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!
Oct 12, 2005
Dear friends and partners, It's been a whirlwind few weeks but my, how good the weeks were. In the past 3 weeks, 69 houses were built for our families - we had one day when there were 3 teams in town and all in our shop - they shopped and we had our biggest sales day ever - over $9,000.00 in 2 hours. Not only that but all the teams combined helped us start our new fiscal year with gusto as they brought more than $12,000.00 for our development program. People sometimes ask me if the work doesn't get too much. The answer is that Tabitha is always celebrating even when there is sadness or harsh realities that make us stop and mourn. When we have so many partners here with us, rejoicing and encouraging - no, it may be busy but our cup is flowing over.
We had several high government officials come to one of our housebuilding sites. They knew about the house building program but they thought that local contractors built the houses and the teams just came to see what had been built. Their excitement and disbelief at seeing foreigners with hammers in hand, sweat pouring from their bodies, finishing these houses had an impact that is rare. "Foreigners don't do physical labor," I was told - "you know they are all tourists, we have never seen anything like this" I will be honest, I had an attack of pride - which rapidly developed into a sense of humbleness and thankfulness for so many of you who come and stand with our people here. It was not only the officials who were impressed. The local village chief had mocked the villagers for believing in us and for believing in themselves. His harsh words and mockery were something that Pon and Srei and Tharry bore with good grace for several years. When we arrived with the officials, he hid in fear and shame. Our visit was short and then we left. The volunteers remained and built the houses. The chief came out of hiding - he didn't know what to say - but Srei did, she made him laugh and asked him to join. The chief is not a rich man - he, like so many others here - have learned that people can be very hurtful - the Khmer Rouge taught him to lose faith in all people - the staff's faithfulness over the past years, the work of the volunteers - Srei's open arms taught him that maybe Pol Pot was wrong. He joined our program this week. What a gift that is. The past few weeks we have been doing our year end report - what a year it's been. We had planned to have volunteers build 200 houses - 327 were built. We had planned to do 520 wells - we did 572 wells and we helped construct 3 ponds/reservoirs - 3,333 families with 26,664 people had access to water this past year. We had planned that 20,000 families would be helped, more than 22,000 families were helped - more than 160,000 people were touched. They saved a total of $683,673.49 - we paid 10% interest to our families - and they purchased items worth $3,156,500.00 worth - an indicator of how powerful the savings program is. And what did these families buy? Just a few examples, 5068 families bought mosquito nets, 2222 families bought batteries so they can have 4 hours of light each night, 6899 families paid for school fees, 5022 families bought 3 months supply of rice, no more hunger, 2253 families bought pigs so that they are able to increase their incomes by 50%. Our new year started the first of October - our dreams are very ambitious for this year - 450 houses to be built, 762 wells to be dug, and 25,000 families with 200,000 people to be impacted through savings and development programs. I want to say thank you to each and every one of you for making so much possible for so many people. Thank you for standing with us as we enable people to change from disbelief in people to ones of celebration with people. I am thankful to my God, that He has brought each of you to stand with us. How good that is. Janne
