Day Out

Praise be to the one, true, living God! Isaac & I have been miraculously restored to full health!! Thank you all so very much for your prayer support. God heard & responded in mercy & power. Hallelujah!

Today we went out to the "roadside villages." I could not have imagined such a place. Wide paths run between rice fields. Alongside these "roads" are several makeshift shelters. Most are made of rough grasses weaved into walls (think Giligan's Island), but nearer to town have the luxury of scrap metal & discarded sheets of plastic.

The people living there drink, bathe & wash clothes & dishes in the ditch water between their huts & the fields. They eat rats, very small fish they catch in the rice, some rice & whatever vegetation they can find around the area.

Some moved into the area to find work in the rice fields. Some families have one member working & living in town who visits regularly to bring what little supply he can afford. Some have simply been born & raised there & remain there all their lives not knowing hope for anything else.

As is the case everywhere around Cambodia, the people are very friendly & eager to see what's going on when strangers come around. We took bags of food supplies to each hut, visited with the people (best one can without speaking the same language anyway) & played with children. The team's paramedic saw everyone in the village. Not that everyone needed to be seen, but everyone wanted to be seen. For those who had no need of medical treatment but were insistent to be treated, we gave bottles of rehydration mixture, vitamins, or rubbed a patch of skin with iodine.

Unfortunately there were several who really did need medical treatment & a few who needed treatment beyond the paramedics capabilities. I saw several cases that seemed sadly needless. The problem is just this, even a superficial wound not properly treated at the first can quickly become a serious infection. One little girl suffered a hot oil burn a few weeks back. Painful, to be sure, but if it had been treated right when it happened, she'd be fine today. Unfortunately, it was not treated well at all. They popped & peeled the large blisters, rinsed it with the ditch water & let it go. It is such a mess now that I wouldn't have identified it as a burn of any kind. I had to step away.

Even those who do not suffer from some obvious injury or condition are in very poor health. One woman was especially fond of me for some reason. She spent most of our visit holding my hand, hugging me & chattering thanks in Khmer. I was surprised to see someone so old. She looked to be in her early 90's. One of the volunteers who is very familiar with all the villagers told me that "gramma'" was 40 years-old. A woman I would've sworn was twice my age is actually years younger than I. I reckon washing down rat fillet with ditch water will do that to a person, but it was still a shock to see up close.

I know that all people have been individually created & formed & particularly placed on the planet by God out of love & for His glory & pleasure. I look at that "old" woman & wonder what He has in mind. Perhaps she looks at me & wonders the same.