Mak Sou helping to harvest rice
This is the best endurance story of the year! We raise nearly 400 acres of rice in northwest Cambodia in order to feed our orphans and staff. It has been one continuous struggle this year, with early drought and late floods. Despite the challenges, we kept pumping, diking, fertilizing, spraying for weeds and repairing equipment.
We harvested 40 acres of rice in three feet of mud and water. Neighbors were loosing their crops, but for some unknown reason the water seemed to let up on both sides of our property. Our 80 acres of dual crop rice will yield close to 6 tons per acre, and that’s in lousy conditions. The average for most farmers in the region will probably be around 1 ton per acre.
Our poor old 1978 combine, has been morphed into a rice gobbler, replacing 100 men. We long for a new Thai machine, but the price is not in our budget, so we weld, patch, rebuild, modify, and keep it moving. The “Poser of the Year Award” goes to Mak Sou. She happened to be there, and pitched in for one day of harvest labor. We have three teams of 60 people from around the country working get our rice, which is in too much water for a machine, harvested, dried, and stored. “Jesus, we’ve done our best, now please do the rest!” We need full rice bins!
