Prayers for a Mother Gone…

Leak & Khamary lost their mother 11 years ago…Khamary is the oldest and is now 29…so she was 18 when her mother died and the youngest of the 5 children was only 6.  Here, you have a celebration and a feast at the temple and pray for people you have lost during the Khmer New Year.  We were invited to join the celebration, but I didn’t think the boys would make the entire day and I really wanted the girls to be able to enjoy their time around family and focus on what was important.  It was a HUGE feast by their standards and a very happy reunion…they remembered that when their mother died, they had sold EVERYTHING they had to pay for medical care for her…the had a big house, farm land and the family lived together…every year, they sold something off to help cover more and more medical expenses…when their mother died, the family was poorer than dirt poor…they had nothing.  I hear the stories from Leak and the work they had to do for 3000 Riel per day (that’s $.75).  They all (5 children, their grandmother and their father) lived in a hut that they paid 10,000 Riel ($2.50) per month and they could barely survive.  Leak used to collect pieces of broken coal on the shore to sell and when the captain of the boat saw this small girl picking up the pieces, he gave her a large piece of coal…she was so excited for all this money that the piece of coal was going to bring her family…she had to wade into the water to get it and she got caught up in the current…she drowned and the captain jumped in to save her and her piece of coal…he paid her to clean up the coal every day from that point on…everyone in the family had to work…school had to be put on hold…yet they are all thankful today to think about how far they have come, the feast they were able to have in their mother’s memory, they have jobs and can help each other…today they are thankful for what they have and how far they have come.  I am blessed to have these people in my life!  They are wonderful, caring people and they love my babies!  God bless the mother who gave them to me…