September 2018.

Praise the lord to start, right.  So we’ve been working really hard to become tax complaint as all NGO’s here are doing.  Well yesterday we got our Tax license but we also got word that we as an NGO will only pay tax on rent and employee tax nothing more.
Far, far different than what we have been told over these past months from the different tax departments.

SO GOOD…

The school is starting it’s 9th school year we are currently registering students for the 2019 – 2020 school year and we’re closing in on 700 students.  My staff is saying 750, but I’ve not seen those papers yet, so quite exciting to constantly see growth of 100 new students each year.
The hard work is begetting more hard work.  We’ve been trusted with some and we have been given more.

Over the past 8 years we’ve sent I think with out counting, 29 teachers through college.  In exchanged they sign a contract to work for us for 6 years.  A number of them hope to go work for the government, some desire to stay longer.
Every once and awhile have teacher that lie to us they have us send them to college to get their degree with the sole purpose to not work for us but to run straight to a government job.   This morning Ream was in court mediation a second time arguing contract details with the local leadership over a teacher who skipped out on her contract.  The teacher will loose her certificate and have to repay double the college fees according to the contract she signed.  It’s a rough thing, it’s not a place we’re suppose to find ourselves in every so often.  At the same time we can’t afford 29 teacher to follow suit and run off.  It adds a lot of stress to the ministry, it also sets that class back 4 years while we wait to raise up another teacher as well as burdening our other teachers that have to fill her place.   Many time these problems arise as a teacher gets married and the husband decides the wife doesn’t need to work any more.

Our 12th grade class just took their test maybe 2 weeks ago.  The 12th of Sept. we’ll find out the details of pass and fail.  There is a lot of stress over that this year as they really made the test harder this year, much harder than last year.  They have also increased the scrutiny on the teachers correcting the tests.  The have cameras and security in the grading rooms and teachers are patted down for blue pens so that can’t correct problems for the students.  One teacher has passed out and one teacher had a heart attack and died while grading the test this year.

We have a teacher that is a part of the grading this year who is sharing the stress they are going through.  The word is they are trying to put such great pressure on the top of the school so that it forces the bottom to comply with no cheating and better teaching.  It’s our view that they need to put the pressure on the lower classes and get them to do better and not create such problems for the classes graduating.  The whole country is expecting high failure rates this year.  Might be #1 but at 50% pass rate.  We’ll see what happens; a lot of people are biting their nails this year.

Our to do list:
We’re working on pricing a roof for the basketball court.  Good news is our $20,k guess it looking more like $10,k if we do an arched roof.

We are remodeling the lawn.  Were going to raise it to ensure great drainage.  We’re putting a running space around the yard for sports kids and do everything we can to maximize the longevity of the grass that gets planted this time as the classes this year killed it in a couple months.

We also started to plan and price the second story of our team house.  As the amount of the children at the orphanage continues to decrease they will move to a smaller home.  We’ve only 5 boys now and 8 girls, next year when the orphanage is to renew it’s license we will change to a children’s home and not an orphanage.  It will take us from a highly structured, regulated institution to more of a home.  The regulations will be much less almost nothing.

As the kids we have left move to the new house we will renovate the existing building into class rooms.  At some point Ream and I will have to relocate as well, we’re saving for that right now as much as we can.  I’m excited to get our own home not apart of a project.  A not on the 3rd floor.  I hope to never climb a flight of stairs again to get home.  Also I am hoping to lure mother and father in-law to living with us that we might care for them better as they age.

So a lot of changes in the future with all that to do.

Construction Project:
Budgets to be set for the basketball roof about $10,k

The Yard remodel set at $1,k

The New House for the children about $35,k educated guessing at the point.

Trips: 
Our youth group is planning it’s first get away as a “church”  we have about 80 regular kids going to go to and island for a weekend.
We estimate that will cost us $900
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh_Thons%C3%A1y

We are taking our 4o something staff on our 2nd annual retreat to Siem Reap temples, many of them have never been.
We estimate that will cost us $550
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat

We are taking the 13 kids at the house for their summer vacation to stay on a mountain by the beach.  I don’t remember us getting a vacation last year actually.  We’ve not really gotten into cost on this one yet but are expecting $500 ish off the top of my head.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokor_Hill_Station

I’ve mentioned before we’re taking 6 of our college kids to Thailand for a week to a Asian mission conference plus a little fun.  It’s the first time out of the country or on a plane for 4 of them.  Theses 6 have committed to working with us in ministry and so we’re getting them a bit of experience so they can have some ideas to pull from when our “church” becomes a reality.  We want to take them to the zoo there as well as an aquarium, they’ve never seen anything like that.  I am really excited for them.

We’re pretty close to having this trip fully funded.  Thank you to everyone who gave.
http://foundationsasia2820.com/

Two other pretty important things taking place I want to share with you.

#1. A school fund is being created by some friends to cover tuition for any child who can not afford our school anymore.
We really try and keep kids who fall behind in payments but if we have a waiting list of paying students for the class we often have to change students over pay issues.  This has been a really long business plan to get tuition high enough to cover the teacher salaries until all the classes are filled and paying for themselves.  High school has 7 teachers for a grade but only 10 students on average.  so the smaller grade have always covered those negatives.    Anyways a group at home is now trying to cover the children who fall behind so we don’t have to make changes and don’t have to worry about tuition so much.  It’s a real win for everyone, because serving the poor is a big part of why we are here and business has been making that difficult.  When I know more about the program I’ll let you know.  Very likely it’s to be a $20 a month partnership to cover poor students fee, but again I’ll post it when I know.

#2. Also so very cool and important.  We’ve been promoting a bible / vocation / adult education type school for a long time always saying “the 5 year plan is.”  Well it’s started t a degree.  We’ve a teacher and 2 students aimed at being teachers.  So they are in a long term preparation period of prayer,  vision finding and studying.   We’re looking for more students and hopefully maybe get a class of 10 in preparation for a real class maybe 2 to 4 years from now.  I say that knowing God’s moved quicker that we expect a lot here.

Maybe you’ve heard it before or maybe not but, I’ve share with many about the vision I have years ago to help adults learn to read and write.  It goes a long with the school and it’s future.  There is a very high drop out rate here and the illiteracy rate is very high.  This is largely do to poverty, kids either go work or make way for a younger child, because families often can’t afford more than one child to go to school.  A number of my in-law’s didn’t get to finish school and helping them was a part of that vision.  There is also no real legitimate way for people here to go back to school.  There is no GED here, so when your out your out.
So our desire early on was having the school but also being able to provide education to adults in the evening.  My high school had a college extension campus operating at night and it’s what we hope to do.
Not to long ago Ream brought up the idea of vocation, skill classes.  The idea that quality skilled workers are hard to come by.  Christian skilled employees are so rare that NGO’s and churches are often trying to take each others workers, not always on purpose, but there’s a constant “hey come work for me” out there.  Even when I sent my college kids to YWAM they were asking our kids to stay and work.

So if our adult school was bible based and offered skills it would make out graduates highly desired.  Some one called it lovingly an “NGO Farm” which I think is actually great.  Also I see the opportunity where NGO’s are sending people to us for training.
We’re in prayer over these steps and those who are taking them.  We’re excited too see the idea and vision’s first steps becoming a reality.

For the vocation part of the school and college.  When I started Junior High and every grade after that I have had vocation classes or extra credit classes.  Home Ec., Mechanics, Wood shop, music, sports and so on.  I love this about my high school in Fallbrook, I guess because we were a rural high school that this was important to the school.  I’m hearing that these kinds of programs are being cut dramatically though in other schools which I find a bit of a shame.   I personally took Ag. and Accounting and track as well as architecture.   So I’ve a passion to see these types of classes active in our school.   We plan on carrying these over and expounding upon them into the college.  Teaching farming, admin, Mechanics, basic construction and all the things that make a well rounded person a good missionary and a valuable worker to the NGO’s and Churches.  I think as well great pastors, as they set out giving them the ability to do most of the work themselves in starting a church would only make his job easier.  Not bragging at all but I see these skill and things that I learned have all served me well here and when I had no laborer I was it and it got done, I still draw up the plans and only recently got a reliable accountant.  I think of the old school mission training schools in America use to teach stuff like laying bricks but now days it seems only bible.  Bibles important, #1 but missionaries are still laying brick.
One of our kids here helped us to see these truths as well.  He was my sidekick the whole time he was here and he was often doing more than I actually did.  Every time there was a broken pipe it was “Tee can you get that”.  This year Tee was in college and got a job with another NGO in the city.  The boss loves him dearly and has him is his right hand man.  The boss asked Tee “where did you come from?” and “are all the kids that way?” Largely it was just learning to doing things with “dad” (me).  But because he grew up in and NGO constantly creating and growing he was faced with endless things to do.  I mean we spent 4 months digging and building our own pool, drive ways, goat houses, pig pens and chicken coupes, gardens, fish ponds and the like.  Tee as a child also had a love for computers and can do many things Tech.  If the Vocation Bible college that were working towards can put out 30 or 60 Mr. Tee’s each year Cambodia is going to be a happier place.

So were headed to the city for supplies again today.  Thank you for listening to all that we have to share about what God is still doing here.

blessings