Five Years

A personal letter. . .

This June marks five years that we’ve been serving in Cambodia.  Wow . . . hard to believe.  We certainly could have never dreamed up all that the Lord has planned.  We continue to be amazed at how He has prepared such specific work for us to do, and also prepared us so specifically for that work.  To quickly bring you up to date:

Kirsten – Just finished phase one of a book project with Asian Hope, documenting the lives of children and families in the Village Development Program.  This is an ongoing effort to tell the personal stories of the children and families being served by the program, assisting Asian Hope in raising funds on a broad scale, and also in the development of their website and promotional materials.  While the camera is the tool for creating these tangible items, it also serves as a passport for getting us into the homes of some of the most vulnerable people, and allowing us to build relationships with them.  Who would have ever thought ‘missionary photographer’ would be a real job.  Truly, God can use anything!

Mike –  Continues to work with the Teacher Training Program, which also serves as an outreach ministry for Asian Hope.  Many of the teachers come from difficult circumstances and have had very little education themselves.  He is also starting to work with the Village Development Program, assisting the site coordinators (Cambodians) in refining the program to meet the very diverse needs of the students.

In addition to these things we continue to work closely with Salaa Hope school in Battambang (northern Cambodia).   This school is outside the Asian Hope umbrella, but we have developed a close relationship with them over the years, and they are part of each trip we make, which is twice a year now.

As we continue this work, we need your help.  You all know us well enough to know that we are both very independent and capable people and we’d much rather not ask, but two bad things happen when we don’t ask.  First, we end up doing our ministry in isolation, which probably isn’t what God intends.  Second, we end up going broke.  We are volunteers.  Are you interested in moving forward with us into the next five years?  Or even just into the next few months?  We’re specifically looking to raise funds for transportation and housing for the June trip. We would so appreciate your help.  On the Donate page there is a link to the Asian Hope site, where you can select us as staff from a drop down menu.  Also on the About Us page we’re attaching a link to a video our church made, of us telling a little bit about what we do, and there are pictures too, of course.

We’d love to sit down with each of you and talk in person . . . oh what a joy that would be.  God has and IS doing so much!  If any of you want to know more, please let us know and we’d be happy to share.

A big hug,

The Belloni’s