Pa Thom’s chemistry set for soil analysis

Yup, Pa Thom spent three of the four weeks last month at the rice farm. Improvement is slowly arriving to the depleted Cambodian rice land. Though the locals all think he’s a “Mad Scientist,” his soil samples show a steady improvement in soil fertility. Not only are we making progress on that front, but soon, the “slaves” that suffer from the heat and dust will have a cool, clean place to sleep.

Life gets easier each year. Four years ago the fertilizer went on with one 20kg pail at a time, all by hand. Now we can load up an eight ton spreader and do the work of 100 men. We drill in our seed with a machine that can do 40 hectares a day and uses 1/2 of the seed to get twice the stand of the traditional hand sewing.

Best of all, our real joy this year rests in a new combine which we anticipate will not only bring in our crop, but allow us to earn enough extra income to fund the planting of 100 new churches per year. We have the matching funds thanks to Living Water Church, Olympia, WA, The Church of the Open Door, Clinton IA, and Gateway Fellowship, Fulton, IL. Thank you so much! Now, if we can just persuade the Foursquare Foundation to come through with the other half, we’ll actually be able to put that new machine in the picture to work!