"Forget about all that [that is, the things God did in the past]. It is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do a brand new thing.
See, I have already begun. Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness for my people to come home.
I will create rivers for them in the desert… Yes, I will make springs in the desert, so that my chosen people can be refreshed. I have made Israel [and Cambodian AIDS orphans] for myself, and they will someday honor me before the whole world."
When the orphanage was just a dream, we stood on the road and responded to that question in Isaiah "Do you not see it?"
It is a village on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. A place for AIDS patients and their families to live. And an orphange for the children whose mothers have died.
Surrounded by rice fields and sugar palm trees, there are thatch homes for familes, and cement buildings that include small homes for the orphans, a rec center, a learning center, two baby houses, two granny houses and a home for pregnant abandoned young women.
What started small has grown so much over the past few years. There are gardens, a fish pond and a chicken coop.
In 2008 we had the choice to either stop taking more children or build more houses. So we built another set of 10 houses for a potential 100 additional children.
Of course the real story of Place of Rescue are the families and the children.
In the AIDS homes both parents have AIDS. Often the father has already died or left his wife so she is raising the children alone.
Kids stay in small group homes, making it a lot easier for their dorm moms to take care of them. Our wonderful House mothers love the children like their own.
We now have 3 playgrounds for the children to enjoy.
It's hot hot hot in Cambodia.
The wading pool we built is a luxury for these kids. What joy it brings them to take a dip on a sunny day.
English is part of the curriculum. We welcome volunteer English teachers from Canada or USA if they can stay for three months.
Place of Rescue is responding to the need to young women, who have been in a relationship with a boy but when they got pregnant, they were abandoned. We care for mother and baby by providing a safe haven where the mother can stay until the baby is born and where where they can receive love and support. When the babies are born the mothers can keep them or leave them here for us to raise.
Presently we have 2 granny houses which are home to 25 destitute grannies and 1 blind woman.
In the fall 2008 we opened our own school for grade 1 to 6.
Here the children can read books in Khmer and English, do their homework, work at computers or play educational games. Saturday evenings the older children watch movies here.
We decided to convert some of the fields into a huge garden.
Recovering AIDS patients tend the plants and the children occasionally help them. The delicious fresh organically grown vegetables are shared by all. Our crops include many kinds of leafy vegetables, egg plant, beans, papayas, squash, corn, tomatoes and mangos.
We have a fishpond which will provide many fish for food.
We are raising chickens for food.
Rescue has a sewing center where recovering AIDS patients help sew for the children and where mending can be done.
House of New Dreams is our dormitory where our young people will live when they are in Grade 12 or university. Presently 17 students live there. In the fall of 2013, 15 more will join them.
In 2008 Rescue began to help a fledgling orphanage in the northern town of Mongkol Borey. Here about 60 children were being cared for by loving Christian people who had very little money to care for them properly. Now in early 2013, 123 children call this beautiful place "Home"
In January 2011 Rescue purchased property to build another orphanage. Place of Rescue III in the province of Pailin. Ten homes were built which will eventually house 100 children. As of January 2013, 20 children are being cared for here.
Two university dormitory buildings are under construction, one in Phnom Penh for boys from Place of Rescue I and one in Svay Sisaphon for young people from Place of Rescue II in Mongkol Borey.
Rescue cares for 21 families involving either elderly women or families whose mothers have AIDS. We are helping a total of 32 people, providing rice and some supplies.
Sometimes I sit on my porch and look at the gorgeous Cambodian sunset.
And I think to myself, "What amazing thing will God do tomorrow?"