Back to where it all began...
If Savorn hadn’t driven us, there’s no way I would have found the little house where, twenty years ago, we started our first Asia’s Hope home.
Sengyou and Sokhean, Asia’s Hope’s first home parents, at the site of the original Battambang 1 children’s home.
The house as it stood 20 years ago.
If Savorn hadn’t driven us, there’s no way I would have found the little house where, twenty years ago, we started our first Asia’s Hope home.
Battambang, Cambodia is five times as large as it was in 2002. And what was once the sleepy town at the center of a largely rural province is now a bustling city of nearly 250,000 people.
I know this. I’ve watched the city grow. I’ve driven its streets countless times and marveled at its transformation. But I was shocked to find that this little house, which seemed to me to be well outside of the city proper, down a dirt road, through jungle foliage – is now in the middle of a busy urban neighborhood. The road is paved and lit, and there are neither ambling cattle nor sprawling rice paddies anywhere in sight.
The house itself, however, is just barely recognizable. It’s current owners have built onto it, and it’s crowded on both sides by new neighbors. But it’s definitely the same place. Someone has painted over the old, garish blue. But the shutters are still the same. The wood paneling on the exterior is the same. And if you look in one of the windows along the right hand side of the building, one of the Khmer alphabet charts our staff hung on the wall is still there – dirty and battered, but otherwise undisturbed.
Sengyou and Sokhean, our very first Asia’s Hope home parents, met us there after breakfast. The home’s current occupants were gracious enough to let us poke around the property. We took some photos and video and reflected on our beginnings and on just how far we’ve come.
Oh, the memories this place evokes. The games, songs, meals, storytimes. We’re going to do a sit-down interview with these guys tomorrow and try to get their thoughts on 20 years of ministry with Asia’s Hope. Sometime soon we’ll post that and some of the other videos we’re capturing on this trip.
But today, just walking around the home, there was less talking, more feeling. Sokhean doesn’t speak a lot of English, and my Khmer is way worse than it was, say, three years ago. But I asked her, “Good memories?” She smiled and said, “Yes. Good memories.”