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! 

September 12, 2008

            	
Dear Friends, Yesterday was another magical day. I went out to Tanong Village in Takeo to see the impact of our seven field wells. These wells service 28 families – families whom we were told two years ago by the commune chief – don’t bother - they are very lazy and very stupid people. Just the words needed to challenge our staff as those words were used on them for so many years.
                
Last November we started to install the field wells. Our first stop was with 4 families who were desperately poor. What a joy it was to come. All of the families were there with big smiles- anxious to show me what they had done. They received their field well in January. Between them they have 50 small pieces of land – the average size is 10 meters square. The well had allowed these families to grow three crops of rice – their fourth crop of rice was growing. Out of every 4 pieces of land, the fifth piece was for vegetables – bananas, eggplant, morning glory, cabbages, and beans. For the first time, not all the land was for rice. It was their smiles and their health that touched me so. We have enough food to eat, enough food to sell each day – we are no longer hungry. I snuck a look at the chief but he said nothing.

We went to the other families – as far as the eye could see, we saw vegetables and rice growing – all grown because of field wells. These families all owned several pieces of land that averaged 50 meters by 10 meters. They received their wells last November – since then they had grown 3 crops of rice – enough rice to feed their families and to sell a ton each. All of them had vegetable plots of cabbages, morning glory, beans and chili peppers – the one I liked most was the field of green peppers – I didn’t know they would grow in Cambodia. What was so amazing is that these families who were considered to be too lazy to work with, had fields of green while other fields lay fallow. One of the families had begun to turn his hut of grass into a house of strength. As we traveled out of this community, we watched other families just begin to plant their first and only rice crop of the year. It was sad, for a number of fields the rice was flagging because there was not enough water – there was no field pump. I turned to Pon, our staff responsible for this area – I’d like more field wells she whispered – afraid to dream in case we could not do. My response was immediate – as many as you need. Over the past several years; so many of you have responded to our dreams to turn our fallow lands into lands of plenty. We had a dream and slowly that dream is coming true. How good it is to see the health and vitality returning to the bodies of those for whom food was a luxury – how good it is to see the men and women who found it hard to move each day because of malnutrition, work with joy and thankfulness, how good it is to see what was once so sad become a place of fruitfulness, a place of contentment, a place of people with dignity and pride. My God has said to me; give a cup of cold water – so many of you have given so much more than a cup. My heart overflows this day because of the privilege of being a part of this. I praise my God and I thank each of you for this gift of life, for this gift of restoring life. It is so very good.
Janne