Many Cambodians, especially in areas like Kpbaom, live in abject poverty.  Many head off to factories to work and visit home only on occasional weekends.  Others take foreign jobs as maids in places like Malaysia or the Middle East, sometimes with tragic results.   This story is a bit different.

Seventeen year old Vouthia is an intelligent, hardworking young man who has been faithfully attending our services since the beginning.  In spite of living in a very poor rural area, he has maintained good grades and even managed to learn a fair amount of English.  All that is in jeopardy now.  After a month alone Vouthia (the eldest of four children) told the local church leader his story.  After much fighting with their father, their mother finally left for Malaysia on a two year contract to work as a maid.  Their Father abandoned them shortly thereafter.  He has been going to the fields after school to hunt for field crabs and collect some wild vegetables (bitter herbs) to feed himself and his three siblings.  They also beg neighbors and family for some rice as theirs has now run out.  With the hot, dry season coming these sources of food will shortly disappear.

They don’t want their mom to know as it would break her heart and there’s probably nothing she could do about it.  She has to serve her two year contract to get her return plane ticket.

Please pray for:

• The children’s safety
• Their mother’s peace
• Their father to return and do what’s right.
• Our (the church’s) wisdom to know how to help without hurting.
• For Wiwin and me  as it breaks our hearts.

Rev. Mark Baldwin