#10 - Waterfall in the house - The Big Flood!

<4th week - 3 June 2013 to 9 June 2013>

*** Update 1 of 3 ***

If you remember our posting last week, we were down at HHEC for the villagers fellowship meeting last Monday.  But we didn’t tell you what happened when we arrived at the center….. When we exit the van, we saw a village-lady in her early 50s sitting on the bench waiting for us.  Our School Principal, Pastor Sarorn, told us she came to the school over an hour ago waiting for our arrival because she thought we will be holding a medical clinic that day.  This lady has been coughing up blood for many days and finally her niece, a young man in his 20s, decided to get her some help and he heard about our school and our medical clinic from others and brought her to our center.  We praise God that our work and our love have spread around the villagers and they know to come to us for assistance.

After we learned about the situation, we suspected the lady may have tuberculosis (TB) or ammonia, we immediately decided to provide her with some money and sent her to the hospital.  Doctor confirmed it’s TB and half of her lung is not functioning well (not sure what disease due to poor translation), and she will be hospitalized for 3 months.  Our School Principal made a few follow up visits and found out she is also a victim of domestic abuse, her husband and son are both alcoholic and she has no money to buy food so she can only find fruits in the jungle to sell or for herself.   Please pray for her and her family and pray for wisdom for us to help this lady and her family in the future.  We will continue to follow up with her in the following weeks.

Pastor Sarorn is giving the "hand-cracked" radio to the lady who has been coughing with blood
and her niece who brought her to HHEC to seek help

We are also trying to follow up with all the “new believers” who made a confession of faith during the past months’ medical clinics.   We have some home visits and actively invite them to come to our weekly fellowship meetings.  Please pray for them as they get to know Christ more and pray for courage as they are facing many resistance from their friends, families and neighbor about their new found faith.

*** Update 2 of 3 ***

We have another very busy week last week.  It is the last week for Pastor Billy and Jeanne to be in Cambodia hence we are busy with the transition of the work, swamped with paperwork.

Also, we met another missionary couple from the USA whom have been living in Cambodia for over 18 years.   We visited the orphanage and a small school they started.  They happen to be our neighbors too.

We also visited the Kurmul International School, which is a primary school started by the Hong Kong Evangelical Church, Evangelical School Development Corp. and the Free Methodist Church of Hong Kong.   We met one of the teachers from Hong Kong whom started teaching in the school 6 months ago.

We are so touched by all these brothers and sisters who dedicated their lives serving others in every corner of the world and we have so much to learn from every one of them.

Orphanage entrance

Pre-school at orphanage

 Bedroom at orphanage

Kurmul International School buildings and sport activities areas

Kurmul International School started by Hong Kong Evangelical Church, Evangelical School Development Inc Ltd,
and Free Methodist Church of Hong Kong in Nov 2010

*** Update 3 of 3 ***

Waterfall in the house – The Big Flood!!

We have a huge flood in the house last Thursday evening.  We have a very strong terrestrial rain started around 5pm and while we were cooking in the kitchen we heard Joelle screaming “It’s raining in the house” and we realized water is running down from the upper floor down the stairs to the living room.  Pastor Billy, Jeanne, Yi, and Sarorn were just coming into the house and every one rushed to help.  We found out the water is rushing thru the gap under the guest room’s balcony door because the drain in the balcony is too small and was also blocked by some construction debris.  Sarorn tried to clear the drain but the rain was too hard and he decided to break the balcony and make a bigger hole to drain the water.  Sarorn’s plan worked after hammering for 30 mins and he was soaking wet.  While Sarorn is busy hammering, we were trying to stop the water from coming into the house and try to dry the little “river” from the top floor guest room balcony all the way down to the living room.  After a 2 hours battle, the rain stops coming into the house, the floor were dried and we needed to prop up all the furniture in the guest room to help the bottom dry.

It’s definitely a nightmare that we would never want to see again.  On Saturday, we had another power cut (blackout) in the morning and then we had no water for a few hours in the late afternoon.  Gryphon and Joelle really understand not to take a reliable source of electricity and water for granted!!

It was such a blessing to us that Sarorn, Yi, Pastor Billy are Jeanne are all in the house when it happened.  We want to have a special thanks to them.  If they were not at our house when it happened, our place will be flooded and the damage will be un-imageable.

Sky was getting dark before the terrestrial rain

Sarorn hammered for 30 mins to break a hole to let the water out from the balcony

Our original pipe at the balcony looks like this, it was too small as it is and it was blocked by small stones.
Water accumulated very quickly at the balcony and flooded into the guest room.  The water is about 2 inches deep all over the guest room and start to rush thru the door and down to the stairs to the ground.  It is really like a small waterfall in the house)