Friends and family rally around heart patient returned home

Seang Yean was greeted at her small home in Okroch, Kampong Thom, Tuesday by a crowd of family and church members hoping to witness firsthand the amazing recovery they helped make possible by financing her trip to Phnom Penh for heart surgery.

Yean, a 47-year-old mother of two, was first introduced to CHAD in February, when she was suffering from a serious but still unidentified disease. Several doctor's consultations later, it was revealed that she needed immediate surgery to repair a defective heart valve.

The members of Okroch Methodist Church would hear nothing of Yean's initial hopelessness — how could she pay for such an expensive surgery? — and they immediately started raising money. In a week, this poverty-stricken congregation had scraped together $25.

It wasn't nearly enough to finance a surgery, but church members consulted CHAD, which was able to find free treatment through Phnom Penh's Jeremiah Hope Clinic, and the church's contribution was enough to get Yean and her blood donors to and from the hospital.

Tuesday's reunion with the church family that refused to give up on her was a sweet one, said Yean, whose condition has vastly improved since her March 5 surgery. She is slowly regaining her breath and energy and says she thanks God for giving her the support and courage she needed to make it through.

Read more of Yean's story here. Donate to CHAD's Health Program here.

Heart patient on the mend after surgery

Seang Yean, the heart patient we told you about last month, is in the hospital recovering from what doctors are calling a successful operation on a defective valve in her heart.

CHAD staff member Sok Sophal said Yean was in good spirits — but quite sore — during a visit at Jeremiah Hope Clinic in Phnom Penh last week.

The surgery took place March 5 after several weeks of delay, and Yean has been recuperating at the hospital ever since. The first few days after the operation were a bit rocky, with Yean staying in the emergency portion of the clinic under close observation by hospital staff, but her status was upgraded late last week and doctors expect she will be discharged early next week.

Yean was introduced to CHAD by members of her church in Okroch Village, Kampong Thom, last month after she had been suffering from an unknown but debilitating medical condition for almost a year. It was then, after she was referred to a specialist in Phnom Penh, that Yean discovered it was a heart condition that had been keeping her in bed and out of the rice fields. Moreover, she learned she needed surgery right away.

Although CHAD does not pay for operations, staff were able to connect Yean with organizations that could, and the procedure was performed free of charge.

Read all of Yean's story here.

Donate to CHAD's health program here.

Check out Jeremiah Hope Clinic on Facebook.

Woman gets life-saving heart surgery with help of determined church family and CHAD

Sean Yean, 47, front, poses at UMC's Global Ministries office in Phnom Penh Wednesday with a team of supporters from her church who are doubling as blood donors for her heart surgery, scheduled for today. They are, from left, Chhean Samoun; her daughter, Leat Sinat; and Heam Sokkhet.
AMANDA KING PHOTO

Seang Yean's story could have been one of despair. She could have taken the diagnosis quietly and gone home to die, like many in her poverty-stricken village in Kampong Thom Province would have.

But Yean had a church family behind her. And they weren't about to let that happen.

When the 47-year-old mother of two was diagnosed with a defective heart valve this month, the doctor gave her two options: Have surgery immediately or die in a matter of weeks.

The diagnosis was devastating. How could Yean, a poor rice farmer who had been out of work sick for the last year, afford such an expensive procedure?

Her church didn't know the answer to that question either. But they started raising money anyway. It wasn't much. After all, most of Yean's fellow church members live harvest-to-harvest, just like her. In a week, they had managed to scrape together $25.

It would be enough to get Yean to and from the hospital along with her three blood donors while paying for meals and lodging during their stay. It was still nowhere near enough to pay for open heart surgery.

Fortunately for Yean, her church had more than just money to contribute. After extensive Mobilizing the Church training sessions in their district, the members of Okroch Methodist Church knew this wasn't the end of the road for Yean, that someone somewhere — a non-profit hospital, a private donor — would be able to help.

That's why they contacted CHAD. Staff member Sok Sophal was able to walk Yean through the process, from her provincial hospital visit to her visit to Phnom Penh to see a specialist. And even though CHAD itself doesn't pay for surgeries, the program was able to connect Yean with someone who did.

Today, Yean is undergoing surgery with a team of volunteer heart doctors at Jeremiah Hope Clinic. The initial outlook is good, doctors say. She could be back home in two weeks, all because her church refused to give up on her.

Want to know more about Yean?
Watch the blog over the next few weeks for updates on her progress.

What is Mobilizing the Church Training?
CHAD's training sessions cover more than just health advocacy. These workshops are all about building up outreach-oriented congregations like the one at Okroch. This means training in evangelism, leadership and empowerment as well.

Donate to CHAD's Health Program here. Donate to Mobilizing the Church Training here.

A malaria volunteer in Kirirom

by Katherine Parker

I just got back from a three day visit to a remote part of Kampong Speu province... actually one of the few "mountain" regions of the country. It was a lovely visit and the countryside is just gorgeous. This is the third month for us to be working with a new cluster of churches in this region. And so, on this visit I traveled out to actually meet with community members at their village - rather than just with church leaders at a central location for the cluster.

One of the joys of meeting people in their home place is finding out small ways that individuals are living out their Christian service to their community. As is true for church members in the US and around the world, people of faith in Cambodia are active in their communities and partnering with various local initiatives to improve lives. Many church members are very active in health care ministry, especially accompanying neighbors to the local clinic or farther afield to the provincial referral hospital. CHAD provides orientation to this kind of service through our Good Samaritan training program. But our training really just builds on what folks are already doing in their communities.

The first night of this trip I spent at the house of the pastor of the Kirirom church, and learned about an example of health outreach being done by the pastor's wife.  His wife is the local malaria control volunteer. This region has particularly high incidence of malaria because many people get their livlihood from going into the forest (mostly to cut wood) and this is breeding ground for mosquitoes.  Because it is cool and damp under the trees the malaria mosquitoes are also more active.

She has been trained by the government's Ministry of Health in partnership with USAID in a simple chemical-blood test for the malaria parasite and how to prescribe the correct dosage of medicine according to age, size, etc. for those who test positive.  She showed us her records over the last 2 years and the growing awareness of people in her village about malaria indicated by the increased number of people who come for testing each month.  The malaria medication is provided for free to those who test positive.  She has also had some training in women's reproductive health and provides birth control and/or iron supplements to women in the village who would like those options for about $0.25 per month.  She receives an honorarium of $17 per month for this work.

Living water

by Irene Mparutsa

Oum Pak

The Samaritan woman at the well gives the stranger a drink of water and in return she receives the Living Water; freed from bondage, she is the one who proclaims the Christ, the coming of the Kingdom.

Last month, we went to Kampong Thom Province (3 hours north of Phnom Penh, in the interior of Cambodia), to see people who had come to the HIV/AIDS workshop held last October. Oum Pak, one of the participants shared her testimony:

“When I returned from the workshop to my church, I shared what I had learned. I told them how AIDS is not spread. I told them that we cannot catch AIDS by touching people or by sharing food. I told them that it is ok to live together with people with AIDS. Before I went to the workshop, I could not tell anyone that my husband had died of AIDS and that I and my two children are HIV positive; I was afraid that people would not like me. Now my two children and I get monthly HIV medicines at the Kampong Thom Provincial Hospital. World Vision helps us with transportation money to go to the hospital, organizes a support group we go to and gives us school fees so my children can go to school. My life has changed; I find that people are loving and caring; I have hope and I can bring hope to others.”

Like the woman at the well, Pak has received the Living Water. She has gained new freedom, a new life for her and her family. She is becoming a leader in her community; she leads a support group for people living with HIV/AIDS. Like the Samaritan woman, she could not keep the Good News to herself either; she had to share it with her family, her church, others in her village sick with HIV/AIDS, everybody!

This story tells why I am passionate about community-based health care ministries: It shows how we helped just this one Pak and she is going out and helping these many others.

This understanding that we women have in UMW about multiplying our gifts by all working together is one of our great strengths, I think; and Pak shows us practically how our gifts of prayers and support are taken and given over and over throughout a village.

Hallelujah Moment: Cancer Patient Receives New Hope

by Irene Mparutsa and Amanda King
In a country that is still rebuilding its health care system after years of war and genocide, running a grassroots health development program is often a frustrating undertaking. The lack of educated medical personnel coupled with the bureaucratic tangles and the disorganization abundant in Cambodia’s health system create frustrations that all too often outweigh the immediate rewards of work as a medical missionary, but it’s the small victories that provide the motivation to keep going — small victories that, however insignificant they may seem in light of the bigger picture, change at least one life forever and serve to give CHAD’s program staff hope for the future.

One such case came to CHAD in the form of cancer survivor Horm Tot. The 35-year-old housewife and rice farmer had been told by provincial health officials in Banteay Meanchey Province in northwestern Cambodia that she need not seek treatment after her debilitating diagnosis of cervical cancer last fall — that the likelihood of success was far too little and the costs of treatment much too high.

Horm and her young family, her husband and their 14-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son, were understandably crushed by the doctors’ assessment.



“My family and I — we felt hopeless,” Horm said.

But help came to the family through their local Methodist pastor, who one day showed up at their home to see why Horm, usually a faithful church attendee, had missed services two weeks running. Where the doctors and family saw no hope, Pastor Kim Sean saw the potential for healing. Thanks in large part to his training in medical advocacy from CHAD, Kim was able to direct Horm to the program, which in turn referred her to an oncologist at a Phnom Penh hospital and to connect her with funding and transportation assistance.

Doctors at the capital’s Russian Hospital agreed with Kim’s optimistic lookout and immediately began an aggressive treatment regimen. Five months of chemotherapy later, a routine test showed Horm was in remission.

“God gave me hope,” Horm said of her pastor’s intervention. “Before, I was hopeless, but when I prayed to God, I felt better, and I had hope again. I stopped thinking about the bad things and didn’t worry anymore.”

Less than 24 hours after test results showed Horm was in the clear, she was already in CHAD’s office in Phnom Penh, recounting her story. Upon hearing the test results, Horm said she was “so happy” and excited but conceded, “my husband is the most happy.”

Horm’s whole community has reason to celebrate, really. Like many stories of cancer survivors, Horm’s entails a network of supporters, from her family and friends to church members and neighbors. And it took all of them to get her through a rather bumpy road to recovery.

One of the biggest obstacles on that road was evident from the time of Horm’s diagnosis: How would her family, poor farmers that they were, be able to afford the treatment?

The answer proved difficult. Doctors originally projected the cost of Horm’s treatment at $4,000 — well over the annual income of a typical Cambodian family.

CHAD was able to assist with transportation costs for Horm’s frequent trips to and from Phnom Penh for treatment, and the program also pitched in $50 toward her treatment, the maximum allowed under program guidelines. The family would have to come up with the rest on their own, and it would require a sacrifice, as they turned to the only resource available: Their land.

Horm’s husband, So Lyhuo, eventually made the difficult decision to sell the half-hectare family farm, a move that brought in roughly $3,700 toward his wife’s medical expenses. With no land left for them to grow rice, Lyhuo turned to fulltime construction work as an alternative source of income, and the new job often kept him away from his sick wife.

Despite the hardships Horm and her family faced, the cancer patient made the decision early on in her treatment to keep a smile on her face.

“Before, I was so sad. But then, I decided I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I accepted it,” she said. “I was worried about my husband and children. If I felt sad, it would affect them.”

Instead, her drive to endure the treatment with a smile brought hope to more than just her family. Just seeing her bravery was a source of inspiration to CHAD staff member and United Methodist missionary Irene Mparutsa.

“She was a remarkable patient. She was smiling right through,” Mparutsa said after learning of Horm’s successful treatment. “I don’t know anyone who’s had cancer and kept a smile like that. And the treatment was very aggressive, making her very sick, but she kept smiling every time she came.

It’s something in her spirit.”



Pray that patients like Horm will not be deterred from seeking the treatment they need because of the costs associated with it or because of outdated fears of hospitals and medical care that are prevalent among many villagers. Pray also that God will continue His work in Cambodia through health care programs like CHAD and the Ministry of Health as they work to change attitudes and improve the quality of care available in the country.