Newsletters

With our regular newsletters, we aim to keep you posted on all the interesting and important news and updates of our programs and various activities. Enjoy reading! 

October 12, 2011

            	
Dear Friends and partners,
It’s been a hard week for all of us. Last week we were rejoicing how our families in Prey Veng were hoping to have a bumper crop of rice. The floods had hit Kompong Thom project a month ago and our families had lost all their rice but for some reason Prey Veng wasn’t flooded. This weekend the floods arrived – within hours everything was under water.
                
And yet – last year the fields were so very barren – year after year the fields turned into hard dry ground. Famine was always just a day’s meal away. The men were never home – a number of children had been sold in order to meet just daily needs – it was such a hard place to work.
 
Then we started putting in field wells – so much excitement – the men came home and planted and harvested – they earned enough to buy their children back – they were so very excited - life had so much promise. 2 weeks ago it looked like one of the best rice crops they ever had. It stretched as far as the eye can see – life was good. We were all praying that the floods wouldn’t come – it would have meant the first year of food security and income in remembered history.
 
The last Friday the floods arrived – there wasn’t much that anyone could do. The water rose chest high – roads disappeared – and then the houses that were just grass – houses built by volunteers became a refuge for a number of families -  they hold not just people but pigs and chickens as well. The water buffaloes wallow in the mud and children wade through chest high water. Life is hard.
 
And yet – there is hope – for once so many of our families know that the floods will recede and when they do – they will plant again. They know the hot summer months are coming and the flood will be hard, dusty earth – this year their fields will not lie fallow but grow life giving food.
A friend said to me – these people just never get a break, do they?  It would be easy to agree but that would be a lie – so many in Prey Veng, Kompong Thom, Banteay Meanchaey, Siem Reap, Pursat – they do have a break – they have a field well or pond that will bring renewal back to their lives when the floods recede. For our families who have not yet received that break – for them – we will work even harder to make ensure that their breaks will be in place for the next set of floods.
Thank you to so many of you who have given a “Break” – a well or a pond – to so very many who have had none. Help us to ensure that all our families get a break – so that the next set of floods – although harsh – do not result in famine and despair.
I thank my God for the privilege of standing with these people – I thank Him for all of you who enable us to do so. 
Janne