Hi family and friends

Love and blessings to you all this Christmas and New Year! We are back online after a few problems, and we have attached a letter with some news and photos. Jason, Caroline, Ellie and Sophie

Read Jason and Caroline's latest Newsletter (Berry's Family Update)

In an effort to share our experiences I've summarised my recent trip with Samaritans Purse to Poipet.... hope you enjoy the read.

From Killing fields to fields of hope...

Poipet is a town on the boarder of Cambodia and Thailand.   To quote the Lonely Planet guide '5 minutes in Poipet is 5 minutes too long'.   Casinos are illegal in Thailand, so between the border crossing, a no mans land of big tacky casinos exists ready and eager to take people's money.   It's a town that epitomizes all of Cambodia's ills - rampant child trafficking and prostitution and crime.   Apparently somewhere between 70 and 80% of all children who are trafficked through south east asia pass through the border at Poipet.   Children are at the greatest risk, as their parents send them across the border to earn money anyway they can.   With 90% of all schools destroyed during the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot in the 1970's, most children do not go to school and therefore themselves become commodities to be bought and sold.

To help meet this need Samaritans Purse has committed to building schools in Poipet to give children a future.   On Wednesday I witnessed something special…. the opening of a new school funded by a husband and wife from Australia.

The opening of the School was so significant that the Secretary of State travelled 8 hours from Phnom Penh to officially open the school. At 9am on Wednesday we all stood in a line alongside the road that leads to the school awaiting the arrival of this important dignitary.
As the Secretary of State (His Excellency Houn Sothea) surveyed the school filled with the sound of kids in various stages of play and learning, he began to cry.   This was very unusual for a S.E. Asian man to cry in public.  But it was also a very unusual situation.

A few years earlier the site of the school in Poipet, Cambodia was barren and dangerous: filled with landmines—horrible leftovers from a war a generation ago.   Innocent victims (usually kids) regularly fell prey to their destruction.

Samaritans Purse Cambodia saw this and responded by training and equipping teams to detect and defuse the mines.   The four teams methodically covered ground, carefully removing and rendering the mines inoperable.   Now, upwards of 600 mines a week are removed, making land useable for people to live on, build on and farm.  

Samaritans Purse has begun to build primary schools on the recovered land. The vast majority of the kids crossing the Thai border to work for meagre wages and suffer many other kinds of exploitation were now having the chance to go to school.   Wells were dug.   Latrines built. Enrolment soared; their parents thankful that their children could even go to school.  These fields bordering Thailand in N. Western Cambodia have been changed from destroying lives to giving these kids a new lease on life.   750 kids are now enjoying an education, with plans for more schools to come. 

As the Sec. of State found his voice, he explained that this was the reason he was crying. Our Samaritans Purse team is praying that this compassionate outreach will cause many of our government relationships to seek the source of the grace we minister in the name of Christ.

The highlight was seeing the children in their shiny white new uniforms.   We distributed pencils and note pads to each child.  Sadly in Cambodia public schools are only open to students who can afford to buy 2 uniforms and provide their own notebook and pen.   The total cost of these meagre essentials is about $17…sadly many children miss school simply because their parents cannot afford the cost of uniforms and stationery.

Once again I was reminded how much can be achieved with so little…to build the school, including clearing landmines, buildings, uniforms for 300 students, stationery, play equipment…just cost $65,000.   

How awesome was it to see hundreds of kids in uniforms enjoying a new school.   What previously was a killing field littered with landmines was now a field of hope giving children an education and stopping kids from going over the border.   

What an awesome opportunity to impact and bring hope to so many children.

I also visited Angkor Wat as part of the trip….

We travelled to Angkor Wat…. along the 'highway' from Poipet…. I use the word highway loosely…the road was incredibly bumpy, and we were driving in a van that had no suspension…so we felt every bump.   The journey was only about 300km but took over 6 hours!

…Angkor what you say?  Like many Australians, I've heard the 7 wonders of the world, like the great pyramids in Egypt or the Great Wall of China.   So, when I was told that Angkor Wat was just as impressive to be honest I wasn't convinced.  How could something that I've never heard of rival the great pyramids of Giza?   How wrong was I!

I left the comfort of Phnom Penh and ventured north on a 6-hour bus ride with Chea (Samaritan Purse's Logistics Manager).   We were meeting some donors and board members from Samaritans Purse Australia at Siem Reip. The donors flew into Siem Reip to visit Angkor Wat, prior to attending the opening of the school that Samaritans Purse in Poipet.  

Siem Reip is unlike any other town in Cambodia.   Since the country was declared safe by the UN in 1993, tourists have been pouring into Siem Reip from the west to take in the awesome temples of Angkor.   Tourists numbers have been increasing at a rate of 50% annually, so the town is surrounded by massive 4 and 5 star resorts all geared up to cater for the western tourists every need.  

We visited Angkor Wat on Monday, and we only had 5 hours to walk around and explore just a fraction of the ruined temples.   The attached photos will give you a glimpse of the sheer grandeur of the temples of Angkor.   One temple alone is the largest religious temple in the world.   The temples were built in the 12th century, back when Cambodia was a hindu nation, and in the 15th century became Buddhist temples after the change in the country's religion.   One of the first westerners to visit Angkor Wat in the 16th century said ' "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world’

There are over 2000 ruined temples spread across the Angkor region, and many tourists will spend a week crawling over the ruins.   Sadly, we only had 5 hours, but in that time we were able to see the 4 biggest temples.   We were able to climb all over the ruins, and believe me some of the towers were over 40 metres high with incredible steep and decaying steps…the government haven't realized that allowing thousands of people to climb over the ruins will lead to more erosion…so its really every guys dream to pretend like you are Indiana Jones exploring the temples!!!    The photo's don't do it justice, so if you want to find out more about Angkor Wat go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat 

Thanks for your prayers and encouragement.

God bless,

Jason