We have only a few days before school starts again and most of the work projects for the break are completed. Since working is the only way for the older boys to get cash they decided to create their own project and came to me with an idea. There was an old Buddha that did not fit in with the new temple and so they asked the Monk if they could have it. It had been painted an ugly color and was chipped and faded. My first reaction was to tell them to bring it back but they insisted that with some sanding and new paint they could make it look good again.

Where to put it was the second problem, but since the furniture from the Gazebo had just been brought to the dormitory, that seemed like a good place for it and so they began cleaning and painting the Gazebo.

The stand that was available for the Buddha to sit on was to tall for the Gazebo and so we decided to create our own stand with some left over brick from the construction of the pig farm. It took about 5 days to complete and only a few dollars for paint but we now have a nice place where they can sit and relax, while taking pride in knowing that they did all of the work by themselves.

September 14^th was a busy day at Wat Opot. Not only did we have 6 Japanese cultural exchange students with Project Friends, who were on day 4 of their 6 day stay, but 12 nursing students from Meijigakuin University in Tokyo, Japan were coming for half a day.

After arriving and getting the full tour, the students settled down to watch some of the Video’s of the children; which confronts the adjustment to Wat Opot as well as ongoing discrimination surrounding HIV AIDS. Afterwards they had questions about ARV’s (how the children cope with taking medication 2x a day) and the prevalence of the disease in Cambodia.

After their questions were answered they announced that they had prepared an activity for the children, so we gathered everyone into the kitchen area. Out came a guitar and joyful voices soon followed as the children looked on with hesitant stares and giggles, but the students continue on unabated. It wasn’t long before a few children joined in mimicking the words and hand motions of the students. By the 2^nd popular Barney-ish song (you know, the kind that sticks in your mind all day and to the unfortunate few, flows through the mind the first thing upon waking the next morning.).  Most were joining in the fun and by the 3^rd song a couple of the energetic Nursing students had even wrangled in the older boys; which, if anyone knows teenage boys, is not an easy feat!

After an hour or so, the ‘good-bye’ song was winding down after each student, volunteer and adult (from our newest resident little 2 yr. old Rortana to old man Wayne, himself) had been pulled into the circle. One last Skinamarinkydinkydink song and they bid their farewell.

Even though they had only been at Wat Opot a short while, they will be remembered and seeing some of their teary eyes, WE won’t soon be forgotten either!

Melinda Kay Lies

Right now the children are on school break and so the younger ones spend much of the day just running around. Most of them have lived their lives in rural areas and so can find plenty of things to do. They hunt snakes and small animals or catch small fish in any number of the ponds and lakes around us. As you can see in the picture however, we have not gotten much rain yet this year and so most of our fish ponds have only a little water in them. We would like to restock our ponds but must wait until they are full of water first or else the ponds could dry up and we would lose our investment.

We don’t have many fish left and so we have moved what we have into the small pond in front of the new dorm where we can pump what water we have left from other ponds until the rains come, hopefully sooner than later.

Because the weather has been so hot, we are really grateful for the new rain water drinking system that was provided for us by UNICEF and the South Korean Video group that filmed the TV documentary last year. We can not afford bottled water for all of the children and so having these refilling stations is really great.

Construction is an ongoing process at Wat Opot. Many of our buildings were built as temporary shelter because of limited funding and so as we get new funds we try to improve on them.The older boys do most of the work, saving us a lot on labor.

We are grateful for the few supporters that we have left but are continually looking for new ones. One of the problems we have in finding new supporters however is that we look to good. All of the money we get goes into our project and we work hard at keeping our campus looking great but because of that people assume we are well funded. People like to give to new programs where they can see exactly where their money is going but few people want to fund an ongoing program like ours because they can not take credit for it. This year we will have four of our children in University and over twenty children in secondary school. That is going to be costly for us and we will need your support if we are going to accomplish this. What is the point of giving a small child a second chance at life, if you are not going to give them and opportunity to succeed when they get older?

Wayne Dale Matthysse