Leah and Jed in Cambodia

Ever since our first trip to Cambodia during our first year in Asia, Leah has been moved to help out the people of this tragic, but warm country. I found a charitable organization called Journeys Within Our Community quite randomly by looking on-line. It seemed like a small grassroots organization and we took the opportunity to buy a well for a village. Leah immediately took to this group and she and her good friend, Claire Miller went to work raising money to buy more wells and help meet other needs of this fine organization. Many of you have helped Claire and Leah - Thank you!

At the same time, there is another organization called Caring for Cambodia that was started by a couple who are part of the Singapore American School community. Many of the students, including Leah, are involved in the Caring for Cambodia Club at SAS. They, also, do great work in Cambodia.

Well, Leah and I took part in a Caring for Cambodia weekend trip to a school that the organization built and sponsors. They needed a fence built, so a group of (mostly) fathers and their student children traveled to Cambodia to build this fence. The work was hard as we had to dig about 100 post holes in sun-baked, very hard dirt with a tool that only remotely resembled a shovel or post hole digger. Needless to say, it was quite hot as well. However, working in the group and seeing all the village children running around was inspirational and we completed the task. Many of the students helped, but they also had a good time playing with the children. The next morning the students returned to the school where they have a "food for thought" program and the local students are given breakfast. It was a nice experience with a good group of people.

When we realized we were going on this trip, Leah reached out to the "Journeys Within Our Community" people to see if we coud meet them. They had profiled Leah and Claire on their website and Leah had been in communication with them. So, on Saturday, we were picked up at our hotel by Andrea Ross, who along with her husband Brandon were the two who started this organization. As a young couple, they came to SE Asia and started a tour business call "Journeys Within". This business has grown and they run tours in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myranmar. After living and working in Cambodia, they realized they wanted to give something back to the community. Thus they started Journeys Within Our Community. They now are unpaid members of the Board and have a paid Director (currently a husband and wife team). We met Andrew, who is one half of this tandem (see the picture of Leah with the three of them below). In the morning, we saw the headquarters and the new school building they have just built. We were taken by some of their sponsored University students (they pay for University (USD500 per year) for some students and part of the deal is the students have to work some time with JWOC) to some of the villages where they do their water work. They build and maintain wells and also teach the villagers about the importance of clean water, etc. After returning to the headquarters, we walked through another village just behind their building. There we met this family of 6 who lived in this very small hut. Hopefully one of their children will be starting at the JWOC school soon. There is a picture of me with one of their children - this adorable little girl was so sweet. She just jumped into my arms. We had a lunch with the JWOC folks and Leah presented them with the lastest money she had raised (thanks to many of you) with which they are going to buy a GPS in order to keep track of all their wells and other wells built by prior groups that JWOC is now maintaining. It was an impressive group of people and a great day for Leah and I. You can see info about their tour business at www.journeyswithin.com and information about the charity at www.journeyswithinourcommunity.org

Looking forward to seeing many of you soon.

Jed and Leah