We were called by Kimsua at 9:00 in the morning, just as we were starting Khmer class. He told us that the community around his house was on fire, and that he needed help. Immediately we left, drove to his house, finding it only by walking so close to the burning buildings that the heat nearly overwhelmed us, and finally learning that Kimsua’s house was miraculously saved from the fire. Twenty-one houses in his community were consumed by the fire, but God spared Kimsua and his family. Though now covered with the blue tarps, some of these houses can be seen in the picture above.
When we were at Kimsua’s house, we met some of the people who had lost everything to the fire. Visions of people picking through their burnt belongings caused us to want to help these people in any way that we were able. Several gracious people from the United States read our email update about the fire and immediately sent money to aid these people who had lost their homes. In talking to Kimsua, we thought that donations of clothing would be the best way to help these people, so we went out and bought several large “bales” of clothing that we took back to the Bible School to sort out into bags that we could then give out the people.
Once again, our students showed their true dedication to serving the Lord in any way possible. Shortly after bringing the clothes back to the school, the students spread out mats and began sorting the clothes by sex and age. The sheer amount of clothing that we were able to buy, two large bales each weighing close to 150 lbs., made the task quite challenging, but the students rose to the occasion with smiles on their faces and we turned it into a great time of fun, fellowship, and service.
After the clothes were sorted, we distributed the articles into bags that we could give out to individuals. We formed long assembly lines to distribute the clothes…two pants, two shirts, one dress, two dress shirts, a pair of shorts… (this bag would have been for one of the ladies of course) and we continued this until we used all of the clothing. All in all, we filled almost 150 bags for women, because the community is primarily made up of garment factory workers, 100 bags for children, and over 50 bags for men. Here you are seeing two of our students, Theavy and Zanda, filling the bags.
Here you are seeing Tiffany sorting the clothes. It was a very long day for both of us, and it actually took place on our anniversary. Later in the day, we talked about our lives here in Cambodia, and whether we should have scheduled this day of distributing the gifts to the fire victims on a different day. We both decided that our lives here have different priorities now. We can no longer think of our days and our weeks as belonging only to ourselves. There is a huge temptation to do so, but we always know that God will provide us with the time to rest and time for our marriage. He is always faithful, and we were thankful for this opportunity to share His blessings with others.
When we arrived at the community, we again met with the village leader, a man elected to head up any community activities or projects. In some cases, corruption causes big problems in such aid activities with the leader taking his cut of the money that is supposed to go to the people. However, this leader truly had a heart to see the people of his community helped in their time of need, even refusing an offering of a bag of rice. He instead told us to give it to the people. Here you are seeing Tim greeting the crowd of people, telling them who we were, and why we were helping them.
For those who do not know him, Pastor Kimsua is at the center of this picture. Because it was his community and because he had been involved with the project from its inception, he was the one to hand out the rice and the clothes to each head of the house. Forty-one families were affected by the fire, and we were able to give clothes and a five kilogram bag of rice to each family. It was a blessed day to be sharing with these people, and it not only gave us the opportunity to be a blessing to the people, it also forged us all together in this project and caused us to have greater unity as a group of pastors, students, and teachers here in the Wesleyan Church of Cambodia.
After this long day which began by meeting with the village chief at 8:00, finding clothes to buy, negotiating the price, arranging for transportation of the clothes back to the school, hours of sorting and filling bags, traveling back to the community, and handing out these goods, we finally finished at around 4:30. We were all tired, worn out, but happy in the way that we were able to help. Here you are seeing Ime, the wife of Pastor Kimsua and their daughter Hannah as we finished the distribution of the clothing and rice. We want to take the time to thank all of you who prayed for the people in this community, and those who donated the money to support this project of helping them. Your support and prayers make things happen here in Cambodia… never forget that.Please remember to continue to pray for the people in this community. Many seeds have been planted since the fire a little over three weeks ago. God has allowed this tragedy to open the lines of communication and relationships between Pastor Kimsua and the members of the community. We know that God is going to use this event, which first brought such sorrow, to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
