The School That Taught Me The Most

If you’ve been keeping my up on my blogs you know how much Cambodia both broke and captured my heart. There aren’t words that can describe the transformation so I’m just asking that you trust me when I say it rocked my world.

When my team and I arrived it was dark out, we couldn’t see much. The next morning as the sun rose we learned that the previous year October-December 2016 there had been a great flood. We saw the damage with our own eyes, there was massive damage done to the school. Parts of the school fell into the river, and much of what was left was cracked or crumbling. It was hard to believe the school was still standing. But it was, that’s one of the greatest things about this school. It had been through so much and even if what was left wasn’t pretty the principle and teachers were fighting to keep it afloat.

At the end of the month I didn’t want to leave, I wanted to stay, to pour every single dollar I had into this place, I wanted to rebuild their classrooms, help spread the word of good the school was doing in spite of the conditions they endured so more kids could come and more money would come in.

On one of our last days the principle asked our team to help them get books for their library( the same library they selflessly let our team use for a bedroom for the month so they had no access to it.) We had no more days to go into town and had used the rest of our budget to help redecorate all the classes. So we couldn’t provide books. I couldn’t provide much which was a pretty helpless position to be in because I felt so passionate about this little school.

Cambodia was almost three months ago and I still think about it every single day.
I’ve decided instead of keeping this to myself I want to invite you all in. There has to be something we can do together. Please pray for this place. I am as of now starting a book drive and ask that if you have any children’s books, school supplies or anything that could benefit this place with very little to send it my way, well my parents way (thanks mom and dad for letting me use your home for a storage facility for the books) This blog is the first they are finding out about the books coming there way 😉 If you need their address please email or private message me. I’m going to ask that they collect supplies and books for a few months until I can either afford to ship or to personally deliver the donations. I also want to raise money to help them rebuild. I am currently in the process of getting all the details of the financial needs of Shalom but in reality the details don’t matter. They need every penny they can get. The wall alone that they are building to prevent future flood damage is $10,000 US Dollars. The tuition for students is very low compared to other local schools because if they increase the price the parents can’t afford to send their children to school at all. The school does not yet have a scholarship program but hopefully I can help them get that started soon.

Please partner with me to help Shalom International School, it’s a branch of Shalom International Mission, outside of Phnom Penh. We need all the prayers we can get. Please encourage the teachers and staff there. They love the school and the students and the Lord and they could always use prayer warriors from all over the world. Please consider making a donation of books for the library or supplies for the students. And please please pray about financially helping rebuild the foundation of the school that has a huge part of my heart. I’m asking that together we can transform this school the way this school transformed my heart.

I’m still figuring out the logistics but I think as of now the best way to give is a PayPal gift to me at [email protected] Please make a note on the gift that says Shalom International School. This way no taxes or service fees are taken from the school and I can directly transfer the money to the schools savings account.

The Principle of the school is Soriya So and you can find her on Facebook she’s such an amazing soul and she’d love to hear how you heard about Shalom and want to support her school!

If you want to know more about what I learned while teaching for a month at this school feel free to read my previous blog post “Where is Home?” for more insight into my time there. Thank you for taking the time to follow my journey and thank you for all the support and love I know you will pour out to this school!