Roth Srey is in School

A Special Blog for a Special Child

Roth Srey has just turned 11 years old this month.

 Roth has been with us 7 months now.

Her uncle on the left and her grandma on the right.

Roth was left to her grandma's care since she was a baby.  

The parents divorced and didn't want the old child to be apart of their new lives.  It is a common case here.  She grew up very poor working daily to feed themselves.  When working Roth was paid as much as the adults because she worked so hard.  Her wage was .10 cents for peeling 100 pounds of potatoes.  She also helped plant and harvest the rice fields ever season.

Some times they did not have money to eat so they would have to borrow, beg and go with out. 

When Roth came to us in March of this year she had never been to school.  She couldn't read or write and knew very little math.  She was a bright child willing to learn, very responsible and helpful.  Every time we would turn around she would be there waiting to help.  She was to helpful, we wanted for her to have a child hood, be responsible but have fun, play a little.

We kept her out of school this year spending a lot of time with her teaching her to read and write as we have done with almost all our children.  We wanted to catch her up as much as possible with her age and grade.  

Well the news we have to share is that 7 months later, this month Roth entered into the 4th grade.

Reading, writing and able to compete where she has been placed.

This week I translated her first letter, a full page letter to her sponsor written completely by herself. 

 

 

With us only a week.  

You might notice how dark her skin is out in the field all day long she is so tan. 

 Children like this will be teased for being black.  They call her the daughter of a coal miner.

Tan skin is not popular here, tan skin equals poverty and hard work.

A couple months later her skin is lightening up, her confidence is growing, she loves life and enjoys school.  She is almost always happy and has a beautiful laugh you can hear nearly every day.  

Also since she has come she has become a Christian and helped lead her grandma to Christ.

Her grandma is now helping at a church and doesn't have to work so hard anymore.

So in short we are especially proud of her right this month.

Flooding in our village

 We took a little ride around our village to see the water.

Fishing is really good.  People are catching a farmed fish from a local places that must have over flowed and got away.  Also someone evidently caught a small crocodile escaped from farm some where.  I would have loved to seen the look on the guys face when he pulled up the net.














These fields had been planted with rice is now a small lake.














Some people have fared better than others, having your own private island isn't always a good thing.

The road going to the school is covered with a rather swift current of water, maybe about a foot deep in the middle. The rice field on the right and left though are two and a half to 3 feet deep.

This part of the waters enters right down their drive way into and though their house.  

At the school Rachana was a bit shy to show us her class room because it is falling apart.  

This is the road directly behind the orphanage, about 3 fields down.

These people will lose their crop this year.

Who can resist a little fun.

In our village there is some slight damage.  There will be some crop losses hopefully no outbreaks of illness.  I hear the next province is much worse but we will not have the chance to go see. 
For some families the loss of their crop will mean no rice for the year.  They will turn to other means maybe a loan they can't repay or selling things they shouldn't sell.

The flooding is certainly not as bad as so many other countries such as Pakistan and China but the people we care for could still use your prayers for a speedy recovery and maybe give opportunity for Christians to do more work and touch more heart.   

Lots of rain

 Lots of veggies these past months.

Chenda is standing in front of a Winter melon.

It is actually much bigger than it looks in the picture. 

 Sarah arrived safely from Germany and will be with us for a while you can keep up with her thoughts on her blog.  There is a link to the right of the page.

http://sarahslifeincambodia.blogspot.com/

Shortly after her arrival we had her out in the mud catching frogs, fish and snakes. 

Which I hear goes against the advice of her mission prep class.

Since Sarah can play the violin and will be here so long it is a good chance for the kids to learn something new.  We might be the only orphanage in the country teaching violin.

As this is Cambodia things are cheap we got a fairly decent violin for only $50. 

We have had quite the storm this year.  Massive flooding, road closures, bridges are out.

Our land is the highest around but it rained faster than it would drain.

 Our pond over flowed and so did our yard.

Ream said we even had a wave come in at the beach that drown people.

I am also told that China is evacuating nearly a million people from the storm.

Our Newest Guest

To the right you find a link called "Sarah's life in Cambodia".

I will leave this link on the top right for a little while so it is easy for you to find and acquaint yourself with.  After that I will move it down a little next to our past guest's blogs.

Sarah is our newest guest to stay with us.  She is an American that has been living with her parents in Germany for the past 9 years.  She is 19 and just graduated high school.  I think she has made the smarter choice and is spending some time in the mission field before starting college.

She will be spending the next 9 months with us.

So feel free to read about her experiences here with us and get to know a view of what goes on here at the orphanage.

God Bless and thank you guys for keeping up to date on what we are doing.

Kit