MAKING A DIFFERENCE ONE LIFE AT A TIME
BUTTERFLY PARADISE ORPHANAGE
Wat Preah Yesu Children’s home is caring for orphaned and severely disadvantaged children in Cambodia. The Home is located in Siem Reap Province at the rural centre known as Wat Preah Yesu. In May, 2008, the home was caring for 137 children between 6 months and 19 years of age. The children mostly come from the poorer rural class of people, many of them having received very little or no schooling. Many of our children have been orphaned by the silent killer HIV/AIDS.
When a child arrives at the Wat Preah Yesu Children’s Home, they are immediately placed into a new family where they can receive the love and nurture that every child needs. The new family includes a husband and wife team as the new parents, the natural children of the parents and other orphans already integrated into the family. Up to 16 orphaned or disadvantaged children are placed into a family. The goal is to create a new lifetime family, with the orphaned children considering their new parents as parents for life. To this end the family operates as much as possible like any normal Christian family. Wat Preah Yesu Children’s Home operates with minimal management, based on the belief that every family should manage itself. Tim and Wendy Maddocks, the founders and co-directors of the Home, provide management assistance and counseling when required.
We presently have nine families. The families are housed in duplex buildings. Each family has a large family room, One large boys and one large girls bedroom with double bunk beds, a bedroom for the parents, an outside attached kitchen, a large open dining area, and wash room. Toilets are detached from the house. The wide veranda around the house, the high sloping ceilings and louvered windows in the gable of the roof create a comfortable environment for tropical weather conditions. Families are encouraged to grow vegetables, giving the children opportunity to interact with the natural things that God has created for man’s pleasure.
Each family operates under Christian principals and the children are encouraged to develop their own relationship with God. The children are educated at the Cambodia Adventist School-Kantrok, which is also located on the Wat Preah Yesu property.
At the Wat Preah Yesu Home, there is no stigma associated with HIV/AIDS. Our twenty five children who are HIV+ are treated just like the other children, with the exception that they receive specialized medical care and anti-retroviral medications provided by the Angkor hospital for Children.
Eligible children are identified through the network of Seventh-day Adventist congregations throughout Cambodia, by the Angkor Hospital for Children (located in Siem Reap), or by the government children’s welfare department. These children are assessed and if eligible accepted into the Home. We currently have children originating from 10 provinces.
The orphanage is operated on the same principals of faith that George Mueller operated his famous Bristol orphanages. While we do not solicit funds, they are needed and welcome. All staff are volunteers, receiving USD 27.5 per month + food and accommodation. The cost of supporting a child for living costs and education is approximately USD45 per month. The duplex house design used at the home will accommodate 32 children in two families. The Home master plan includes 8 duplexes buildings which will accommodate up to 250 children. The cost of construction and equipping of a duplex house is approximately USD 45,000. We do not do individual sponsoring of children thus avoiding favouritism and giving children without sponsors a sense of being unloved. Most financial supporters make unspecified donations to be used as needed or have funded part or the full cost of a duplex construction or another project of their choice. Â If you are ever in Siem Reap, plan to visit with the children and maybe add to their growing English vocabulary by teaching them a few new words.
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STORY
Sompos was born with severe mental retardation. When she was about 6 months old she became very sick. Her parents realizing that she was not normal took her to Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap and left her on one of the seats in the waiting area of the hospital. A nurse noticed Sompos was unattended and admitted her to the hospital. After more than a month of hospitalization Sompos was improving in health, although she was still being fed through a nose tube. The hospital began looking for a new home to take care Sompos, not an easy task considering Sompos' severe mental retardation. They contacted us to see if our orphanage would take her.
To accept her would mean hiring a full-time worker just to care for her and potentially be committing our Ministry to her lifetime support. There was only one thing to do, and that was "what Jesus would do"! We accepted Sompos and hired an additional staff member to take care of her. It has not been easy, at first feeding her through a nose tube and then by bottle and after more than a year by spoon. Her carers have had to learn how to do physiotherapy for her and faithfully do it every day. In all that time, Somphos has never been able to show a single sign of appreciation to her house parents and her full time carer, not even a smile.
Somphos has grown a lot, but is prone to illness. As I write she is in the intensive care unit of the hospital and the prognosis does not look good.
We praise God that He gave us the privilege of caring for Somphos. Her story is much like that of mankind. Sin has caused man to be severely retarded in his desire to show appreciation to His creator and sustainer-the living God in heaven. Despite that, God continues to untiringly take care of man simply because His love for us is unconditional. May God help us to love the children of Cambodia without conditions.
SOMPOS'S STORY
During a visit to the border town of Osmach, Wendy and I were told a sad story of three orphans who had been taken in by a local family. The youngest, a 2.5 year old girl had reportedly been bought for USD$3.75. These poor kids are allegedly beaten, made to work as slaves, and forced to eat with the pigs. The authorities have tried to catch this family abusing the children, but unsuccessfully. I suspect they have not tried very hard, but wanted us to
think well of them. Sadly there was nothing we could do for these poor children, accept pray that God would intervene. Wendy and I prayed that if it was the Lords will, that He would deliver the young girl into our hands. We left Osmach and waited on the Lord's timing and will.
God heard us and moved upon the heart of the girls aunty. She had sold her niece the wealthier family after the girls mother had died of AIDS in January. Shortly after we left Osmach, the aunty went to see how her niece was going and discovered the girl malnourished scarred from
beatings and often made to sleep on the ground under a tree. She demanded the girl back but was refused. Returning to her shack of a home, she asked her husband to take a gun and get the child back. He did and the child was handed over with no questions asked. I was then notified by a concerned neighbor that the girl was now able to enter the orphanage.
The motor bike and I had a pleasant journey up to Osmach, stopping in at some villages along the way to assess a number of orphaned girls. On reaching Osmach, I sought out the concerned neighbor who had originally told me of this little girl and he lead me to her aunties home. There I found a fat bellied, skinny armed girl (brought about from malnutrition). She was silent, showing no open fear of my presence or my blue eyes which often bring out shrieks of fear from the brown eyed children. Her name is Ouy (Oy-ee). Her father was a soldier but died a couple of years ago, the people said it was AIDS. As is usually the case with AIDS, the mother died a year or so later, leaving Ouy, an only child, in the hands of her poverty stricken Aunty. I am sure the aunty had good intentions when she gave Ouy to a wealthier family, although she may have feared Ouy was HIV+ and would bring trouble to the family.
Paper work completed I placed Ouy in front of me on the motor bike and we began the 170 km + journey home. First stop was at a market restaurant for my lunch. The aunty had assured me that Ouy had already eaten. For a small girl who had just eaten she certainly downed a lot of food at the restaurant and continues to down food like every meal is her last. We then took a slow ride down the mountain to Cher Krom, a village about 20 km from Osmach where we have a church. The road is such that most of you would not wish to take your four wheel drive along it should you have one. Ouy whimpered momentarily twice but otherwise remained silent, choosing to fall asleep about 3 km from Cher Krom. This created I whole new problem. It is one thing to travel a four wheel drive track on a off road motor cycle with a two year old, it is another with a sleeping two year old. I could not stop as there were large black clouds threateningly coming down the mountain after us. Saturday morning I preached to a group of 40 and then proceeded to my next preaching appointment, some 35 km away. This appointment met, I began the last 110 kms of the journey at 3:30 pm Sabbath afternoon. I tried several tricks, such as using a scarve to tie her me like a lap belt in a car, to make steering a motorbike with a two year old asleep in front of me manageable. Saturday evening with 50 km left before reaching home, I finally found the solution. I buttoned her torso and head into my shirt. She slept comfortably and I had both hands free. We arrived safely home about 8:00 pm, Ouy well rested and myself thoroughly exhausted. Ouy has now settled down in one of the orphanage houses and appears to be doing well. She was tested for HIV yesterday and turned up negative, praise the Lord!
Your Prayers and financial support help us to provide safe loving homes for children like Ouy.
OUY'S STORY
Suk began life as a looser. Her mother was of less than average intelligence. Her father, a soldier, died shortly after her mother conceived. Reports say that her mother and fathers relationship was casual beginning with rape. Her only other relative was an aged grandfather who supported himself and his daughter by begging. When Suk was 4, her mother managed to get pregnant again, but no husband to show for it. Just after Suk's brother was born, Suk became seriously ill and was taken to the local district hospital, where she slipped into a coma. the nurses at the hospital kept her alive with intravenous fluid but her condition did not improve.
At this point God intervened using His servant on the ground. Samrit, had completed the four month lay training course at Wat Preah Yesu and decided to go as a "Tent-maker" to Sreysnom District, Siem Reap. Figuring the hospital had a captive audience, Samrit went to visit the patients at the hospital, where he learned of Suk's story. The following day while out visiting the churches in his pastoral district, Tim visited with Samrit. Samrit lead Tim to the hospital where the nurses talked about Suk's condition. They had lost hope but said if Suk could get to the Children's hospital should would have a chance. Tim organized Samrit to escort Suk, her mother, grandfather and younger brother to the Angkor Children's Hospital in Siem Reap town. Suk arrived later that day, severely malnourished and still in a comer. On returning to Siem Reap, Tim visited Suk in the hospital. The doctors informed him that she needed a Cat Scan, as it appeared she had considerable brain damage, and they did not have the facilities. Suk would need to be transferred to a different children's hospital. A motorbike taxi was hired and the transfer completed. The second children's hospital have a "no foreigner policy", which means we lost contact with Suk for a week. At the end of that week the Angkor Children's hospital notified us that Suk was back and conscious but very malnourished and would need to stay in hospital for some time. The other hospital had discharged her.
Tim had been asked to take Suk and her brother into the orphanage as the family situation was destitute. Tim had been praying that if God wanted Suk in the orphanage that He would grant her consciousness, if not to let her sleep. When Suk regained consciousness, she was blind, very weak and apparently unable to hear. During the next week she made a miraculous recovery, regaining her hearing, then her sight and beginning to walk. Within two weeks she was trying to talk again.
Suk is no longer a looser because Jesus has brought her out of her comer of darkness and into the light of His love. She does appear to be slightly retarded but has adapted well to life with her new family in the orphanage and has begun kindergarten. God has a place for her in his kingdom. Suk's brother, now named Samson, is also a resident in the orphanage.
SAK'S STORY