The village of Oudong, 40 kilometers northwest of Phnom Penh, welcomes visitors in blue T-shirts once again in August. They are the HOPE Worldwide volunteers from Taiwan, and have been building houses for the most desperate among them over the past few years.
How did HOPE Worldwide Foundation in Taiwan come to be of any business of building houses for the poor in Oudong? It is a long story that can be traced back six years ago, when a group of Christians from Taiwan, who came here to do voluntary work teaching sanitary information to the children in elementary schools here, learned about the need of the villagers. The poor people were forced to move from their homes in some slums in Phnom Penh, and dumped here without any compensations in 2012. They have been struggling to make a living in Oudong. Some of them tried to work in Thailand, some back in Phnom Penh, but still have difficulties to feed their family. Thus those young people from Taiwan decided to do something to help them.
Some of the families in Oudong lived in shacks that have leaks everywhere during rainy days. The lack of decent shelter make their difficult lives even harder when kids get sick. The adults could barely make ends meet, let alone finding money to fix the tumbling roof made of canvas cloths. Their children were bullied in school by local students, who claimed that the environment was filthy because of the influx of students from slums. The biggest problem is, they do not have enough toilets. Hundreds of students have to share only 4 toilets.
Seeing the pain and the need of the villagers, the Taiwan voluntary workers decided to do a long-term charity program to relieve the urgent need of the community. Since 2014, HOPE Worldwide Taiwan has built six stilt houses for the poor in Oudong, helping out two families each year. And they build toilets for schools too. This year some Christians from Hong Kong and Macau also joined the efforts.
This is my first time in Cambodia, and also my first time to build a building. I am a financial journalist in Taipei, so hammering nails and laying bricks are definitely not my strengths. But as a journalist that tells stories of numbers and find significance in statistics, I am no stranger to what "poverty line" is before I came to Cambodia. The World Bank draws a clear line for the "absolute poverty" by defining people under poverty line as those who earn less than $2 a day. It did not take me too long to realize that $2 is the lowest price for a drink in fancy restaurants in Phnom Penh.
Here in Oudong, I see many grandmothers and mothers who are struggling to feed three or four kids with meager income. I suspect their daily income exceeds $1 at all. A young mother of 3, and is expecting to have a new baby by the end of the year, told us that her husband, who is working at Phnom Penh as a construction worker, sends home $25 every month to keep bread on the table.
In Deuteronomy 15: 7-11, God taught us to be open-handed to help the poor. As disciples of Jesus, we saw a need, and thus we came to do whatever we can upon God's calling.
The brothers and sisters of the Phnom Penh church, especially Chahhvalith and Thi who worked in the Sihanouk Memorial Hospital and some alumni of the Goldstone School in Phnom Penh church were of great help to us. They not only helped coordinate our services and transportation, but also took turns to help the works at construction sites. They also helped overcome language barriers for us during the 2-week period whenever we need to communicate with locals. We appreciate the support and the hearts of the Christians here. Char and Thi, who work for the Sihanouk Hospital, even took leaves from the hospital to make this year's voluntary work a success.
We were very touched to see that HOPE Worldwide has done wonderful work over the years in Cambodia, including the Sihanouk Hospital and Goldstone Schools. They changed lives and brought hope to the people in this country. There are still tremendous needs to be met in the long term, but workers are few while funds are tight. The hospital has been seeing a drop in donations in recent years and need funds to make ends meet. We pray that God will provide them abundantly, so that more people can be helped and treated.
Many of us came as strangers, but already feel the urge to come back again as friends when boarding our plane back to Taipei. Indeed, some of our teammates have attended this voluntary mission for more than 2 years in a roll. It is the sixth year for Eric Hung, the initiator of this project, to serve in Cambodia. God calls us to love the poor and keep them in our hearts. Helping the poor is not just a humanitarian obligation. It is a way to keep us humbled, grateful, and soft-hearted. For people who grow up in Taiwan, what we see here in Oudong is a reminder to us that we should cherish what we have. We are privileged to have the ability to contribute.
We may not be able to stop the gap between the rich and the poor from aggravating in this country as the economy grows at an ever-faster speed, but we can definitely do something to help the poor see hope in ending the vicious cycle in their lives -- because God cares through the kindness of strangers.
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