Update, an in progress countdown to school starting Monday

First off I am getting word from 3 high school that students want to come but they are getting bullied, threatened and scammed by the schools telling the kids lies that we're not a real school, some principals are refusing to sign the kids out.  2 of the schools have asked the families for money one school wants $10 for a stamp while another wants $50.  None of which is official or legal.
So were working on a threat and then a follow up to the province office.  Some one's going to get into trouble.  One of these schools happens to be an AOG Christian/government partnered school.  Which has failed so miserably that all the real Christian teachers are leaving their jobs, some of them who work for us now.  Something tells me the ministry didn't read the bible about being unequally yoked with a partner.

If you could help us pray for all these blocks to be broken and that student will find the freedom over their education and future.  We also really, really need the income from full classes.  These barricades being broken helps everyone.

When we started the school we had no idea what a powerful tool of change it would become.  We had no clue how we would be used to force others the right thing and to help families take a stand.

Currently we have 415 students enrolled, we have room for about 40 in the junior high which is were we need the most funds and are having the most trouble with the other school.


We are currently adding a new office with two rooms.
Our attendance will get much more accurate.  Our service will become much more convenient and the child safety is going to get much better.  Staff tardiness is also going to be reduce.

Front office 

Back office (my office)

No not the detention center, though it sounds like a good idea.

It 3 more bathrooms

 Redecorating rooms

Kara O'Neil making a good effort to help. 

 Kindergarten

Kindergarten with new teacher SreyNuch who is wonderfully talented Christian lady.

After a good reprimand for last years effort, 1st grade is way ahead this year.

1st grade A

1st grade B 

Salyna back to help out extra English class finish up

2nd grade still in progress but to be fair his room was storage for the summer.

3rd grade  

4th grade - Khorn was one of our best staff at the orphanage.  We sent her to college 2 years ago. This Monday will be her first day teaching.  Her class is perfect; we really, really pray thing go well for her.  I'm sure she's a bit nervous.

5th grade was storage as well.

6th grade though it's finished it's become a downstairs office.

All my older gentlemen are proofing the staffs lesson plans.

Very grateful for their experience and wisdom.

Our now modest Library haven giving the dinosaur over the the Kindergarten class the library is now rotatable shelves in the sanctuary.  

 When things get expensive and your budget is less than nil you make it yourself.

The wonderfully complicated worker Mao that I doted over last year has been very busy this summer.  Making white boards and stands, teacher desks and an extra 100 student desks.

 He's really proven himself so very valuable to us.

Moving playground equipment since the office took some space. 

Teachers cleaning 

 

 Food court has an addition we are making an attempt to start serving lunches this year.

If you've prayed over our well problem at all.  We were faced with digging another well as our old faithful on was blocked with roots and clogged with calcium.  We many conversations and idea about fixing it rather than spending money on a new one the guys reversed the flow with some high pressure and seems to have unclogged things for now and our high flow rate is back.   Not to bad and I am not sure we even had to pay the guy.  

Thanks for the prayers.

What are we up to?

Busy has been the answer for quite some time this year, but at the moment were in over drive.

We have started planning for the 2014-2015 school year.  We are building an additional 100 desks more white boards.  

We are building a new office and turning the old office into a class room.

We're moving playground equipment and raising the level of the side walks because the dirt is hire and makes cleans up an hourly chore.

Summer English class for the kids that are behind.

Adding 3 more bathrooms

  We've had to move the library to make room for the new K-class.  Now the Library is in the sanctuary.

We are working on opening bank accounts for our college kids and staff, which we will begin to change our payroll to a direct deposit for them.  It will be the first time any of them uses and atm machine.
We've hired some great staff at the school  one of them is an NGO guru and is really helping us out with all the government paper works.

We've got a handful of new teachers starting.

Besides opening our first 10th grade class we will also begin having lunch on campus.

100% of our 9th grade class passed their national exam which I find absolutely wonderful.
It's estimated only 20% of the kids are passing the 12th grade exam.
We've hoped to have graduated 4 of our boys but there's massive controversy over the testing this year so were still trying to get the kids into college while bracing for the boys to not have passed.

We've gotten our MOU renewal with Foreign Affair accepted and can continue to operate for the next 3 years.  We've still got the Social Affair to finish.
This morning we finished our yearly inspection with flying colors.

The Cambodian government is making large steps to clean everything up.  So this year I will have to get a work permit and start paying taxes here.
We will also have to start paying a tax for the school income and employee tax.

We've been getting help in trying to get a water filter system at the orphanage, so we've been testing and in the planning stages with that.

We've got some funds for a team house that has been made available.  We finished the rough designs last night.  We could really use some help with proper construction guidance from any professionals out there interested in helping; especially with plumbing and foundation preperation.

We are working on cleaning out our pond this year the fish are impressively massive.  It is always the most fun we ever have at the house is fishing out the pond, it is such and excited gathering of all the kids yelling "over there, behind you".  It's hard to explain but for some reason it just feels like a family when everyone is out there having fun and cooperating on something.  I love it.
Father in-law had some extra baby fish he wanted to give us which is why we had to get rid of the older monsters.

Also the rest of our kids went home this week for their summer vacations.  So the house is pretty quite which is helping us with the rest of the work load.

Team house property was fenced off the chain link temporarily to keep the animals in and the people out while the brick fence was built.

Our worker and 9th grade class made the brick during their work periods.

Chain link fence that came down is going up around the pond.

Ream was ill again this week with a problem I felt was fairly small and would go away, but Ream was a bit scared after her last problem, so we took her to the doctor.
I normally get frustrated having to take someone 2 hours to the doctor to find out it was nothing.  It happens a lot.  This time my prayer was to find happiness over nothing being wrong rather worried about time wasted Also while in prayer over Reams little issue I had a feeling that this was only to get us to the doctor to find there was something bigger at work.  Which seems to be what has happened.
Ream's stomach pain lead to a scan that has found, unrelated; a cyst on her ovary.  It is very small and the doc says not to worry but we're happy to find it and will watch it, pray over it and hope that is goes away or stays inactive if not we have the choice to remove it if needed.

Ream's had a number of medical issues this year.  Thank you for your prayers for her.  Thank you for the support families have given to us this year to help us out.

Though things are busy for us, for me I am enjoying what we feel God is calling us to do.  I love being on the right path.  I love the blessings God brings even during a challenge.

I've said it before but this year was going to be big for the work and probably reasons for some of the challenges.  Losing some staff, Reams illnesses, our well is blocked and not giving us the flow we use to have.  In all these things we still see God working and I am at least still having fun.  These next three and a half months is where we'll start to see the fruits of the years labor.  Please keep reading with us, at least through October.

Lastly with the Team house, and School construction going on at the school it would be a good time to think about what tax deductions you might need for next year.  Or simply help because you want too, now's the time as we have some wires to make shortly.  We could use the financial help with some these projects. Those helps can always be sent to CCF directly or through our websites
http://www.aheartforwisdomschool.org/#!needs/c21kz

Thank you all for you love, prayer and support.

A good work is always being done here.      

Amen!

Cambodia Visit Video

Quick follow up to our Silly Prayer Request

 We've got a lot on our plate at the moment to post full blogs.  Please look over the guest blog link I shared 2 posts ago.  They've got a lot posted, I also posted the link to the left under guest blogs.  

Real short it was a success.

The kids really, really enjoyed themselves.  The whole place was filled with excitement and noise of kids having fun.  

At the end of the day we were exhausted.

We obviously we have to praise God. 

We also have to give our guest and staff huge applause for helping us until the very end of the day.

Thank you.  

Plinko was the most popular game of the day by far.

We are currently working on several things. 

One of them happens to be a new office building at the school.

Planing out the next school year, testing accepting new students.

Having new desks made, shelves and furniture.

Teams.

Changing out our fish.

Changing out staff at the school and the house.

Doing quite a bit of cement work.

Today is the final day of the 12th grade final exam.

 We talked to them on the phone last night, they said Cambodia is making huge efforts to end the corruption on their testing.  The kids were searched for cheat sheets.  All of Takeo students had to test at one main campus in the capital and there are police and cameras everywhere. 

It is a very positive step.  Also our kids have a fair and fighting chance to do well this year.

The 3 of our 4 boys finished all their exams in the allotted time frame.   I am told Channee spent most of the night dancing with excitement.  We're very proud of them.  Today they have a few more tests and they are done.