I thank God for His wonderful calling to let me serve Him in Cambodia.  Unlike Hong Kong, this agricultural country is a new horizon in my life experiences.  In addition, I can also ‘taste' opposite environments in one country: city living and countryside livelihood.

No need to say, we all know that Cambodia is a developing country and over 30% of the population live under the poverty line (income is less than US$1 a day). There are more than 200,000 orphans and hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people surviving across the country. Nevertheless, owing to a growing economy (which may mainly be due to the influx of foreign funding & investment), the living standard in Phnom Penh keeps going higher and higher.  A few years ago, I seldom saw local people shopping at the supermarkets because the prices are higher and the currency used is US dollars, but now I see lots of local families spending their leisure time there - shopping, eating, and choosing high end products from the shelf.  Moreover, lots of local people (which are not hired drivers) drive ‘big' and ‘expensive' cars, which also brings about traffic jams everyday.  Many restaurants, night clubs, casinos and Karaoke lounges are open so that the city is sleepless at night.  Of course, it also implants the materialistic thoughts in people's minds, especially the youth. 

To the contrary, when I work with the church members in the village, there is a totally different picture.  The villagers are usually in ragged clothes (or wearing no clothes at all), skinny, bare footed, with messy hair and sunburned skin.  Life is simple, but not easy; especially as the price of the rice has increased crazily.  Even though they are farmers, they may not be able to feed the family because of the weather, lack of money to buy fertilizer, or lack of knowledge and methods in farming.  They start working on the farm around 5 am (when it's not so hot), and eat lunch around 10 or 11 am, going to bed when the sun has set.  They don't have many choices to entertain themselves, or even worse, some of them are addicted to wine or gambling, which creates lots of social and family problems.  However, the villagers are friendlier and their hearts are more open to the gospel.  Their faith is closely related to their daily living: they will pray for the weather for a good harvest, and about  sickness, and even for the health of their pigs and chickens.

Since I started the development projects in 2004, I have tried to encourage them to save small sums through the piglet scheme so that it helps to improve their lives. I've observed that the poor people are exploited by loan sharks, government officials or influential people.  In some circumstances, they only need a little money to buy tools, seeds or fertilizer, but they are tempted to borrow ‘big' money that they may not be able to pay back due to high interest.  Consequently, they may need to sell their land to pay back the loan, and that threatens their future livelihood.  Last August, I started a small loan scheme (micro-finance) at the Kampot village where we had gone through two cycles of piglet raising. Our goal not only aims at improving their livelihood, but also giving the opportunity to build up their faith through Bible teaching, dialog, sharing and prayer.  May God continue to use our ministries to serve the poor.

Recently, Minea, our development project staff, proposed some new schemes for different villages, such as raising chickens, fish or even mushrooms.  I thank God that he has a fervent heart to help through his knowledge and experience.  He proposed a few projects that require some initial funding amounting to US$2,000.  I encouraged him to pray to God that God will provide the resources.  It is neither by human power nor by might to achieve this, but by the Spirit of God to guide that we can accomplish the mission.

1.  The funding of our animal raising projects for our churches in the villages.  May God provide through the generous support of our brothers and sisters

2.  The holistic care for the church members in order to build up their faith in God instead just relying on our help

3.  The training of local leaders to help in livelihood projects

4. God's guidance and wisdom to implement the projects - possibly as soon as July or August

Mark 10:27

Davis Lam

Cambodia Mail Address: P.O Box 602, Phnom Penh, Cambodia