Dear friends and family,

How was your month? We love getting feedback from you when you have time to send it.

This month we want to share a bit about our dear friend Deif Baumgartner. His sudden and unexpected death on February 21st from a heart attack has caused us to reflect on the life changing impact that he’s had in our lives.

Lukas, Benjamin and Deif 2020

Lukas first met Deif and his wife Mirjam in 2003 at a camping ground in Tenero, Switzerland. They invited him to eat dinner with them, and they enjoyed getting to know each other over the weekend. Lukas was especially intrigued by Deif’s deep faith in God. When they parted ways, Deif invited Lukas to come up to Bern and go to church with them. A few weeks later Lukas took him up on the offer, and the rest is history. From that point on, Lukas’ life completely changed. Through the years their friendship deepened. They were together on one of Lukas’ early trips to Cambodia, and when their daughter was born a few years later they asked Lukas to be her godfather. As Lukas grew and matured into the man he is today, Deif was always there, cheering him on. Our son Benjamin was born on Deif’s birthday, and of course, we asked Deif and Mirjam to be his godparents. Deif was one of those rare, wonderful people that believed in the very best version of you. Without him, Lukas and I wouldn’t be in Cambodia today. As I type this update, Lukas is on a flight to Switzerland to join the funeral on Tuesday. The family has asked that instead of sending flowers, that people donate to our projects in Cambodia. Even in his death, Deif is still cheering us on to be our best. 😭 He touched so many lives in his 46 years. We will miss him immensely.

Last month we had the opportunity to help our next door neighbours. The experience reinforced what we already know; Cambodia needs more social support programs, not more orphanages!

Benjamin and Tee

Our neighbors Boo and Ome are raising their granddaughter Tee, who is often at our house  playing with Benjamin. They live on a partially completed construction site and earn $100 a month to keep it secure and clean. Boo and Ome are illiterate, but he’s able to pick up odd jobs around town. In January Boo got sick, he went to the government clinic and was diagnosed with kidney stones. He scrounged together enough money to have them removed, but when they took out his catheter he couldn’t pee. They didn’t have any more money, so the doctors put a new one in and sent him home. From that point he continued to get worse instead of better. They were completely out of money, and to make matters worse the city cut off their electricity. In Cambodia there are few “social safety nets” like low income medical insurance, or other services like what we have in developed countries. If you are sick and run out of money like Boo and Ome and Tee, then you go hungry and die, unless your family or community is willing to help you out. We went to the other neighbors in our area and asked them to help us help him. One family offed to drive us to the doctor in their car, another offered to come and translate for me, and Lukas and I offered to pay the bill for a trip to the private hospital where Boo could get a proper diagnoses. He had a bacteria infection in his prostate and was immediately put on drip antibiotics and admitted to the hospital for two nights. In the end Lukas and I payed about $225 to save his life, but without it he might have died. It’s shocking to think that people such as Boo die every day because they don’t have $225, and their widows and grandchildren like Tee end up on the street and in orphanages.

Children in a tuk tuk

Speaking of social programs for the poor, last week we met with the pastors at New Life Church to discuss the feeding program. It’s been running for four months now, and they are excited about the results. They are already seeing academic progress in the children who attend regularly, and many of them also come back in the evenings for the English classes and on Sunday for kids church. In fact, some of them just hang out at the church all afternoon and evening, playing volleyball and chilling with friends.

The leaders have identified a few changes they would like to make beginning in April, to make the program even better.  Some of the changes include a better parent communication network, a tuk tuk to transport the smaller children to and from the school, and a $2 a day food budget increase, so that they can offer more nutritious meals. They also hope to add a small library, so that the kids have more things to do in their free time. Not all children want to play volleyball. 😉

Finally, Benjamin turned five! According to him he’s “a big boy now”.  At the moment he loves to ride his bike, play with his friends and build lego creations. He’s also very interested in submarines and submersibles, volcanos and natural disasters, another sign that he’s growing up. We celebrated his birthday eating together with our neighbors and of course having cake. There’s a precious video of him blowing out his candle in the photo link.

Well that’s it for this month. Thanks for taking the time to read, and here’s the photo link.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2hHuNLBinhNKt3aT8

Blessings,

Jenny, Lukas and Benjamin

PS. If anyone is interested in making a onetime donation for a tuk tuk or a reading corner library for the Lunch and Tutoring program, let me know and I can send you more details.