could hardly keep from laughing
as I recalled seeing them waist deep in mud
grubbing for fish when we cleaned out the pond,
and especially one girl who, a few
days before the dance, had to receive a ‘talk’
as she bounced a golf ball sized rock of a boys
head for teasing her (the boy survived with a
small ‘goose
egg”). Nevertheless, they
performed like perfect angles. Then Pastor Peter
broke a huge Cambodian taboo and spoke about
“Love in Marriage” and yes, he talked about the
forbidden topic in Cambodian churches; “SEX”!
Gasp! After the sermon the kids and staff
showered us with multiplied dozens of roses and
a large framed montage of Sou and I entitled,
“Love Forever”. Do you think Peter was using us
for a sermon illustration? It was the most
special Valentines Day I’ve had in 63 years!
http://www.missionreports.com/valentineday10
This month we were miners and de-miners.
Miners? Well not
exactly, more like ‘wanna-be’s’
in terms of prospecting. Believe it or I
actually did some gold prospecting in
Arizona back in the 70’s, never found
much, but it was a good education. That, in
conjunction with my geology course in college,
came in handy as we are desperately trying to
find a source of limestone to correct some very
acidic soil conditions. With a claw
hammer and a mattock pick we must have examined
rock from a dozen
sites. It pays to
persevere! We stumbled across one
outcropping of limestone and what we think may
be rock phosphate and even some sulfur. If I
just had an assay lab! Anybody know of one???
And mines, land mines that is? We just started
construction on a new church home in
Bantemeanchy
province at an ethic Lao village a as they were
digging the foundation “clunk” they hit a land
mine. Thank God it was a dud! But, as they
carefully dug around it they found the edge of
another. We moved the building over 3 meters and
tried again and are awaiting the de-miners to
remove our problems.
Right now, we have one very nervous, but very
careful contractor. They tell me his prayer life
has vastly improved!
I spent time at both ends of the month, and the
middle, running up to our rice farm trying to
get ready for planting. We received a couple of
containers full of used farm equipment that can
greatly increase our production. Our goal is a
15 fold increase in 2 years. The problem is the
stuff was disassembled and piled in the
containers. That’s ok, we had pictures, but
parts were missing.
Have you ever gone
nuts trying to finish an incomplete jigsaw
puzzle?
Only God knows where
the missing parts are, but I
became the best customer of about three machine
shops in Bantemeanchy
for February. We’ve got most of the stuff
running and it works great! Now, please pray
that I get the seed I ordered from
South Africa . I may have been scammed!
Bummer!
Some things sound great but just don’t work.
Like water saving toilets that use 30% less
water but take two flushes to clear. Do the
math. They don’t work! Our single cylinder
Chinese Diesel generators are a prime example.
We’ve purchased over 100 of them and though they
just sip diesel, I have yet to see one run for a
year without major problems, they are noisy, and
hard for the kids to start. Hey! This may be my
absolution for buying a bulldozer. We’ve gone
green! Solar electric units may be our
redemption. We’ve had to learn as we go, had a
few false starts, but they seem to run long and
strong. We now have lights to study by but a new
American problem has emerged, the kids are
watching TV at night.
Hmmmm??
Is this progress or should we pull the plug? http://www.missionreports.com/solar_system_preykhmer
One of our Foundation funded projects is to
reach out to the ethnic tribes in Cambodia .
Most of them dwell in the northeast (Parrot’s
head) of Cambodia . Look at a map and you’ll see
that Cambodia looks like a giant parrot. Anyway,
some of these places are pretty remote and our
“Young Lions” have made several trips. Imagine
500 kilometers with 25 youth bouncing in the
back of a 2&1/2 ton truck over roads that are
sometimes worse than nothing, breathing choking
dust, and dealing with blown out tires and non
existent bridges. But with over 200 saved and
baptized in the Spirit in this remote
area it is quite a big deal. These
revivals continue as kids travel back to their
villages with new found power.
http://www.missionreports.com/pk_youth_revival
A case in point is two young people that had
fallen off the radar. They had been prayed for
at our Cham
Cho
Friday night prayer and then
disappeared. Well they emerged at
this remote site and, guess what? The one boy
who was so crazy he had been kept in Chains has
been evangelizing and setting people free for
over six months.
He has personally led 82 people to
Christ. These kids are walking miracles.
http://www.missionreports.com/two_miracles
The newest member of our staff, Stephen Jensen,
showed up with a medical team from “Asia Link”
in
Norway . They’ve left, but he’s here to
help out for a few months. Jenny and Chalk led
the charge with three of our Cambodian
doctors. They saw nearly 1000 of patients and
led hundreds to Christ in an area
that has been so ignored the pastor thought we’d
forgotten him. I had to take a break from my
machine assembly to run for extra meds. It was
one of the great success stories of the month.
http://www.missionreports.com/kumru_medical_nor
That’ll do for this month! Find me a new “Rat
dog”!
We love you guys!
Blessings!
Ted (Pa Thom)
Sou (Mak Thom)
And all the staff doing all the work!
