Phum Ley Village

Headman Croch Leng, second from right

One of the highlights of our recent trip was a visit to a remote village called Phum Ley (not to be confused with the previous village Phum Leav).

This is a medium sized village of 192 families in the middle of what seems like nowhere. The headman was Croch Leng, a very pleasant 62 year old man with heart disease. He explained that he had a plot of land which he would donate for a school if we could build one for the village. (They have since found a larger piece of land for the school, approx 43 x 26m...)

As we walked around the village, we came across children who were bright and alert, coming back from a 'pre-school'.

Sout Yon, and the preschool in the shack just behind me

We learnt that a 57 year old man, Sout Yon, was voluntarily gathering the young children and teaching them at pre-school level. Because of this very early introduction to school, the kids in the village were very enthusiastic about schooling.

What really humbled us and touched our hearts when a brother (who has requested to remain unnamed) among us offered to donate the costs for the construction of a 3 classroom school at Phum Ley, complete with toilets, and a well. This was something we never expected, and we really praise God for this unexpected shower of blessing.

The kids are also pretty innovative, and we were quite impressed by their engineering skills in constructing a push around toy made out of a plastic water bottle and 2 palm fruits as wheels.