|
Dear Friends and Family,
The old song goes: "99 bottles of beer
on the wall; 99 bottles of beer. What
should we do if one of them falls? 98
bottles of beer on the wall; 98….." Mine
goes: "1623 weddings to go; 1623
weddings. What do we do when one of
them's hitched? 1622 weddings to go; …."
Why is Pa Thom (Me) smiling?
http://www.missionreports.com/j_d_wedding
Clue: It's not beer! (Nice try!) Now, it
could be the eleven beautiful women?
(Good guess! But, hey! I'm a
missionary!) The truth is that one of
our kids married our surgeon's daughter,
and the doctor paid for the wedding!
Another one bites the dust! Hallelujah!
Actually, we're on a roll! Next week
Kris Warner , of our staff, marries
Naomi, the fourth girl from the left.
Now, all I need is another 1621 of you
to show up within the next few years,
and my problems will be over. You see,
the groom has to "Buy" the bride in
Cambodia . Now that's good news for me.
With all these beautiful daughters, I
should be rich! But, alas! No
respectable Cambodian Buddhist family
will allow their child to marry an
orphan. They consider them cursed. So,
since I am the "parent" of 3000+ kids
with few options other than marrying
another orphan, I'm stuck with the bill
on both ends of the wedding spectrum.
Unless, good people like our surgeon,
Dr. Chayya, and Kris, bail me out. Hint!
Hint!
Honeymoons are "In season" and it's not
just for a few orphan kids that found
true love. Our cows are in the mooooood!
Yes, cow honeymoons are planned to match
the best of our local breeds with the US
bovine "Power Team" through artificial
insemination. Thank you to the
Foursquare Foundation for the grant for
reaching ethnic groups (they love their
cows!) and the Clinton , Iowa Foursquare
Church. Like the preparation for the
brides of King Ahasuerus (Remember
Esther?) our cows are getting ready for
their dream boys, sorry girls, they are
arriving in plastic tubes packed in dry
ice.
http://www.missionreports.com/cow_honeymoon
Easter Sunday was a big deal for us this
year. We've always put our energy into
Christmas and due to the proximity with
Cambodian New Year, Easter has been
largely ignored. Then Peter (our
national church president) got the
revelation that the reason Jesus came at
Christmas was to restore relationship
through Easter. We held hundreds of
special Easter services around the
country, and two in Phnom Penh . The
evening service had to be held outside
in order to handle the crowd. Hundreds
decided to follow Christ.
http://www.missionreports.com/easter_day_10
As a special gift we gave each new
believer a set of "Comic Bibles". That
might as well have been the end of the
service, as they spent the rest of the
night reading.
Cambodian New Year is by far the biggest
holiday of the Year. Since, it does
interfere with church attendance. We
have been frustrated with that aspect.
It is a time of honoring and blessing
your elders, and also deals with the
cleansing of sin, from a Buddhist
perspective, by washing with water (This
has turned into one huge three day long
water fight in the provinces, with
thousands of people lining the roads
with plastic bags filled with water and
pelting all passers by. Happy new
Year!), and since cleansing from sin is
what Jesus accomplished on the cross, we
decided that it was time for the church
to be proactive and co-opt the tradition
of the ritual washing for a Christian
commemoration of what Christ
accomplished, along with honoring our
elders. I think we have a new tradition?
http://www.missionreports.com/honoring_blessing
I missed it, as I was busy helping get
our rice crop planted!
The New Year celebration lasts at least
a week and just about destroys any
functional purpose for business
transactions in the month of April.
Prices for travel and goods are double
for a week each side of the holiday.
Usually, everyone travels to their
homes. Phnom Penh is deserted, the shops
are all shuttered. You could do 80
km/hour down Monivong ( Main Street )
and never hit your horn. The bad news
is, for the orphans, "Home" is their
orphan home, which is not too exciting
unless something special happens, so, we
try to do something at each home to help
them. We brought the Cham Chao and
Prochentong kids to our house. There
were maybe 130 kids and staff so, you
would think, 240 large hot dogs, 70
pounds of chicken, with, chips, ice
cream, and 384 cans of soda would be
excessive. Nothing was left!
http://www.missionreports.com/new_year_celebration
Happy New Year! A ceiling fell on my
head. (Cambodian New Year was April 14th)
After a long day celebrating with the
kids from Cham Chao, we finished it off
by trying to burn the office down. We're
not quite sure how it started in a stack
of blankets that we were storing for the
cool season. We'll blame a wall mounted
electric fan that was buried under the
stack. "There's nothing more dangerous
than a monkey with matches!" That's what
my wife told me years ago when we lived
in Laos . Back then they had the big
"Farmer matches" you know, the big
sticks with the two tone blue tips that
lit on anything from your tooth to a
brick? Well, monkeys would grab them and
go play in the rafters. It was said they
burned down more houses than lightning.
But, I'm not blaming monkeys for our
"New Year's Surprise". About 6:30pm Mak
Mony started yelling "Run! Fire!"
Fortunately, one of the staff cut off
the electric supply at the main pole. We
were blessed with enough water pressure,
and help left from the party, to start
dowsing flames, along with some buckets
from the pool. We pulled off a section
of the roof and soon had the flames
extinguished, but as we were pulling the
smoldering stock of blankets from the
store room the ceiling came crashing
down. Now I know why firemen wear those
funny helmets. I didn't get hurt but it
made me look like a real fire fighter.
http://www.missionreports.com/office_fire
The next day we hauled in a used 40
foot shipping container and "liberated"
three of our staff rooms that had been
converted to storage.
We do go through significant amounts of
money to keep 3000+ orphans and widows
alive, but it is at least 30% less than
what we would need if it were not for
the food and support items we receive
from donors all over the world. From
beds in Switzerland to apricots in
California , to clothing from Hong Kong,
and recorded Bibles from China , there
are hundreds of tons of goods from
dozens of other donors. Your gifts are
appreciated! Distribution is something
we take very seriously.
http://www.missionreports.com/food_distribution
Most of our supply efforts are
coordinated through Warm Blankets Orphan
Care, Int. They have found that supply
of necessities is a huge problem after a
disaster. There are hundreds of rusting
containers full of rotting goods on
beaches in places like Indonesia . Not
because people or organizations are
corrupt, but the infrastructure to
handle massive deliveries simply is not
in place. Please, think about that
before your heart responds to the next
earthquake, tsunami, or hurricane. Find
local people with "feet on the ground"
and work through them. Churches and
NGO's like Warm Blankets that work
through local churches are the best. We
operate a fleet of about 20 trucks to
keep things moving. Two five ton trucks
do the heavy hauling and then dozens of
smaller vehicles do the local delivery.
To all of you who give! Thank you!
The lack of funds this past year has
forced us to take training to a local
level. It has turned into a blessing. We
activated a group of former orphans that
had entered ministry, deemed them the
"Young Lions" and put them on the road
to release churches in the baptism of
the Holy Spirit. Of course they often
start with introducing new believers to
Christ and baptizing them in water. This
made the youth jealous, so they said,
"We want to do that!" So, they took the
name, "Young Tigers". The Lions and
Tigers are "Tearing it up!"
http://www.missionreports.com/youth_anlong_veng_10
At least twice per month they are off
to a new destination and they are
leaving new "Chapters" of local Lions
and Tigers in their wake!
The financial squeeze has forced us to
take our Annual Convention to the
District level. We finished off three
more districts this month.
http://www.missionreports.com/pastoral_training_center
The strange thing is that uninvited
guests keep showing up at our local
meetings and at least 200 of them have
received Christ as a result.
http://www.missionreports.com/district_training
What do you do when there is no pond?
Find a well ring and fill it up. Almost
none leave without being filled with the
Holy Spirit.
We do appreciate teams! Teams came from
the US ,
http://www.missionreports.com/borey_bo_landfill_solar
Singapore ,
http://www.missionreports.com/singapore_cafe_st
and Hong Kong ,
http://www.missionreports.com/visit_phdau_penn
this month. All did significant service
and are greatly appreciated. Remember,
the best thing you do is not measured in
physical results, or project expense,
but in what it does in the heart of an
orphan child that is told by their
culture that they are cursed. When a
foreigner comes from thousands of
kilometers just to serve and be with
them it does more good than anything
money can buy! You all deserve a big
"High Five" on a job well done. Thanks!
The rice is planted!
http://www.missionreports.com/rice_planting
Whew! A friend asked me why some
countries are producing 15 tons of rice
per hectare when in Cambodia the average
is about 1.5 tons. The answer is too
long and technical to answer outside of
an agronomy journal. But, let's just
start with soil that is 100 times more
acid that "normal", add to that soil
nutrition that is so low it defies
measurement, seeds that have married
cousins for 1000 years, water that is
totally unmanaged, insects, weeds,
diseases, and RATS out of control,
cultivation practices that have not
changed much in 1000 years, and you will
get a bit of the picture. We've worked
20 men, and at least that many machines
tirelessly since last December. We are
just scratching the surface, but give us
about three more years and we'll be a
lot closer to decent production. Pray
for timely rains, and death to all our
rice pests. That will help more than
anything else. (I know that prayer will
bother some of you, but would you rather
have them move over to our neighbors'
field?). We did the best we could with
the problem of having $16,000 worth of
seed and chemicals stolen by a crook
from South Africa . I found some good (I
hope) varieties in Vietnam and bought
them on my credit card. Anyway, the rice
is growing! PTL!! We still need to spray
about 100 hectares for weed control.
Yes, I hate weeds, bugs, and diseases
almost as much as rats, and use
chemicals on them all! You won't buy our
rice in an organic food store. We may
glow in the dark but, we will eat!
Hepatitis "B" has become a more
widespread health concern for us than
H.I.V. Many of our kids are children of
prostitutes and they become infected at
birth. Unlike H.I.V victims, they can
live for years without showing symptoms,
but this liver destroying disease can be
extremely deadly, and is a serious blow
to their future plans for marriage and
family. Usually, "Hep B" is considered
an S.T.D. but we know, through medical
examination, that these kids (at least
the girls) have not been sexually
active. Though data is inconclusive, it
appears to us, that the disease can also
be transferred through unsafe drinking
water. The good news is that Dr. Mike
Callan, who has been to Cambodia eight
times, donated enough money to purchase
testing equipment to diagnose the
carriers of the disease, and vaccinate
the non-positive kids against the deadly
virus. This is truly a life saver, and a
priceless gift! Treatments can be very
expensive and sometimes life can only be
prolonged through liver transplant
or a miracle from God. We
believe for the miracle!
Too much happened this month. Sorry!
Thanks to all of you who help and pray!
Blessings!
Ted (Pa Thom), Sou (Mak Sou),
And the people doing all the work!
The Cambodian Team! |
