day 25/thursday/january 3/kampong cham
went and splurged a whopping 50 cents and got our nails painted at a little salon down the street. met a young woman there who was very excited to practice her english on us. she kept telling us that she wished she had more money so she could buy us presents. people are so incredibly giving here, and very community oriented. i love that relatives either live together or beside each other. how they say anything that is on their mind, nothing is awkward to them.
after lunch I read Esther and then we went back to Jimpa’s house and the boys worked on putting up the foundation for her new house. Jimpa is a paralyzed widow whose little house was very unstable so we have been helping the pastor build her and her son a new one.
Putting the walls up
All the neighborhood kids loved to come watch us build. Floors done!
then six of us girls went to this sweet old lady’s house for a visit. at 87 she had a hunchback and weighed about the same in pounds. but don’t let her frailness fool you, this woman loves to pinch! and not cute little hello pinches but full on grab as much skin as possible and twist pinches. she was just so full of life! she told us a string of amusing lies about being engaged, getting married in a month and how she was going to wear a sexy little outfit for her honeymoon. she was cracking us all right up. we just hung out in her little bamboo house for a while, prayed for her, then promised to visit again. as we were about to leave it was brought to our attention that a little girl had a really bad burn on her butt from falling on a fire yesterday. it looked awful, about five inches across and the skin was peeling off and yellow underneath. Emily and Gabriela went back to the church and got our medical kit and went back and cleaned the girl’s wound. it’s amazing how a little medical attention can be such a huge blessing to a family in a village. taught english after dinner, then played cards and went to bed at 9:40.
Visiting with “The Pincher”
day 34/ saturday/january 12/ kampong cham
our last full day in kampong cham. after lunch we went back to Jimpa’s house to say goodbye. it was exciting to see her new home almost complete, it was all up except the roof, which the pastor will finish in the next few days. we prayed for Jimpa and her son one last time, and then after she told us how she had been praying to Jesus before we came because she was lonely, and how happy she was that we came and helped build her house and hung out with her. as she was talking her son came over and sat in her lap and asked us if we saw the stars last night. apparently they were very bright! my heart broke as i pictured him and his mom sleeping side by side on the floor in their new little home without a roof, staring up at the night sky, and though in what i would consider extreme poverty, being thankful for the stars above his head. what different worlds we live in! sometimes in rough locations i have to remind myself that Jesus is so very worthy of the small price i pay by eating not so great food or sleeping on a hard floor. but these locations are simply the reality for so many people. this is their life and this is all they have ever known. moments like these when i am reminded how blessed I am to have two loving parents and always a roof over my head make me praise God, but also wonder- why me? hearing Jimpa tell us that God answered her prayers by sending us to her is an amazing reminder that God cares for all of his children, including the widow in the middle of Cambodia. and just as i consider myself to be incredibly blessed with a family and home in Canada, this woman praises God in the same way for providing for her every need. what i look on and see as poverty (such as her 12 by 15′ bamboo roofless house!), she sees as blessing. God truly does hear the cries of the widows and the orphans, just as he has said. it is a blessing to watch his promises unfold and to get to be a part of them!
Jimpa’s new house still under construction. Doesn’t look like much to us, but to her it means the world!
Beautiful Jimpa and her son