Mak Sou teaching church leaders.

Old Farmer Ted has no interest in jewelry. In fact, a diamond has no more attraction to me than a piece of road gravel – my jewelry collection consists of a $12 rubber wrist-watch, complete with calculator. Talk about “polar opposites”, my wife has no greater fondness for any physical object than jewelry.

Opposites attract you know? That’s why my wife, Sou, and I will never get a divorce. I suppose her love for the stuff came as a result of her royal upbringing in Laos. And when I married her, she came with quite a collection. During our 43 years of married life, if I managed to make any money, she’d gladly spend it on some jewels. I didn’t mind because my greatest joy was to see Sou happy.

God works in strange and mysterious ways! When we arrived in Cambodia, we had a small amount of personal savings. Sou noticed, while traveling the provinces, there were huge amounts of uncut sapphires, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones to be had at extremely low prices. She has an eye for these bargains and bought up shoe-boxes full of them.

Over the years she has become very good friends with the King’s jeweler, and this woman has helped fashion these rocks into beautiful jewelry items. For example, one rough stone she purchased for less than $100 was transformed into a necklace worth $40,000. This an exceptional example, but it gives you some idea of the blessing upon her, and I might add, “For such a time as this.”