Lyle & Mindy in Cambodia

On Saturday we organized the culmination of the Dollar a Day project. Students and friends collected almost $500 to help a relocation site called Andong. This poor community of about 1000 families was evicted from the riverside area 5 years ago, and ‘relocated’ to an bare open field outside of the city. Our friend Pastor Abraham has given his life to helping these people find justice and sustainable ways of living. He has also built a school which educates and feeds 250 children daily. University students from around Phnom Penh joined together to play with the kids, cook food for them, and learn about the injustice of land evictions in Cambodia.

About FIFTY students joined us on this project! We made quite a scene as we rode into the village on 20 motorbikes. I led a short orientation for the students before the day began.

Students went to the market early in the morning to buy kilos of food. Many helped to prepare the food. Chicken curry, bread, and fruit for all!

Students organized games for the kids…

Taught in the classrooms…

And served food.

After lunch, Pastor Abraham shared with us about the history and struggles of Andong, and took us on a tour of the village. This was one of my favourite parts of the day. We met the parents of the kids and saw the houses where they lived. He also shared his motivation for loving the poor, which is his own love for Jesus Christ. The students asked Abraham very thoughtful questions. They got to see first hand some of the consequences of a quickly developing city. We hope that this was an experience that they will remember for a long time.

Thank you to all of our students and friends who supported us in this project!

(And thanks to Vandenn and Theara for the pictures!)

eat

breakfast: 4 pieces of toast, 2 eggs $0.37
lunch: leftover pasta and tomato sauce $1.25
dinner (street food-no cooking!):fried noodles with beef and egg $2.50
Total: $4.12
Weekly total: $13.74 WE DID IT!

think

Lyle and I often joke about the “Life is Hard Game”. When someone  complains about their life, there’s something inside of you that wants to complain back,  to show them that your life is hard too. Whoever has the biggest sob story wins the ‘game’. It’s one of those terrible human nature things that gives self-importance to our hardships. This week I have felt continually humbled in this regard. You’d think that with our lifestyle this week, we’d get some pity, right? Rather, in all my conversations, I don’t think I’ve ever won the “game”.

Mindy: “This week we’re eating for only $1 per day per person!”
Khmer friend: “Oh, I only spend $1.25 on food for 3 people every day.”

Mindy: “Today I’m tired because I had to shop, cook, clean, and wash clothes.”
Khmer friend: “Oh, but you have a washing machine, right? It’s so easy with a machine! I wash everything by hand.”

Mindy: “This week all I’ve done is work and cook.”
Khmer student: “Oh, that’s what my mom does every day. She doesn’t do anything else.”

It’s humbling, right? Of all the lessons we could have learned from this week, gratitude seems to be the simplest and most obvious one. But for some reason, this didn’t strike me as deeply last year as it has this year. Today, I feel profoundly grateful for all that God has given us. I am so so thankful that God didn’t send us all the way to Cambodia to spend our entire days working and cooking. I guess if He called us to that, by His grace, we could do it. But  I am thankful for TIME with friends, time in ministry and Bible studies, time with my husband, and time for exploring this beautiful country. I am thankful for a moto to ride, a fridge, a washing machine, electricity, fans and an air conditioner, Ming Nee, restaurants, and all of the other things that make my life EASIER than it would otherwise be.

May I have the grace to remember this moment the next time I want to play the Life is Hard Game.

May we have the grace to make good choices with our time and money.  And may we be a source of joy and blessings to the many around us who live with less.

pray

Pray for all development and aid efforts, those trying to help Cambodia lift itself out of poverty

-wise stewardship of financial resources
-the empowerment and independence of local people
-partnership between organizations
-A spirit of humility… global poverty and hunger are bigger problems than any of us can solve. Only God can turn our feeble efforts into something transformational.

Thanks for joining us in this challenge! Let us know if you want to donate money to our food project, coming up on May 28.

eat

breakfast: 4 pieces of toast, 2 eggs $0.37
lunch(mindy): leftover curry FREE (cost calculated yesterday)
lunch(lyle): chicken and pasta FREE
dinner: pasta with homemade tomato sauce + 1 piece of garlic bread(mindy) $1.35
Total: $1.72
Weekly total: $9.62

think

One thing Lyle and I have noticed is how this week has affected our relationship. On the first day, it was exciting to pray together and feel unified in our mutual task. There IS something about “suffering” that brings hearts together. As the week went on, however, our daily interactions involved mostly chopping, cooking, and cleaning. We found ourselves grumpier with each other and short in our words.  Our hunger after each long day made us focus on the task of cooking, rather than focus on each other. We had significantly less time to talk about the day or relax together. Plus, with daily temperatures near 40 degrees, the kitchen turned both of us into sweaty beasts. Not so appealing to the touch.

Sometimes survival must come before relationships. The toll that this can take is heartbreaking. We hear many many stories of broken families among poor communities. Domestic violence, neglected children, marriages with no intimacy, mistresses, family members who leave… these are all common scenarios. If Lyle and I had to live like this every day, would our marriage be healthy?? It’s hard to know. On one hand, we’ve never been more dependent on each other. Cooking for two is much cheaper and effective than cooking for one. However, when we feel frustrated with our plight, who else do we have to take it out on but each other? When we spend all of our time surviving, when do we have time to leisurely nurture our relationship?

We just heard that there’s a new free park in town with a hedge maze. Tomorrow we’ll celebrate the end of this long week with a cheap date.

pray

Please pray for families in Cambodia.

Pray for God to provide leisure time for families to spend time together and build positive memories that will carry them through harder times.

Pray for the energy and grace to put work into addressing conflict and restoring relationships.

Pray for a unique protection and provision over the physical and spiritual needs of families.

Pray for orphans and widows and those without families.

eat

breakfast: 4 pieces of toast, 2 eggs $0.37
lunch(mindy): leftover vegetable stir-fry $0.32
lunch(lyle): chicken, soft roll and salad FREE
dinner: fried eggplant sandwiches w/ yogurt sauce $0.73
Total: $1.42
Weekly total: $6.36

think

Having a meeting after work meant we didn’t get home until almost 7pm. Hungry and tired, we weren’t at all in the mood to wash the dishes from the morning or prepare a meal from scratch. Mindy did dishes, I prepared the ingredients and soon the eggplant was breaded and fried. Our experiment was a success! No rice, and the sandwiches were pretty tasty with the yogurt sauce. Sadly, bread meals aren’t as cheap as rice meals, so we didn’t get quite the serving we might have otherwise. But, it was late, we were tired and it took us only 1 hour to prepare and eat. A success in my book. Unfortunately my day wasn’t over, as I had another meeting at 8:30. A short one, but it still made a long day even longer.

Our meeting was with Pastor Abraham who works in Andong, a relocation site about 20km outside of Phnom Penh. The families there were forced from their homes on valuable land, and ‘allowed’ to resettle here. How they are to make a livelihood is still a question more than 3 years later. Forced evictions continue even today, with communities in the Boeung Kak area being bulldozed just months ago.

With the economy on the rise, land is being seized for logging, agriculture, mining, tourism and fisheries, and in Phnom Penh, soaring land prices have touched off what one official called a frenzy of land grabs by the rich and powerful.

The seizures can be violent, including late-night raids by the police and military and sometimes apparent arson as shanty neighborhoods burn down.
New York Times

Naturally, people in these communities are angry. Angry at the rich who will stop at nothing to increase their riches. Angry at the government for doing nothing to protect them. Angry at their own people for saying nothing in their defense.

pray

As Mindy visited the Senate today on a field trip with her International Relations students, please pray for the government officials of Cambodia. In particular, Hun Sen, the prime minister. Currently, Cambodia rests at number 154 of 180 countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index. [Last year, Cambodia was 158 - things are getting better!] The divide between rich and poor is growing, and a sea change in legislation and attitudes towards the poor at the highest levels could transform this nation. Pray for wisdom for our leaders, wisdom for those that enforce the law and for trust to be re-established between those under the law and those that make the law. Particularly pray for the controversial Draft NGO Law.

eat

breakfast: 4 pieces of toast, 2 eggs $0.37
lunch(mindy): leftover fried rice $0.32
lunch(lyle): green bean/carrot stirfry on rice, piece of a leftover sandwich from drama party [and leftover cake] FREE
dinner: vegetable stir-fry w/ 50 grams of pork $0.63
Total: $1.32
Weekly total: $4.94

think

Today I (Mindy) thought a lot about wasting food. Some ants burrowed a hole through my entire eggplant, and I was so sad. I carefully cut around the holes to save every piece of eggplant possible.

Also, I’m not really great at cooking stirfry, and I tried a new method that a student taught me for the first time. I was so scared to mess up the flavour, leaving us with no choice but to eat something disgusting. As it turned out, it wasn’t spectacular, but it wasn’t bad.

As I cook everyday, I can’t help but feel the pressure. “If I mess this up , we have no other options. If I don’t feel like eating this, I have to eat it anyways.” Lyle and I like good food so much. We can give you a detailed review for almost every restaurant in town. I know that I can buy 10 mediocre meals for the price of one delicious meal, but I still choose the delicious meal. Maybe we’ve made an idol out of delicious food? Delicious food is a luxury, not a necessity. A full belly rests easier at night, regardless of how it tasted going in.

Having said that, I’m getting sick of rice products. I was jealous of Lyle’s free sandwich. My menu plan was going to be pad thai tomorrow, but it just sounds unappetizing. Lyle and I brainstormed and came up with fried eggplant sandwiches. mmm. One eggplant is 5 cents. That’s within our budget! Tomorrow we’ll tell you if it was delicious, or if it just filled our stomachs. I’m hoping for both!

pray

Today, we pray for students. As teachers, Lyle and I obviously both have a heart for students, and for empowering them to change their own country. We know that as foreigners we will merely influence a few, but our students will have the power to change the very systems that perpetuate poverty and injustice. It’s been exciting to see students join our dollar a day challenge. Together at lunchtime, we share our homemade foods and bemoan the fact that neither of us can buy a coke. This challenge, as well as the food project connected to it, were all an attempt to bring poverty a little closer to home. Experiences and relationships change worldviews more than my classroom ever will.

-Pray that experiences in dollar a day and relationships with poor families in the relocation site would change students’ worldviews.

-Pray for young people to look outside of themselves and see that the plight of their nation rests in the smallest of actions.

-Pray for wisdom, guidance and opportunities as our students graduate and enter the workforce.

eat

breakfast: 4 pieces of toast, 2 eggs $0.37
lunch/after dinner snack: vegetable curry and rice $0.75
dinner: BBQ skewers, Pepsi and bread (we paid $0.75 for charcoal, food was free)
Total: $1.87
Weekly total: $3.62

think

Usually on Sunday Mindy and I head to a local coffee shop to hang out, catch up or read in the morning before church. It’s definitely one of my favorite times of the week. There are tons of great coffee shops in Phnom Penh; from our internationally branded Gloria Jeans (~$4 per drink), to locally owned Brown (~$3 per drink), to Coffee Plus (<$2 per drink) at the Caltex gas station. You can go even cheaper still, if you're willing to sacrifice aircon and branded espresso beans - market coffee is only about $0.50!

Of course, even market coffee is out of reach at half our daily budget.

Our main activity was going to a friends birthday party. It was about 10km outside of town in a park built for parties. They had small huts on stilts over a man-made pond. There was grass, and flowers. Best of all, there was no noise.

As Mindy mentioned being poor is embarrassing. Normally we would have been able to bring more than charcoal to the party. Our friends are gracious, but it’s always slightly awkward to have that feeling of dependency.

Poverty is often linked in the public mind with dependency. But… the poor bear more responsibility for their lives than the rich, who coast along, enjoying chlorinated water, drawing a regular salary, paid directly into a bank account, perhaps with contributions to their pension and health care automatically deducted. The rich can indulge their weakness for cigarettes and alcohol without fear of financial ruin. The poor, in contrast, have to watch every cup of sugary tea.
-The Economist

pray

Today, pray for the wealthy.

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.
1 Timothy 6:17-18