by Leng Thy
In the minority-Christian country of Cambodia, many local churches simply long for growth, but do not want to do any work that requires them to sacrifice even a little of the assets that they have. This story of an outstanding project group, told by its leader, provides an idea of how powerful it is to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
A rice bank group at Raksmey church located in a north-east province of Cambodia is one of the CHAD project groups that has been highly effective in sharing the good news of God’s Kingdom through its powerful strategy of ministering to and among the suffering.
“Everyone in my church recognizes their Christian role, actively and sacrificially caring for people, no matter who they are” said Mr. Chok Choung, the 50 year-old Lay Leader, and chair of the Community Development Committee at the local Raksmey church.
Sitting on a pile of firewood under the shade tree in front of his house, this faithful leader shared a very exciting story of the rice bank project initiated by his church and community members. A smiling face expressed his confidence; full of hope and delight Mr. Chok Choung let us know that this rice bank project was initially formed in March 2008 in response to the need of poor families who suffered from food shortages during the rainy season and who paid high interest rates to the market rice lenders. He stated that at the beginning there were only 19 people interested. The project received an initial grant of $750 from CHAD to buy 3000 kg of rice. He said what helped them to grow was the principle of learning together from the Bible. This kept them faithful and encouraged them to apply what they had learned. As a result of this endeavor, each member goes out to community to imitate Jesus, doing what he did, using both word and deed. This is a change from their previous activities of using only words in their outreach approach. Group members, for example, share sacrificially from the little resources they have to poor families when they see them hungry and unable to afford to feed themselves.
He added another example of how the rice bank group members have declared God’s Kingdom. They took care of seven families whose houses had recently burned. The fire damaged everything. Their few possessions were destroyed and they were left with no food, no shelter, and no clothes or other necessities. Seeing this, the rice bank members compassionately took 500 kg of rice from the store and collected among the members another 40,000 Riel ($10.00). They did all of this to help the victims even though they are not their immediate neighbors or fellow Christians, but live in another village a ways from Raksmey.
A few days later, Mr. Chok Choung continued, a letter from a commune (local government) office where the fire had happened came to the rice bank group. He took it out and read. It was a letter from the victims to say thank you gratefully for the immediate response to those in need. They appreciated the generous support and admitted that Christians are really good. Knowing that they were interested in understanding more about God, the group visited them and shared the gospel. Since then, a preaching point has been formed there. He emphasized that this shows how powerful it is when the church carries out its task by following what Jesus did and what he continues to do through us, using both word and deed.
Surely, since the group continues to be faithful and committed to work together, God blesses them to experience explosive growth. The amount of rice, during this three-year period, for example, has increased from 3000 kg at the beginning up to 6591 kg at this moment. As the group has been foreshadowing what God’s Kingdom would be like, there is a constant influx of people who want to join the group. Right now, there are five more non-Christian families requesting to be included in the rice bank group. “These are ways that our church is reaching out to people; we want to glorify God,” said Mr. Chok Choung, smiling.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
A silk weaving group in Prey Cherteal Village, Takeo Province
by Ms. Daneth
Prey Cherteal is one of the villages in Prey Kabash district, Takeo province. This village is known for people who are good in silk weaving. The whole family is helping each other to do weaving, though mostly women and girls do the actual weaving. They learn from one generation to one generation. Most of the girls learn to weave starting about 12 years old. Nowadays the grandmothers and mothers are passing on what they know to the next generation so that this skill will not be lost from their community in the future. Additionally, people in this village are also able to improve their life through this skill. It provides them with a good income and the children don't need to look for job outside the community. It is living skill.
The weavers in Prey Cherteal could earn more from this work, but unfortunately they don’t have enough capital to own their own business. One of the most labor intensive parts of weaving is putting the thread on the warp. Therefore, they need to buy enough silk to thread their warp for 3-6 months of weaving at one time. This costs about $250, which is more capital than most families have available.
The rich business middle-men take this opportunity to cover the capital for them to buy the silk thread and dyes needed. When the middle men provide the thread and dye and the women only do the weaving, they get less benefit. Our people borrow the money and the raw material from the middle-men. The middle-men calculate the interest more than helping people and giving them benefit.
Our Methodist Church is working with this community through the church. There are some people also believe Christ, most of them are women. CHAD takes time to learn the situation of this village from day to day then we started to give the seed money to help the women to start Silk Weaving group with six members. Through this project three women were able to get loan first in September 10, 2010. Through this help the member of this group are able to earn more if we compare when they work under price control of middle-men.
Nowadays, they are able to earn profit of $ 20/set after they pay back their loan to their Silk Weaving Group. Before they were able to earn only $ 7.5/set. There are 4 meters/set for one warp and they also can finish 1 set in 15 days to 1 month. The 3 members give back the money with interest through the policy they made as part of the Silk Weaving Group. They keep this money in the village bank. This helps them feel safe and earns more interest from the bank.
Through this money that was paid back, on February 2, 2011, the group was able to give a loan to the next woman. Now 4 of the 6 members in the group have received a loan. They also plan to reach out to new member in the future after all the 6 member get a loan. In order to be chosen, the new members have to be kind, generous, ability for weaving, not default on another loan, to be patient and work hard. Another plan is that they want to start a saving group from the silk weaving group.
Through our monitoring visit we learned that this group is responsible, work together and also help one another in order to reach the community need. This is the vision of CHAD to see, after we help people and people can help themselves and reach out to their community.
Prey Cherteal is one of the villages in Prey Kabash district, Takeo province. This village is known for people who are good in silk weaving. The whole family is helping each other to do weaving, though mostly women and girls do the actual weaving. They learn from one generation to one generation. Most of the girls learn to weave starting about 12 years old. Nowadays the grandmothers and mothers are passing on what they know to the next generation so that this skill will not be lost from their community in the future. Additionally, people in this village are also able to improve their life through this skill. It provides them with a good income and the children don't need to look for job outside the community. It is living skill.
The weavers in Prey Cherteal could earn more from this work, but unfortunately they don’t have enough capital to own their own business. One of the most labor intensive parts of weaving is putting the thread on the warp. Therefore, they need to buy enough silk to thread their warp for 3-6 months of weaving at one time. This costs about $250, which is more capital than most families have available.
The rich business middle-men take this opportunity to cover the capital for them to buy the silk thread and dyes needed. When the middle men provide the thread and dye and the women only do the weaving, they get less benefit. Our people borrow the money and the raw material from the middle-men. The middle-men calculate the interest more than helping people and giving them benefit.
Our Methodist Church is working with this community through the church. There are some people also believe Christ, most of them are women. CHAD takes time to learn the situation of this village from day to day then we started to give the seed money to help the women to start Silk Weaving group with six members. Through this project three women were able to get loan first in September 10, 2010. Through this help the member of this group are able to earn more if we compare when they work under price control of middle-men.
Nowadays, they are able to earn profit of $ 20/set after they pay back their loan to their Silk Weaving Group. Before they were able to earn only $ 7.5/set. There are 4 meters/set for one warp and they also can finish 1 set in 15 days to 1 month. The 3 members give back the money with interest through the policy they made as part of the Silk Weaving Group. They keep this money in the village bank. This helps them feel safe and earns more interest from the bank.
Through this money that was paid back, on February 2, 2011, the group was able to give a loan to the next woman. Now 4 of the 6 members in the group have received a loan. They also plan to reach out to new member in the future after all the 6 member get a loan. In order to be chosen, the new members have to be kind, generous, ability for weaving, not default on another loan, to be patient and work hard. Another plan is that they want to start a saving group from the silk weaving group.
Through our monitoring visit we learned that this group is responsible, work together and also help one another in order to reach the community need. This is the vision of CHAD to see, after we help people and people can help themselves and reach out to their community.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Medical Mission Team
February 10-21, 2011 was a thrilling time with a visit from a Medical Mission Team organized by the Louisiana Annual Conference and supported by volunteers from all over the USA. You can see their pictures and read their testimony at http://cambodiamedical2011.blogspot.com/ as well as find a link to the 2009 team.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Kampong Cham Patient Visits
by Amanda King
Individual volunteer from Illinois
Earlier this week, I spent four days with the CHAD program following up with patients who had been seen last fall by a team of doctors from the U.S.
We traveled to Kampong Cham Province in northern Cambodia, where we saw roughly 30 patients at a handful of villages. The point of our visit was to check up on those who had been referred to a hospital for further treatment — to see if they had, in fact, seen a doctor and undergone treatment.
Unfortunately, more often than not, the answer to that inquiry was 'no.' And, contrary to what I expected, cost was not the only reason why, in many cases. In fact, with free or reduced-cost treatment available at government hospitals for those qualifying as 'poor,' and private aid available from organizations like the church, cost was not even an issue in some cases.
What we found over and over was people who were afraid of seeking treatment — intimidated by the long journey it involved to a large, unfamiliar city, and fearful of the medical procedures they may have to undergo.
"My family told me if I go to the hospital in Phnom Penh, I will have to have an operation and I will die," one elderly man suffering from severe prostate problems told one of our team members through a translator.
In those cases, says Irene, team leader with Community Health and Agriculture Development (CHAD), all we can do is pray that God will take away their fear.
Even more difficult, though, are the cases where it's a child's health in question and a parent's fears in the way of a medical intervention. We saw just that as in the case of a young burn victim Tuesday, who was left with disfiguring scars across her stomach, chest, neck and face by lack of access to good medical treatment after a fire. She will likely bear those scars forever, judging by her mother's resistance to seeing a surgeon in Phnom Penh.
It's this distrust of modern medicine, I think, that makes health and hygiene initiatives like those sponsored by CHAD and Cambodian Methodist Women imperative to medical advancement in Cambodia. Even the smallest of steps — bringing a team of doctors to visit a village, teaching hand-washing and safe cooking methods, promoting prenatal care or raising awareness of local health facilities — can help introduce health and wellness to a community's mindset, and, in time, assuage distrust of lifesaving medicine.
Individual volunteer from Illinois
Earlier this week, I spent four days with the CHAD program following up with patients who had been seen last fall by a team of doctors from the U.S.
We traveled to Kampong Cham Province in northern Cambodia, where we saw roughly 30 patients at a handful of villages. The point of our visit was to check up on those who had been referred to a hospital for further treatment — to see if they had, in fact, seen a doctor and undergone treatment.
Unfortunately, more often than not, the answer to that inquiry was 'no.' And, contrary to what I expected, cost was not the only reason why, in many cases. In fact, with free or reduced-cost treatment available at government hospitals for those qualifying as 'poor,' and private aid available from organizations like the church, cost was not even an issue in some cases.
What we found over and over was people who were afraid of seeking treatment — intimidated by the long journey it involved to a large, unfamiliar city, and fearful of the medical procedures they may have to undergo.
"My family told me if I go to the hospital in Phnom Penh, I will have to have an operation and I will die," one elderly man suffering from severe prostate problems told one of our team members through a translator.
In those cases, says Irene, team leader with Community Health and Agriculture Development (CHAD), all we can do is pray that God will take away their fear.
Even more difficult, though, are the cases where it's a child's health in question and a parent's fears in the way of a medical intervention. We saw just that as in the case of a young burn victim Tuesday, who was left with disfiguring scars across her stomach, chest, neck and face by lack of access to good medical treatment after a fire. She will likely bear those scars forever, judging by her mother's resistance to seeing a surgeon in Phnom Penh.
It's this distrust of modern medicine, I think, that makes health and hygiene initiatives like those sponsored by CHAD and Cambodian Methodist Women imperative to medical advancement in Cambodia. Even the smallest of steps — bringing a team of doctors to visit a village, teaching hand-washing and safe cooking methods, promoting prenatal care or raising awareness of local health facilities — can help introduce health and wellness to a community's mindset, and, in time, assuage distrust of lifesaving medicine.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Emerging women leaders in Cambodia
by Katherine Parker
There is a real celebration to be had for the increased empowerment of the Cambodian leadership of the church, especial women leaders. In our CHAD program I was so happy to meet last week with the two clusters of churches in Kampong Speu. While I was visiting churches in the USA on itineration, Rev. (Ms.) Hong Phally had been facilitating the "congregational development for social outreach" lessons which we also sometimes call "mobilizing the church"
Last year Hong Phally had been acting as my translator when teaching these lessons and I'm excited to see her increased confidence in preparing and facilitating the lessons. She has taken on quite a bit of new responsibilities this year. In addition to pastoring her local congregation and working as the chair of the Children's Committee for the past two years, she was also selected to be the assistant District Superintendent for Kampong Speu.
The Methodist Church is unique in Cambodia in that more than 10% of the pastors are women (most churches have few to none), and particularly blessed to have young women in their late 20s and early 30s like Hong Phally who are encouraged to take on major leadership roles. Please pray for her that she will be granted a visa to the USA when she goes for her interview on January 20 since we are hoping that she will be able to attend the Cambodia Consultation at Wesley UMC in San Jose March 31-April 2. I hope that many of you will be able to attend and to meet her and the other Cambodian delegates (I am also hoping to attend). Registration is available at at the CalNevUMC.org or on the event page.
(post script - Rev. Hong Phally was denied her visa, but two other women pastors, Rev. Than Heak and Rev. Ming Hongly were successful.)
There is a real celebration to be had for the increased empowerment of the Cambodian leadership of the church, especial women leaders. In our CHAD program I was so happy to meet last week with the two clusters of churches in Kampong Speu. While I was visiting churches in the USA on itineration, Rev. (Ms.) Hong Phally had been facilitating the "congregational development for social outreach" lessons which we also sometimes call "mobilizing the church"
Last year Hong Phally had been acting as my translator when teaching these lessons and I'm excited to see her increased confidence in preparing and facilitating the lessons. She has taken on quite a bit of new responsibilities this year. In addition to pastoring her local congregation and working as the chair of the Children's Committee for the past two years, she was also selected to be the assistant District Superintendent for Kampong Speu.
The Methodist Church is unique in Cambodia in that more than 10% of the pastors are women (most churches have few to none), and particularly blessed to have young women in their late 20s and early 30s like Hong Phally who are encouraged to take on major leadership roles. Please pray for her that she will be granted a visa to the USA when she goes for her interview on January 20 since we are hoping that she will be able to attend the Cambodia Consultation at Wesley UMC in San Jose March 31-April 2. I hope that many of you will be able to attend and to meet her and the other Cambodian delegates (I am also hoping to attend). Registration is available at at the CalNevUMC.org or on the event page.
(post script - Rev. Hong Phally was denied her visa, but two other women pastors, Rev. Than Heak and Rev. Ming Hongly were successful.)
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
What happened to the cow?
by Katherine Parker
My January and February schedule are filling up fast. My target geographic region has changed a little bit this year. Our new staff member Ms. Sophal will be taking over responsibility for the Kampong Thom region and so I will be traveling up there at the end of January to introduce her and collect our bi-annual project monitoring data.
I have also been traveling for monitoring out to churches in my three target area Kampong Chhnang (where I will be working in partnership with Ms. Daneth who just returned from a year of study at the Asian Rural Institute in Japan), Kampong Speu and my new area in the Takeo district.
We had a great meeting yesterday with the cow group at Trang Tre Yeung, Kampong Speu where I had been confused for the last year about exactly what had happened to their cows and calves. We sorted things out and I am excited to report that from the initial two cows purchased in December 2005 there have been 9 calves born.
One of the benefits of a cow-bank is that it provides increased security for the group members. Chen Han was one of the first care-takers of a cow, and so after passing-on he benefited from keeping the second calf born in March 2008. When he faced some health problem in 2010 he was able to sell the calf in order to pay for his medical care.
Of course we hope that families can experience the full benefit of a cow by rearing it until it is larger so as to gain maximum benefit and additional offspring, but I am also heartened when the cows can serve their purpose to provide security to the family that can be used in times of need such as this situation to pay for medical care.
Unfortunately, one of the original cows in this group was kill in a car accident and her current calf was not able to survive the loss of its mother, but the other cows continue to produce and the group is working well together.
How to measure the "success" of a project is not always clear. Just from looking at the numbers, this group has lost 3 of its 11 cows in the last year, which on the surface is not a good thing. But the loss brings awareness to the dangers of the increased traffic as more roads in Cambodia get paved and also to the hope that comes from individuals having the resources available to make decisions and take action for positive steps in their health care.
There is so much fear and even some fatalism around availability of health care in Cambodia. To see a situation where a man felt empowered to seek medical care and felt confident that he had the resources to do so on his own and then for him to actually improve in his health give me great hope that we are on the right path. This is not an overnight success; this cow project started way back in 2005. But as part of a global church community, we keep walking together, and there are these glimmers of hope along the way.
My January and February schedule are filling up fast. My target geographic region has changed a little bit this year. Our new staff member Ms. Sophal will be taking over responsibility for the Kampong Thom region and so I will be traveling up there at the end of January to introduce her and collect our bi-annual project monitoring data.
I have also been traveling for monitoring out to churches in my three target area Kampong Chhnang (where I will be working in partnership with Ms. Daneth who just returned from a year of study at the Asian Rural Institute in Japan), Kampong Speu and my new area in the Takeo district.
We had a great meeting yesterday with the cow group at Trang Tre Yeung, Kampong Speu where I had been confused for the last year about exactly what had happened to their cows and calves. We sorted things out and I am excited to report that from the initial two cows purchased in December 2005 there have been 9 calves born.
One of the benefits of a cow-bank is that it provides increased security for the group members. Chen Han was one of the first care-takers of a cow, and so after passing-on he benefited from keeping the second calf born in March 2008. When he faced some health problem in 2010 he was able to sell the calf in order to pay for his medical care.
Of course we hope that families can experience the full benefit of a cow by rearing it until it is larger so as to gain maximum benefit and additional offspring, but I am also heartened when the cows can serve their purpose to provide security to the family that can be used in times of need such as this situation to pay for medical care.
Unfortunately, one of the original cows in this group was kill in a car accident and her current calf was not able to survive the loss of its mother, but the other cows continue to produce and the group is working well together.
How to measure the "success" of a project is not always clear. Just from looking at the numbers, this group has lost 3 of its 11 cows in the last year, which on the surface is not a good thing. But the loss brings awareness to the dangers of the increased traffic as more roads in Cambodia get paved and also to the hope that comes from individuals having the resources available to make decisions and take action for positive steps in their health care.
There is so much fear and even some fatalism around availability of health care in Cambodia. To see a situation where a man felt empowered to seek medical care and felt confident that he had the resources to do so on his own and then for him to actually improve in his health give me great hope that we are on the right path. This is not an overnight success; this cow project started way back in 2005. But as part of a global church community, we keep walking together, and there are these glimmers of hope along the way.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
UMCOR helps Social Concerns Committee respond to drought
by Katherine Parker
On January 6 and 7th we had a meeting of the Social Concerns Committee (SCC) where Rev. (Mr.) Pho Phala is the new chair (last year missionary Ken Cruz was the chairperson). This is another exciting area of increased Cambodian leadership.
The Social Concerns Committee was awarded a grant from UMCOR this winter in order to respond to anticipated food insecurities in the coming year due to drought during the 2010 rice growing season. As I have been conversing with various congregations it is apparent that this is a real concern since there has been a decreased harvest this December, in some cases 50% of the previous year yield. This is due in large part because of the variability in the rain we had last year. Some rains came early but then they stopped and so many seedlings died before they could be transplanted and heavy rains came very late in the growing season when it is typically time for the grains to be ripening. As you know from my other writing and sharing, food insecurity is already a problem in Cambodia and many families are not normally able to produce enough rice to eat for the year so the end up borrowing rice at exorbitant rates (50%-100% interest).
The Social Concerns Committee plans to use the UMCOR grant for three purposes, one is to provide rice-aid to highly vulnerable families who face severe shortfalls this year, a second is to provide rice-seed to farmers that suffered significant loss the previous year and would benefit from access to improved varieties and the other is to start about 100 new rice-banks (at about one-ton each rather than our typical three-tons), which will double the amount of rice available through rice-banks for low-interest community loans in the communities where the Methodist Mission Cambodia is working.
It is a big job for the pastors of the Social Concerns Committee to set up all of these and I have continued to meet with pastors in the districts where I am working to coach them and discuss the details of how we can quickly achieve this plan. One of the challenges to this kind of work is that the pastors will need to travel to visit communities in order to facilitate the planning meetings to initiate the new rice-banks. There are funds in the UMCOR grant to support travel to the initial meeting (about 100 meetings conducted by 18 different pastors over the next 3 months), but I am worried that there will be insufficient funds left for the pastors to travel to visit the rice-banks for the 6 month and 1 year monitoring visits, so there is a need to raise additional travel funds to support the pastors of the SCC to monitor the new rice banks. The next SCC meeting will be on February 3rd.
On January 6 and 7th we had a meeting of the Social Concerns Committee (SCC) where Rev. (Mr.) Pho Phala is the new chair (last year missionary Ken Cruz was the chairperson). This is another exciting area of increased Cambodian leadership.
The Social Concerns Committee was awarded a grant from UMCOR this winter in order to respond to anticipated food insecurities in the coming year due to drought during the 2010 rice growing season. As I have been conversing with various congregations it is apparent that this is a real concern since there has been a decreased harvest this December, in some cases 50% of the previous year yield. This is due in large part because of the variability in the rain we had last year. Some rains came early but then they stopped and so many seedlings died before they could be transplanted and heavy rains came very late in the growing season when it is typically time for the grains to be ripening. As you know from my other writing and sharing, food insecurity is already a problem in Cambodia and many families are not normally able to produce enough rice to eat for the year so the end up borrowing rice at exorbitant rates (50%-100% interest).
The Social Concerns Committee plans to use the UMCOR grant for three purposes, one is to provide rice-aid to highly vulnerable families who face severe shortfalls this year, a second is to provide rice-seed to farmers that suffered significant loss the previous year and would benefit from access to improved varieties and the other is to start about 100 new rice-banks (at about one-ton each rather than our typical three-tons), which will double the amount of rice available through rice-banks for low-interest community loans in the communities where the Methodist Mission Cambodia is working.
It is a big job for the pastors of the Social Concerns Committee to set up all of these and I have continued to meet with pastors in the districts where I am working to coach them and discuss the details of how we can quickly achieve this plan. One of the challenges to this kind of work is that the pastors will need to travel to visit communities in order to facilitate the planning meetings to initiate the new rice-banks. There are funds in the UMCOR grant to support travel to the initial meeting (about 100 meetings conducted by 18 different pastors over the next 3 months), but I am worried that there will be insufficient funds left for the pastors to travel to visit the rice-banks for the 6 month and 1 year monitoring visits, so there is a need to raise additional travel funds to support the pastors of the SCC to monitor the new rice banks. The next SCC meeting will be on February 3rd.
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