Kellyville Seventh-day Adventist Church

Here's some thoughts from Rob Roberts, who is on the rubbish dump team:

We have now been in Cambodia for a week and what an experience.

Geoff and I are on one of Troy's mission trips with his Church in Kellyville, Sydney.  We left Darwin on 27 December for Singapore, KL and then Siem Reap in Cambodia.  The group of 62 were broken into four teams and sent on their respective ways. Geoff, Troy and I are on the Rubbish Dump team first so from here we bussed it to Phnom Penh which is the capital of Cambodia.  The whole process took about 30 hours with little sleep.   We tumbled into our hotel and were up at 6am to hit the work trail.  The International Childrens Centre (ICC) which is an arm of our Church, has coupled with Habitat for Humanity (another international organisation) to build local houses for people who are displaced (1300 people who have been thrown off the rubbish dump where they lived).  Anyway a block of land was purchased about an hour out of the city ($35,000US) and it is here that we have built the first of 51 houses planned for the 3 acre site.  The blocks we laid were built by the local people out of mud and baked in the sun.  Our team of 15 is now competent in carting blocks in a funny sort of wheel barrow, selecting the appropriate block (some have holes or channels etc), washing them, mixing mortar, laying the blocks with a string line, rendering and cleaning the blocks down.  I can tell you it is stinking hot and dirty work but we did it and finished it.  Our little house now has a very flimsy iron roof complete with gable and vents.  We are very proud of our work and our family of five are over the moon.  See photos here

Yesterday afternoon we were taken to see where our family lived for three years before their move.  It was sickening.  We saw poverty in it's lowest and dirtiest form.  Our dog has a much more hygenic life.

This afternoon we are going to see the killing fields where Pol Pot had hundreds of thousands of Cambodians shot.

We finished our house yesterday and it is cool by Cambodian standards.  Two rooms.  One room for the family of five to sleep in (about 3m x 3m) and a living room (about 3m x 4m).  Also there is a little tiny verandah at the front and the back.  The next house will be built one metre away - close living hey!  The family are ecstatic about it.  Today after Church we toured out to where the family used to live on the rubbish dump.  Just unbelievable. They lived there for 3 years and goodness knows where before that.  We took three of the family to lunch (Mum, Dad and one of the kids).  I think it was the first time they had been in a restaurant.  They were not comfortable at all.  A couple of our nurses have now taken them to the hospital as the little 3-4 year old boy has a big lump on his cheek.  We are hoping to get some antibiotics for him and also that they might lance it.

This is a mad place to live.  Bikes and scooters by the thousands or millions and also Toyota Lexus 4WD's.  Crazy!