by Leng Thy
Recently, Cambodia has experienced the worst flooding in over a decade due to typhoons and a greater than average rainfall. The Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers are overflowing and 17 of 24 provinces are affected by severe flooding especially those by major river courses. According to government reports, many areas have been submerged in floodwaters which have affected thousands of hectares of rice paddies. More than one million people are affected and at least 100,000 people displaced. The floods have destroyed road networks, dams, and other public utilities.
The catastrophe seems to be so powerful. It can damage everything, but can’t defeat the feeling of compassion in the church people of Raksmei. The village of Raksmei is located in Kampong Thom, one of the provinces affected by this calamity. In the midst of the hunger that set in when much of the harvest was destroyed, there seemed at first to be only trouble. But the people of the Methodist Church of Raksmei have turned it into an opportunity for them to demonstrate their faith and real identity as God's children who’ve claimed self-reliance and a commitment to share love with their neighbor.
Demonstrating their self-reliance, everyone in the village starts out trying their best to find food on their own without waiting for outsider assistance like government or other relief agencies. But, despite the lack of food, they do not simply take care of their own family, but also take care of their neighbors who are unable to afford to get food. They share whatever they have, not the excess left from their need. During my recent visit with Mrs. Sophal, CHAD team member, we heard from Mr. Chok Choung, the lay leader of Raksmei church. He let us know that his church members do not ignore or leave somebody within their community to be hungry without food to eat. Obviously, when they realized that 4 families in their church were facing hunger, they collected rice from everybody and shared 13 kg to each family.
More important than helping the hungry families to deal with the immediate need by sharing food to eat, Mr. Chok Choung said that the church members have also helped each other restore their long term needs. Those whose land size is bigger and possible for dry season rice farming shared some small plots of land for the landless families to grow a dry-season rice crop as well.
As Christian leaders willing to serve their church and in the community, Mr. Chok Choung and his pastor always know the real needs of their people. With God given talent, these leaders do not limit themselves to see resources only within the church, but also see the potential resources from other sources. They have developed the ability to build links with other like-minded institutions and to gain support from them. In response to the need of rice seed for the church they went round to visit those agencies, and eventually the government provided them 600kg of rice seed. To make the visits even more productive, these faithful leaders did not only ask for resource support, but also took some time to communicate with the government agency about how the church works to serve poor people as part of helping the government strategy of poverty alleviation. Resulting from this communication, the church obtained high appreciation and recognition from the government. They then came to the church to see and take pictures of the project group and the rice store.
Mr. Chok Choung and Pastor Ing Roeurn, stated confidently that "We don’t render the disaster, but in combination with prayer we will work as hard as we can to recover our living condition." Though at the moment the rice bank members failed to pay back rice loans due this Dec/Jan because of the lost of rice crop affected by flooding, they firmly determined to pay back by this April when they harvest their dry season rice from their shared paddy-fields.
Showing posts with label flood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flood. Show all posts
Friday, December 23, 2011
The Transformation of Sok Nora Impacts on his Communities and Friends
by Leng Thy
Rev. Sok Nora is a pastor of a local church called Srei Sompong in Kompong Speu district, in the south-western part of Cambodia. In 2010, he was appointed to be a Social Concern Committee member as a representative of his district. Last month CHAD invited him on an exposure visit to see projects of Food For Hungry, a Christian NGO based in Along Veng, in the north-western part of Cambodia.
While traveling for hours together to reach Along Ven, Rev. Sok Nora and I had a good chance to chat, sharing experiences and feelings. In the discussion he admitted that for the first 6 years before he joined the Social Concerns Committee, he hadn’t really understood anything about the CHAD program. In 2005, his church received $900 from CHAD for a cow-raising group. That money had been misused because he didn’t spend all money to buy cows, but instead he kept some to buy loud speakers for his church. At that time he disliked the CHAD team and was not happy to work with them because he said “the CHAD staff seemed to be excessively inquisitive when they visited the project group at my church.” He viewed CHAD as a program that only emphasized on physical needs not the spiritual ones. As a pastor he wondered why he needed to spend so much time from his pastoral job in the meetings and trainings of this program.
Through his involvement with the Social Concerns Committee, with CHAD project implementation, and with CHAD team on monitoring and follow-up visits to project groups, Rev. Sok Nora learned a lot and began to understand about the CHAD program. He said “I’ve just realized that CHAD is a very useful program within Methodist Church in Cambodia. Through its projects and training, it plays a vital role in facilitating the churches to have a fresh look on its role and to keep it completely in God intention of God’s Kingdom expansion.” He found that through CHAD development project, he has an easier time to share the gospel than he previously did, when he understood evangelism only as sharing words, not as deed also.
Over these years Rev. Sok Nora has opened his heart for God to transform him. Right now he is becoming more active in carrying out his role as pastor as well as a Social Concerns Committee member. As a pastor he empowers his congregation to take initiative in establishing and implementing development project according to their needs. He said, “A sense of ownership is constantly in my mind. I fulfill my duties without waiting for any instruction from somebody else. That sense motivates me to work tirelessly.” Because of that motivation, in his role with the Social Concerns Committee he spends a lot of his time and energy to work with various levels of people.
At the church level he goes round within his district to visit them, train them how to manage resources with sound stewardship and accountability, and also to know how keep project records. As a consequence, the project groups can collect rice repayment on their own and have formed three saving groups without pushing from CHAD.
During the district meeting for pastors, Rev. Sok Nora, shares reports about CHAD projects, and he encourage the pastors to embrace a wholistic church ministries which included as well the development works, not focusing only on the spiritual realm.
For forming networking links he is highly courageous to communicate with various institutions. He visited to the Provincial Department of Information for broadcasting the church efforts in helping drought affected poor families last year, and again for the flood relief efforts. He also visited to the Provincial Department of Agriculture where he eventually received agricultural teaching materials to distribute to the churches. Since he has proved his high ability through his action of building good relationship with government, the other Christian denominations trust him, and nominated him as chairman of the inter-denominational council within his district.
In addition to the impacts mentioned earlier, Rev. Sok Nora has even influenced his friend whose position is in a high rank of government. He shared with me that he convinced him to be fair and honest and to humbly respect those he leads. That man listened to and respected Rev. Sok Nora for this. As needed, he sometime comes to Rev. Sok Nora’s house for advice.
Rev. Sok Nora is a pastor of a local church called Srei Sompong in Kompong Speu district, in the south-western part of Cambodia. In 2010, he was appointed to be a Social Concern Committee member as a representative of his district. Last month CHAD invited him on an exposure visit to see projects of Food For Hungry, a Christian NGO based in Along Veng, in the north-western part of Cambodia.
While traveling for hours together to reach Along Ven, Rev. Sok Nora and I had a good chance to chat, sharing experiences and feelings. In the discussion he admitted that for the first 6 years before he joined the Social Concerns Committee, he hadn’t really understood anything about the CHAD program. In 2005, his church received $900 from CHAD for a cow-raising group. That money had been misused because he didn’t spend all money to buy cows, but instead he kept some to buy loud speakers for his church. At that time he disliked the CHAD team and was not happy to work with them because he said “the CHAD staff seemed to be excessively inquisitive when they visited the project group at my church.” He viewed CHAD as a program that only emphasized on physical needs not the spiritual ones. As a pastor he wondered why he needed to spend so much time from his pastoral job in the meetings and trainings of this program.
Through his involvement with the Social Concerns Committee, with CHAD project implementation, and with CHAD team on monitoring and follow-up visits to project groups, Rev. Sok Nora learned a lot and began to understand about the CHAD program. He said “I’ve just realized that CHAD is a very useful program within Methodist Church in Cambodia. Through its projects and training, it plays a vital role in facilitating the churches to have a fresh look on its role and to keep it completely in God intention of God’s Kingdom expansion.” He found that through CHAD development project, he has an easier time to share the gospel than he previously did, when he understood evangelism only as sharing words, not as deed also.
Over these years Rev. Sok Nora has opened his heart for God to transform him. Right now he is becoming more active in carrying out his role as pastor as well as a Social Concerns Committee member. As a pastor he empowers his congregation to take initiative in establishing and implementing development project according to their needs. He said, “A sense of ownership is constantly in my mind. I fulfill my duties without waiting for any instruction from somebody else. That sense motivates me to work tirelessly.” Because of that motivation, in his role with the Social Concerns Committee he spends a lot of his time and energy to work with various levels of people.
At the church level he goes round within his district to visit them, train them how to manage resources with sound stewardship and accountability, and also to know how keep project records. As a consequence, the project groups can collect rice repayment on their own and have formed three saving groups without pushing from CHAD.
During the district meeting for pastors, Rev. Sok Nora, shares reports about CHAD projects, and he encourage the pastors to embrace a wholistic church ministries which included as well the development works, not focusing only on the spiritual realm.
For forming networking links he is highly courageous to communicate with various institutions. He visited to the Provincial Department of Information for broadcasting the church efforts in helping drought affected poor families last year, and again for the flood relief efforts. He also visited to the Provincial Department of Agriculture where he eventually received agricultural teaching materials to distribute to the churches. Since he has proved his high ability through his action of building good relationship with government, the other Christian denominations trust him, and nominated him as chairman of the inter-denominational council within his district.
In addition to the impacts mentioned earlier, Rev. Sok Nora has even influenced his friend whose position is in a high rank of government. He shared with me that he convinced him to be fair and honest and to humbly respect those he leads. That man listened to and respected Rev. Sok Nora for this. As needed, he sometime comes to Rev. Sok Nora’s house for advice.
“Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established” ~ Proverbs 6:3
Friday, November 4, 2011
A first-hand account of flooding in Prey Veng Province from Amanda
by Amanda King
The enormity of this year's flooding was really driven home to me when I (Amanda King) traveled with a friend to visit his home village during the recent Pchum Ben holiday. My friend's home is in Prey Veng Province, along the Mekong River and near the Vietnam border.
Recently, I've learned to love the wide-open view that comes with traveling the country by moto, as we were last week — and as most Cambodians do on a daily basis. This time, though, that view afforded me a front-row seat to a natural disaster.
The farther we got out of the city, the closer we got to the river; and as the kilometers went by, the extent of the flooding gradually unfolded.
What started out as flooded ditches and over-saturated rice paddies slowly morphed into an inland ocean, until all that was to be seen on either side of the highway was water stretching all the way to the horizon, with the occasional rooftop or palm tree interrupting the otherwise glassy surface.
We rode several kilometers through this surreal and deceptively serene landscape before we got a glimpse of the human cost of the flooding. Soon enough, we started noticing the people — lots of them — all along the sides of the road. But they weren't walking or waiting to snag a ride. They were living there. On the shoulder of the road. People, cows, chickens, ducks. All huddled beneath tarps or in wobbly lean-tos. Entire villages were popping up in the two meters or so of concrete along the side of the road — the only dry ground to be seen for kilometers.
The scene continued like this for almost an hour's worth of driving, and the closer we got to my friend's home, the more clear it became that his village would likely be among the many affected by this catastrophe.
When we pulled off the national highway and onto the dirt road that leads to my friend's home village, we made it less than 20 meters before we were brought to a stop by the sight of water over the road.
The water here wasn't too deep — just under two feet, by my estimation — but it was enough that it would have drowned out the moto's engine if we were to continue. So we parked the bike at a relative's home nearby and set out to finish the final five kilometers of the journey on foot, rolling up our pant legs and sloshing through the filthy, trash-ridden water from the swollen river.
We walked less than a half kilometer like this before we made it back to dry ground, but when we got within two kilometers of his home, we ran head-on into the river. There was no road anymore. Just river. (I should interject here that this particular road was well over 150 meters away from the river when I visited last month.)
A dugout canoe was the only means of transport available to us at this point, so into the boat we went. By the time my friend, myself, and the boat owner were all loaded, the top of the canoe was a mere one or two inches above the surface of the water, and even the slightest movement rocked the boat in a way that threatened to spill us all overboard. Needless to say, I sat completely still, with my mouth slightly ajar, as we paddled past homes I had visited just the month before, now with water a meter deep encroaching on their stilted frames. Within 10 minutes, we had arrived at my friend's village. We paddled in through the "backyard" of his aunt's house, past the halfway submerged outhouse and right up to within two meters of the home.
His aunt had a bit of dry ground in the yard in front of her stilted house, so it was therefore the de-facto home for all the livestock in the village as well as the site of the big party requisite for the last night of the festival. We stayed in the village for three days and two nights, and by the time we left, she would have no front yard to speak of, as the town would essentially become part of the river. Even the dugout canoe we had taken there would not be enough to get us back, now that there was a strong current flowing down what used to be the village's only road. We would resort to taking a larger fishing boat with an engine.
Villagers who had lived in the area for more than 50 years were saying it was the worst flooding they had ever seen.
I've never really been thrown into the middle of a natural disaster like this before. The rising waters complicated almost every aspect of daily life: cooking, bathing, using the toilet, walking to visit a neighbor. But some things were simplified, believe it or not. Fishing, for instance, was now merely a matter of setting up a net outside the front door and checking it occasionally.
By and large, though, it just made everything harder, and will continue to do so as hundreds of thousands of hectares of rice are ruined and unsanitary floodwater spreads waterborne illness. That's not to mention the role scientists are saying lingering pools of standing water will play in extending the season for mosquito-borne illnesses like dengue fever and malaria.
The flood, and its consequences, are tough to ignore for all of our staff here in Cambodia who have seen it first-hand. Thankfully, my fellow missionaries and I have the means to leave the disaster behind, but that's quite simply not the case for most of those affected.
By Amanda King, Individual Volunteer assisting with communications for the Methodist Mission in Cambodia
Saturday, October 29, 2011
A flood relief appeal from Mission Superintendent Rev Song
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
Greetings in the name of our Lord Christ from Cambodia.
As you know, God has tied us in one to work together in Cambodia for many years to form the Methodist Church in Cambodia and expand the Kingdom of God together. Praise the Lord our God for His abundant grace and great plan for Cambodia. He had done wonderful ministry here in Cambodia through us. And also I would like to give thanks to all the partner churches for your partnership and contribution. It is very true that the mission journey has come this far only with your prayer and that kind of help. Please lift up this young church and pastors continuously to achieve His great plan and please Him very much.
Now our brothers and sisters in Cambodia have suffered by severe flood. Most of you know the dangerous situation in Bangkok through mass-media broadcasted about it from Thailand. The situation to hit the center of capital city is very severe. As for Cambodia, the situation is quite bad also. It is the worst flood in Cambodia for last 20 years that I have served here.
I'll just quote some information from newspaper:
And also we need to provide some materials urgently like water filters, medicines, mosquito net, and grain to plant and rice for daily life etc. I urge you to be with us in your prayer and give some help.
Please let me know through email if you would like to know how to wire funds. Or you can help us through agency country office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia also.
I hope God be with you all forever.
In Christ
Rev, Song Jin Sup
Mission Superintendent of the Methodist Church in Cambodia
Note from Katherine: Funds sent through The Advance (designated giving of the United Methodist Church) can be channeled to Advance #3020542 with a memo/note/designation for "flood relief" will also be used for this purpose.
Greetings in the name of our Lord Christ from Cambodia.
As you know, God has tied us in one to work together in Cambodia for many years to form the Methodist Church in Cambodia and expand the Kingdom of God together. Praise the Lord our God for His abundant grace and great plan for Cambodia. He had done wonderful ministry here in Cambodia through us. And also I would like to give thanks to all the partner churches for your partnership and contribution. It is very true that the mission journey has come this far only with your prayer and that kind of help. Please lift up this young church and pastors continuously to achieve His great plan and please Him very much.
Now our brothers and sisters in Cambodia have suffered by severe flood. Most of you know the dangerous situation in Bangkok through mass-media broadcasted about it from Thailand. The situation to hit the center of capital city is very severe. As for Cambodia, the situation is quite bad also. It is the worst flood in Cambodia for last 20 years that I have served here.
I'll just quote some information from newspaper:
- more than 300 people have died by flood water.
- 19 of 24 provinces had been hit by flood.
- more than 300,000 families have been evacuated.
- 390,000 hectares of rice crop had been damaged(around 15% of total rice paddy).
- more than 1,000 schools had been destroyed.
- 2,700 kilometers of roadways destroyed.
- more than 1,000 families of our Methodist families have been affected.
And also we need to provide some materials urgently like water filters, medicines, mosquito net, and grain to plant and rice for daily life etc. I urge you to be with us in your prayer and give some help.
Please let me know through email if you would like to know how to wire funds. Or you can help us through agency country office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia also.
I hope God be with you all forever.
In Christ
Rev, Song Jin Sup
Mission Superintendent of the Methodist Church in Cambodia
Note from Katherine: Funds sent through The Advance (designated giving of the United Methodist Church) can be channeled to Advance #3020542 with a memo/note/designation for "flood relief" will also be used for this purpose.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Flooding along the Mekong
Flood damage update. We've received several emails with questions and concerns about recent flood damage here in Cambodia. Thanks for your concern! There has been quite a bit of damage especially to many rice fields that were so close to being ready to harvest. Daneth Him just went up to visit Kampong Chhnang yesterday to assess the extent of damage to communities we work with there. The flood levels have not been as high as during the typhoon in 2009, but the water has been very slow to recede, which is why the crop damage has been extensive.
One of the difficulties is that this is the time of year when there is already seasonal hunger in Cambodia. Folks are stretching what little they have or have taken high interest rice loans to make it until the early rice is ready to harvest in November. It is often the fields that are most susceptible to flood damage that are planted early because they have more water, which is needed for those early crops. Therefore the "hungry season" will be extended this year. Additionally, many people have taken rice loans just to feed their families already and, with the reduced harvest, they may fall deeper into debt when they can't repay these loans. Many folks are already leaving their villages looking for alternative work. CHAD has been working for this past year with the Social Concerns Committee to establish "rice banks" in order to mitigate against these high interest loans, but many people will not even have rice to pay back to their low-interest community rice-banks either this year. This means that we anticipate an increase in the "hungry season" next year as well. Therefore, we hope to be able to shore up existing rice-banks and establish new ones in the effected area.
Thanks for your concern. If you would like to make a donation to be used by the Social Concerns Committee for the immediate relief effort, you can give online through The Advance and 100% will be delivered here. Please add a note/memo that this is for "flood relief" so that we will know how to channel your funds to SCC. Or, write a check to your local United Methodist Church and note in the memo "Advance #3020542 - flood relief."
CHAD will continue to fund rice banks through our ongoing development efforts. You can also give online to that effort.
by Katherine Parker
pictures by Him Daneth
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