Hello dear ones,

How was your September? I know it’s a busy season for many of you with children. Since Benjamin won’t start at the international school until January, we didn’t have any big transitions, life just went on as normal, but here are a few highlights from our month! 🙂

Lukas went out on two scouting trip with the Minister of Health for Kampot Province and “Pa Dale”, a missionary who has been working in Cambodia for more than 30 years. They tested water and evaluated several different locations for future wells and water filters. The idea is that the three of us (the government, the missionary and our NGO) can work collaborative to drill wells, test water and install filters. The first location will be a rural public school and is scheduled to happen on October 11th. Hopefully we’ll have some photos and a report in the next newsletter.

One of the reoccurring issues that we’re encountering is that other organizations, missions, even the government drill wells or install filters, but they don’t test the water. One of the schools that they visited as a possible location already had a well and a filtration system, but the well has high levels of salt, so no one drinks the water. Whoever drilled the well and installed the filter must not have tested for chemical compounds, or done a followup visit to see if the filter was being used. On one hand this is discouraging, but on the other hand, it validates the importance of our work and having a laboratory where we can test for more things than just bacteria.

September 21-23 was Pchum Ben, the final three days of a 15-day Cambodian festival where families honor deceased relatives by making offerings of food and prayers at pagodas. It’s also a time to celebrate with food and friends, so for my final English class before the holiday, we tried to cook one of the recipes from a reading activity in the book, “Toad in a Hole.” I found the recipe online, printed it out and gave it to one group to read aloud, and a second group needed to follow their verbal instructions and make the recipe. This resulted in lots and lots of laughter and eventually a yummy snack.

In addition to my regular Thursday evening English class, I’ve also been substitute teaching at Benjamin’s preschool while some of the teachers have been on vacation. As usual, it’s a real joy to be able to contribute to our community here.

The public schools are on their annual break, so the Lunch and Tutoring program is also taking a few weeks off. Pastor Noeurn and his family took us out to lunch and shared their appreciation for the last year of support. They are planning to continue on with the program and hope that they can grow and reach more children in the next school year. We hope so too!

I think that’s enough for this month, here’s the photo link.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/CNaRvWZR8TEFR8EGA

Have a great October everyone!

Jenny, Lukas and Benjamin