ADRA

April 14
Monday

For the first time being here I felt like I was doing something for the good. Volunteering in Cambodia is pleasant, but I feel like I’m not doing anything. On all the mission trips I have been on I felt like I was doing something for the good. Why, am I here? What did God bring me here for? Was it to strength my relationship with him? Was it to be comfortable with myself and know that I can be on my own? Was it to bring out the faults in myself to realize and fix them? WHY!?
Just last week seven hundred houses or so burnt down. It was really sad to see all the families live on the streets. Cambodia doesn’t need that! I was discussing the topic with Silvia on Sabbath and I asked if they figured out how it started. She said that people suspect the government. I looked at here perplexed and she explained to me that the government will do what it wants to do at any costs. Because money controls everything here! Its sad and sickening to think that your own government will burn down your house just to build fancier houses or an organization that will bring in more money for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer! I was really disturbed by the fact of this and decided that I wanted to help out the people whom lost everything they had.
ADRA is an organization here in Cambodia that helps the people live healthier lives and answers to major disaster calls; seven hundred houses burning down falls under the category of major disaster. So, on Saturday afternoon instead of sleeping I decided to work with ADRA to package the food to give out the next day. The bags consisted on 5 kilo’s of rice, noodles, soy sauce, cooking oil, and some kind seasoning. My job was to scoop the rice out of the bags into littler ones for the people. By the end of the day my hand was so sore, but I still helped out. Around 5ish Porm and Dream came to help out, Prom put the noodles and other stuff into the bags while Dream helped me. It was nice to see them help out.
On Sunday morning I woke up at 5:30 to go to Anna’s house (meeting area) to leave. We had three little trucks filled with the bags and one big hull truck; all of which were filled to the max. Arriving there was pretty over whelming, lots of people going every which way to set up the area. The government decided to just make rows to put the food. ADRA was not the only organization that helped out; Red Cross and Zaman International School. Red Cross provided mats, eating utensils and bowls, tarp, and sarongs. Zaman provided two 50 kilo bags. It was nice to help out. God really had mercy on all of us because just that morning around 4 it rained, which resulted in a cloudy and windy morning; I was thanking God. I would have died if I had to work in the sun. But because of the rain it was really muddy, so one of our trucks got stuck in the mud. Kham Phia, Nova and I tried our hardest to get it out of the mud. LOL!
Also I got to go into a temple. It was kind of cool. There were painting on the walls that told a story. I didn’t understand, but it was nice to see. The monks there were trying to get me to take lots of pictures of them. I was getting annoyed and just pretended to take pictures of them towards the end because I didn’t want to waste my battery.
We unloaded all the trucks by making a line to pass the bags. Towards the end my arms started feeling like jello. I almost fell over on top of Sharon. In the end it felt good to help others. This is what I miss feeling when I help. Maybe because my work is not finished I don’t have that satisfactory feeling. I will just have to wait for it.