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!
December 2005
Dear Friends and Partners, It is December, a month when we celebrate Christmas, a time when many of us celebrate the greatest gift of all, the birth of Jesus. It is a time when His message of love and hope becomes a message for all of us of hope and love. Jesus spoke of many virtues - one of which is "whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of the least of these.....
Yesterday, I went to Kampot - Srei, Ti, and Mara, our staff there had asked me to come and see how our ten families living with AIDS were doing. The drive out was beautiful although some of the roads were not so beautiful. We walked through rice fields to meet these families. There they were in a clearing, a member of each family standing and waiting. As we began to talk, I shared Miriam's story with them, how her mom had died of AIDS, how Miriam had tested positive for the HIV virus. I showed them her picture - and one of the men said, my daughter was put up for adoption when my wife and I knew we had AIDS. We were saddened by his announcement but it opened the doors to be able to share.
Their story is one of poverty and loneliness - each of these people own just a small plot of land, not large enough to grow rice, not large enough to feed their families. Each husband had left to work on the Thai border - and in the long absences from home, had slept with taxi girls and contracted AIDS. In the several months when they could be home each year, they had passed on the virus to their wives. All of them fell very ill with ailments related to AIDS. Their neighbors held them in scorn, they feared them, and would no longer allow them to be part of their communities. Their children were taunted at school, to a point where they no longer attended school. They were unable to work in the markets, and so they began to starve.
Ti was a volunteer in our program in Kampot when we opened there 2 years ago - he asked Srei to come and meet with these families. Srei did, and they joined our savings program, they couldn't save much but Tabitha talked to them - and this was enough to get them started. All of them started on retroviral drugs given by an AIDS NGO - but the drugs were not enough. The continued isolation from their community, their inability to feed themselves kept them in despair.
After a year, Srei and Ti decided to install 3 wells near the homes of 3 of these families. The families were too poor to pay even the small amount of money required by us. Things changed dramatically. Each family began to grow vegetables near their homes - it is amazing to see - 1 meter for limes, a meter for morning glory, several banana plants, mango trees, guava trees, chili peppers, sugar cane, etc. Each fruit or vegetable had its allotted space of a meter or 2 - soon they were earning and eating on a daily basis - they began to be able to purchase simple things such as pots and pans, dishes and glasses, blankets and mosquito nets.
But the thing that changed the most - was the gift of water to their neighbors. Clean water was available 3 kilometers from their homes - now the wells brought clean water to within 50 meters of neighbors. They came and asked if they could use the water also. The families gave their blessings and with the gift of water came reconciliation and forgiveness. All of them are now an integral part of the community, their children are now in school, no longer being taunted.
I asked them if they were angry with their neighbors - no, they said - Tabitha gave us love -we were so long without love - now we give our love to our neighbors. The water is plentiful and clean and cool - there is so much love to share.
We can provide for our families every day, we can share with our neighbors everyday; we can tell others how to get help everyday. There are 600 of us in this district - we all need your love and to share this love with others.
I then asked, are you afraid of dying? They answered with joy, - no we used to be afraid of dying - it took all our energy just to get through each day - but now, with the well - each day we think of what else we can grow, what else we can teach, what else can we share with others around us.
On behalf of all our families - each of whom suffers so deeply in so many ways, our staff, and my family, we wish each of you the love of Christmas - the love you have given to the least of these here.
Merry Christmas to each of and the best of the holiday season.
Janne
