More than a Good Cup of Coffee!

Coffee Cart purchased by Mother's Heart

Sustainability is one of the main goals at Mother’s Heart when it comes to helping the women in our program become financially independent in their communities.  Most of the women at Mother’s Heart enter our program with little or no specialized skills that, along with being single, create an enormous hardship financially.

Once the women enter our program, we provide them access to either job placement or vocational training of their choice such as cooking, hospitality training, and sewing from fair trade organizations throughout Phnom Penh.  Before the training, the majority of the women only have the capacity to earn about $50-70 per month. After vocational training, their incomes increase substantially to $100-$130 per month.

Several months ago we had a creative and unusual request by one of the women in our program. Along with the help of her mother, she wanted to start her own micro enterprise business. Her idea was to sell coffee just outside a factory close to her home.  We were impressed with her idea as well as her recognition to select a location that would provide her with the most customer traffic.

The staff at Mother’s Heart shared in her and her mother’s vision by purchasing a coffee cart as well as the start up supplies necessary to allow them to start their business.  It has been both fun and exciting to partner with this family in raising their income level.  Micro enterprise is widely recognized as a powerful tool to help the very poor but business-minded, throughout the world to rise above poverty.  For as little as $200, we were able to make an incredible investment into the lives of this family!

If You Need Leaders - Make Disciples!

This week Reaksmey, our church’s Internship Coordinator caught me in the hallway and was really excited. “Wayne, this week during the opening week of our new internship group, 3 of our 17 new interns have accepted Christ.”

Interns in our church’s ministry apply to give one year of their life to learn about God, study the Bible and serve in church ministries. These are usually individuals who do not have any financial resources, yet voluntarily ask to participate full-time in the internship without compensation!

Many people who read this might ask the questions, “How can someone who has not accepted Christ serve in church ministries?” “Why would they volunteer a year without compensation?” “How do unbelievers have faith to believe God will provide for their daily needs for a year?”

I have to admit I am amazed at the hunger for God in a country where 98% of people are unbelievers. We have to turn away as many young people each year as we are able to accept in the internship. One of the things I have noticed in Cambodia in the healthiest, life-giving churches is that they do not focus on making converts, but focus on making disciples. Many of their ministry approaches are not focused on getting people to make a one-time decision, but focused on a long-term plan for discipling individuals. That means they develop ministries like the internship to build on current relationships with people wherever they are at on the spectrum - from seeking to know who God is to becoming a fully devoted follower of Jesus.

At the same time Reaksmey (who is a graduate of last years intern class) told me about the good news, another of last years graduates found me and told me he had just been hired by one of the top Christian supplemental education organizations in Cambodia. Out of a large number of candidates he was selected because of his leadership abilities and his visible relationship with the Lord.

Seeing these young men and young women, who have been intentionally discipled by mature believers, being placed into leadership positions has helped me to understand some gaps I’ve had in my understanding of leadership development in the past. From my experiences I think we in the western world spend a considerable amount of time on making converts and then try to place them in leadership positions, without taking the long road of making true disciples.

To quote Landa Cope: “A reached community is not a discipled community.” God uses the process of personal discipleship to bring about spiritual transformation in individuals’ lives, and in turn, those transformed individuals influence their business, family, school and, in time, whole cities and nations.

The biblical mandate to make disciples (Matt 28) and the example Jesus lived should be enough to convince us that discipleship is the missing link and the true key to developing leaders. If you stop to think about it, the core qualities of a good leader are developed through the transformational process that discipleship provides.

If the church is to steward the message in the same manner as Jesus, we must make disciples who know, love and obey Jesus. This means that every aspect of their life must be different: how they work, love their family, tell the truth, handle money with integrity, and reach out to the poor.

Floyd McClung says this: “But if you want to build a leadership culture, if you want to impart apostolic passion to your church or movement, and if you want to see the gospel have its desired transforming effect on people and nations, it will happen because you make disciples.”

Matthew 28:19  “Go and make disciples of all nations”

Peanut Butter Friends in a Chop Suey World

This week marks the one year anniversary of our family moving to Cambodia. I vividly recall many unanswered questions  as we boarded the plane for Cambodia. The issue of taking Micah, Reece, and Kyler to Cambodia and raising them overseas was a difficult choice for Wayne and I. Our families asked us, “Will they be safe? How will they be educated? Will they have proper medical care?” Some say that one of the most challenging tasks for many missionaries is that of raising their children on the mission field. While Wayne and I both asked ourselves these same questions when we decided to make this move, the one answer we did have was this:  God called us as a missionary family to serve in Cambodia. He has a plan for our family to live and minister as successfully in Cambodia as we could in the U.S.

Micah handing out snacks at "Joy Club"

This last Thursday Wayne had an opportunity to take Micah out to the slums with the “Joy Club” at our church to minister to over 200 kids through Bible stories, hygiene lessons, and handing out snacks. When we asked Micah what he thought about it all he said:


“I feel sad for them. I feel blessed.  I feel like I should do something for them. Like more than just 10 cents or 20 cents. More like $25,000 so I can build a house for them.”

Micah, Reece, and Kyler are confronted daily with special opportunities and unique challenges. Wayne and I continually take steps to help them understand the world through their eyes.  While it’s true the USA is considered the land of opportunity, we believe that Micah, Reece, and Kyler are experiencing 'other' opportunities while living in Cambodia. They are seeing things and experiencing things differently than those living in the United States - but equally as beneficial. They are learning to relate on a new level to others who are not like them and learning to appreciate those differences. They are learning how to step out of their comfort zones. They are experiencing different cultures first hand - rather than just reading about them in geography books. They are learning to be resourceful, flexible, and adaptable.

Watching Bible Lesson

In preparation for our move to Cambodia a year ago, I read a specific children’s book to help me understand what the boys would go through and the challenges they would face. This book describes the experience of a little girl  moving to Taiwan with her parents to become a “missionary family”.  I recently recalled an excerpt from the book as I was reflecting over what the boys have experienced over this past year. 


 “Sure, my peanut butter (American) friends would never be the same as my Chinese friends. But  I had a wide variety of peanut butter friends, and I was beginning to realize that my Chinese            friends weren’t all alike either.  Friends came in all kinds of flavors.  And all of them were good.” ( Peanut Butter Friends in a Chop Suey World by Deb Brammer)

Thank you God for the amazing journey you have brought us through this last year. Thank you for our family and our friends both abroad and here in Cambodia. 

-Tricia

Miracle at 33 Weeks!

When we first met one of our new clients, our concerns for her health and the health of her unborn baby were at the forefront of the management of her case. For the safety and confidentiality of our clients we do not use real names and so for this story I will use the name Sopia. When clients first enter our program at Mother’s Heart, we accompany them to RACHA (health clinic) for general prenatal checks. It was this checkup that confirmed what we suspected from our preliminary screen. Sopia’s blood pressure was high. She was suffering from a condition called “preeclampsia” which basically means “before seizures” . Our staff began praying immediately for Sopia and her unborn baby.

Pre-eclampsia is a diagnosis given to women who suffer from high blood pressure and swelling under the skin during pregnancy which untreated can ultimately result in dangerously high blood pressure, seizures, and death. It occurs all over the world regardless of age, culture, or ethnic background. Access to an obstetrician is a luxury for most. According to the World Health Organization an estimated 12% of maternal deaths in Cambodia are as a result of this condition. It is estimated that 1 woman out of every 1,666 women will die in Cambodia from complications of pre-eclampsia, however in  comparison to the US the maternal mortality is 1.5 in every 100,000.

 Our Nurse Midwife, Sreytouch, continued to monitor Sopia closely over the following weeks. When Sophy was only 33 weeks pregnant, she developed complications from the preeclampsia and her baby was delivered by emergency C-Section weighing only 2.5lbs! Sopia’s baby boy was admitted immediately to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit here in Phnom Penh. He was placed on a ventilator, feeding tube, and I.V. Our staff continued to pray for a miracle that his lungs would be healthy and mature enough to sustain his breathing. God’s grace and answered prayers quickly followed. Sopia was discharged from the hospital a week later. Her baby boy continued to gain weight daily and after a few short weeks became independent from all the tubes and IV’s. He is thriving wonderfully and was discharged from the hospital just 4 weeks later. Thank you to everyone who prayed for Sopia and her son.

Please pray that pregnant mothers throughout Cambodia will have access to prenatal, labor, delivery, and post-partum care necessary to keep them safe and give birth to a healthy child.

-Tricia

Bicycles Break Barriers



Transporting donated bikes to Mother's Heart

At Mother’s Heart, one of our goals is to assist the girls and women in our program in obtaining access to either vocational training or job placement. One of the biggest barriers to these opportunities is transportation and the cost that surrounds it. However, a bike can change a life in a poor country. Yet for most of the women and girls in our program, a bicycle is financially out of reach. Bicycles help to ensure that the girls and women in our program are empowered through improved access to food and water, employment, healthcare, education and social opportunities. This month, Mother’s Heart received a generous donation of bicycles from the Cambodian Bike Project. Thanks to their donation, 7 women in our program will now receive a bicycle to assist them with both affordable and sustainable transportation

Human Currency: Trading Freedom in Southeast Asia

I was recently reading an article in the Southeast Asia Globe titled the “Cambodian Maid Trade”.  In the past three years up to 25,000 Cambodian domestic workers  who are from impoverished rural communities have migrated to Malaysia following promises of a better future. But, the reality for these women and children is the risk of abuse at every step of the migration cycle. These Cambodian women and underage girls are paying for the chance of a better life.  Once they enter the country of Malaysia, the legal system provides them with little if no protection by the Malaysian government in the recruitment process and regulation of private agencies. According to Malaysia’s labor law, Cambodia’s domestic workers are defined as ‘domestic servant’s, and employment conditions are left to the discretion of the employer.  I realize at this point it gets quite graphic, and apologize if this becomes to blunt.  But as a result, Cambodia maids are routinely over-worked, physically abused, under-paid and burdened with inflated ’handling’ fees and debts.  The worst is that many of them are starved, exploited, and sexually assaulted by their employers according to Tenganita, an anti-human trafficking organization.

Up until recently, I had heard of these rumors and read of these cases. However, this past month at Mother’s Heart has been quite difficult for me.  We have recently taken into our program two young girls (one who is underage) who were sent back to Cambodia by their Malaysian employers. They are both pregnant as a result of sexual assault by their employer. One of them, who is 14 years old, has never been paid in the past two years since her employment as a maid.  My heart is so broken to actually see these women face to face and graphically hear their experiences. They are no longer stories I read on a piece of paper, but have become a reality in my everyday life as I see them come and go from our office as we help integrate them back into Cambodia.

These are the moments that I can say how truly humbled I am to work at Mother’s Heart. To be able to help these young girls is a great honor. Please pray that not only can we help them through their pregnancy, but we help walk with them to restore hope and love them as Christ loves each of us.  One of them began at one of our partner organization for vocational training this last week.

Tricia

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

 

What is BorBor?

Making minced carrots, spinach and chicken

You may not recognize this word, but for a young Cambodian woman trying to feed her baby it is a very important concept.  BorBor is a simple Cambodian term which means “rice soup” or “porridge”.  It’s a process which consists of adding more water to the white rice when cooking it so that it is a thin consistency making the texture in such a way that babies can eat it. Rice itself before its brown shell is removed is actually very healthy. However, in Cambodia, only the animals and prisoners are given the brown, unshelled rice.  The Cambodians eat only the white, polished rice. Unfortunately, the brown shell is what gives the rice its nutrients.

It is not uncommon for many babies and children in Cambodia to become stunted in their growth due to micronutrient deficiencies (which basically means very little vitamins and minerals are in their diet).  Stunting means their bodies are not able to grow in height to reach their full potential due to a lack of vitamins and minerals.  Rice is the main staple for all their meals.  Once the mother stops breast feeding, foods high in calcium and iron such as cheese and milk along with vegetables high in vitamins are commonly absent from the diet due to poverty, culture, and a lack of education.  Malnutrition remains a serious problem for Cambodian children specifically Vitamin A and iron deficiencies.   

Baby food must be made fresh daily because most
mothers don't have refrigeration.

When Micah Reece and Kyler were all babies, I decided to make my own baby food. I could easily buy jars of baby food at the store, but decided I would make baby food for them from fresh vegetables and fruits. I didn't realize how fortunate I was because when I was tired of making my own baby food I could just supplement it with store bought baby food. Little did I know, that God would use that experience in my life again some day.

This month, we held an afternoon workshop for all our mother’s in the program at Mother’s Heart on how to add more nutrients to the BorBor which makes it healthier for the baby than just rice alone.   Mother’s Heart staff taught the women how to chop up locally grown cooked vegetables like carrots or green leafy vegetables which adds vitamins like Vitamin A, B, and K.  We also taught them how to chop up cooked chicken or pork to add protein to the BorBor. Once the chopped and minced ingredients are added to the rice porridge, it then becomes a nutritionally dense baby food.   To many people, these concepts may seem very basic and common knowledge. However, in Cambodia, these concepts are foreign and access to information like nutritionally healthy baby foods remains a barrier to most women.  Don’t forget that few homes have any type of refrigeration, so most of these foods have to be made daily.