Many mornings everyone walks to school, including those who do not have class that day and those who are too young to attend. We walk from classroom to classroom saying “goodbye” and “have a good day” and then make out way back home. One morning, as a handful of us were walking back from the […]
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Here at Wat Opot we don't only support our own resident children, we also support children in the community.
YOUTH IN TRANSITION
A group of past Wat Opot residents meet to share their experiences and discuss the future.

IN A ROCKET MADE OF ICE
Gail Gutradt was at a crossroads in her life when she learned of the Wat Opot Children’s Community. Begun with just fifty dollars in the pocket of Wayne Dale Matthysse, a former Marine Corps medic in Vietnam, Wat Opot, a temple complex nestled among Cambodia’s verdant rice paddies, was once a haunted scrubland that became a place of healing and respite where children with or orphaned by HIV/AIDS could live outside of fear or judgment, and find a new family—a place that Gutradt calls “a workshop for souls.”