Old Habits Die Hard
People often talk about a great global reset that is coming to the world economy, or is possibly already here. Cambodia had it's own reset in every possible way, as a result of war, genocide and a destabilized government in the 1970s and 80s. One of the results of the reset was property ownership. Cambodia became the wild west, ripe for land-grabbing and squatting as there was not infrastructure enough to write land deeds and determine what belonged to who, even going into the 1990s. Unofficial land deeds and land grabbing has been one of the struggles through out FCOPs time in Cambodia. Today looks a lot different than it did 20 years ago and the government has made incredible progress to organize and distribute proper land deeds.
Most families, businesses and organizations are well aware of having to legally defend their land and check the land title registered with the government often. As FCOP works all over Cambodia and with people of all kinds of background, sometimes the bad habits developed through the Khmer Rouge genocide era and the stealing of land titles has been a bitter pill to swallow. Even leaders that have been faithful servants and incredible evangelists, sometimes fall prey to the lure of money they see and will try to steal a land title.
As infrastructure continues to grow, FCOP continually reviews land deeds to check and see if any updating needs to be done. As a result, Mak Sou, together with FCOP Administrative Director, Pow Naret, travelled to Pursat province to check on a land deed that needed to be re-done. As they visited Pastor San at Prek Bey Church Refuge Center to redo a land deed that may be vulnerable, they were amazed to see the life at the church. Of course the church was vibrant, the children healthy, but to see the "life" of agriculture on the property. With over 4,000 square meters of land, Pastor San has been in a three year process of planting more than 1,000 cashew trees. This year will be the first fruits of all the effort. In addition, he has un-knowingly realized that "rotating" crops helps yield better results. He has grown star bean, peanuts and other fruits and vegetables as well. It's great to see "bad" old habits die, and good, new habits develop. Keep up the good work Pastor San!
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