Help Paradox and Introducing Sokkourn

What if?
What if I had not become ill. How would my life have progressed differently? 
Oh yes there is the obvious... I would be at work not at home. I wouldn't have had an exhaustive amount spent on my health care (thankfully we have health insurance who picked up most of the tab). I would be less fatigued, have less pain and be less dizzy and maybe have been able to concentrate on Jesus for longer consecutive moments than this illness has allowed! Gray would have not gone through a mountain of stress and scared concern. The kids would have not had to think their mother was losing it..and they would have had much more interest shown in their homework and general well being from me.

Last Friday I realized the answer to the "What If I had not become ill?" question, lay however not in how my life would have progressed differently, but in the lives of a poor Khmer family whom, at the point of falling ill, we had never even met. I can see now that through all of this God has worked out his purposes for a family who had been praying for breakthrough for two years! thus the Help Paradox...read on..

When I fell ill we decided to hire some house help to enable the family to get through the workload associated with an ill wife/mother and the subsequent cleaning, shopping and cooking efforts left unattended. ( Not because we are rich by any means, house-help is not an expensive service to consider in Cambodia) Oh yes the family could have pulled together to pitch in. However we could see the stress the unknown illness was having on the family was really wearing all of us down. We were quite snappy at each other..yep there were some pretty horrible family dynamics happening. And bargaining in Khmer is not one of Graham's forte's.

Introducing Sokkourn.
Sokkourn is a lovely Khmer Christian lady who was introduced to us by Marion Fromm(Cambodian Harvest Dried Fruit Company). Sokkourn is married to Savin and they have three young daughters aged 8, 6 and 3. They have spent most of their married life living in a provincial village. Two years ago Savin was promoted in his employment with Cambodia Trust to a position in Phnom Penh. This required him to move to Phnom Penh. However, although promoted, he did not receive enough income for the family to move with him to Phnom Penh (all too common a problem in Cambodia). Sokkourn's family have been living apart for two years. They have been praying for the past two years that one day the family income would improve and the family could be reunited.

Marion knew of Savin through his work with Cambodia Trust since Marion employs the land mine disabled, and Savin assists with fitting of prosthetics. Marion suggested that we hire Sokkourn and thus not only have the benefit of house help, but more significantly bring about change for her family. With our employment of Sokkourn her family are now reunited!

Sokkourn is a very capable Khmer cook, but did not know how to cook western foods, so we decided to to enrol her in a cooking course run by Yejj (an NGO started by Hope School parents many years ago). For one month Sokkourn heads to the Yejj training school in the mornings and then to our place in the afternoons. She will receive a certificate when this is complete, which she we be able to show other prospective employers in the future (as well as a reference from our family). On the days when I am up to it I will also teach Sokkourn how to cook some affordable western dishes to widen her repertoire. My Mum's Texas Sheet Chocolate Cake was our creation today (as I hope to catch up with the Early Learning Centre Hope staff tomorrow for the first time since returning to Cambodia from Bangkok). Meanwhile zucchini slice is next on the list as the ingredients are cheap and easy to access. Sokkourn now has an amazing start to a reunited family life in Phnom Penh and a future as a worker in western family kitchens.

Please pray for Sokkourn and her family. The road ahead for Sokkourn is literally a long one as the family live out past the airport. Savin bought Sokkourn a push bike ( think fabulous road bike with Shimano gears and disks brakes... and then erase that thought and think second hand castoff with basket on the front.) It takes Sokkourn between one and a half and two hours to cycle to our place each day and the same length of time to cycle home to their one room dwelling. Yes I said one room dwelling, probably one in a long run of one room dwellings side by side. While they have electricity for lighting they cannot afford to use it for cooking. They cannot even afford a gas stove for cooking and so use a charcoal stove. They do not have a fridge but use an esky, they wash all their clothes by hand as they do not have a washing machine.You get the picture.

So the Help Paradox, in seeking help for our own situation God has worked out his purposes in reuniting a lovely Christian Khmer family. It was so lovely to hear Nathan pray around the dining table thanking God that this family are together again.

Thankfully too, I have been able to write a blog post again that does not soley focus on myself and my ongoing health concerns...yeh!

I do look forward to continued healing, spending time learning from the Lord, teaching Sokkourn some more affordable western dishes and a return to work in the not too distant future.

Blessings
Fiona Brown

Fiona's Health - back in Cambodia at last.

Well it has been five and a half weeks of acute illness. Two months of alerting symptoms and in hindsight, eight months since the first few seemingly unrelated sporadic chronic symptoms appeared.

However after four weeks off and on in Bangkok Hospitals, (and countless people's prayers), I am now finally back home with my family in Cambodia and ready for the next part of the recovery phase. At this point in time the different specialists agree that I have Fibromylagia.

(Though as with so many chronic illnesses, this could be reviewed in time to actually be CFS or other chronic condition). Also it was found that I have a bicupsid aortic heart valve and I tested positive for syncope - heart related

You may desire to rush away and google Fibromylagia, however it really does seem to be such a varied condition in it's symptoms and severity that you may just as easily be misled as informed.

So here is what it means to me:

1. Persistent pain at multiple points in the body. The worst areas being head and torso pains which do not go away, rather simply changing in how widespread and how severe they are.
2. Daily fatigue, with sporadic (and reducing) episodes of disequilibrium, visual disturbances, cognitive slowness, blank moments "not there for a second" and muscle twitching,
3. Acute episodes (often post physical or mental exertion or when tired) which include exacerbation of existing symptoms with the addition of nausea, chest tightness, extreme muscle weakness, cognitive impairment (memory, processing, concentration etc), burning, tingling and/or numb limb sensations, light headedness, pale, shaking and fainting.

The neurologist has prescribed some medication to address the pain, disequilibrium and nerve symptoms. These in addition to lots of rest appear to have improved my condition and the lengthy acute phase that sent me to hospital has been curbed. Although acute episodes do flair up easily upon exertion or tiredness.

So at this point in time I need to continue to rest and recover. Some days are bad days and some days are not so bad days, more and more thankfully however, I have on occasion what I can call "good" days. But it is not predictable. I may be able to go out for a couple of hours one afternoon, appear to interact quite normally with people and be just especially tired for the evening, but I may just as easily be wiped out by the activity and experience a painfully acute episode for the next 24 hours.

For the moment prolonged, standing, walking and stairs are particularly difficult, so you can imagine immigration queues at airports! Hence Graham once again organised a wheelchair service, which is the like the most understated service airports offer! A porter is assigned to you and facilitates every step of the process. You should have seen the awesome vehicle that they used at Bangkok airport to get wheelchairs to the plane! First they wheel you onto a

hydraulic tail gate that lifts you into the back of a huge van. (There was two of us in wheelchairs for this flight) Then they drive over to the plane. The whole vehicle chassis then rises on a scissor lift system until you are in line with the cabin door and they wheel you right out over the front of the van onto the plane!

Anyway, the prognosis is that the good days will start to become more normal and that I will be able to return to working productively. I will however need to manage my workload and associated stress levels more carefully then ever before. It will not take as much stress to manifest symptoms and the severity of the acute episodes could be debilitating.

Thankfully Cambodia is where we believe God has called us to be at this point in time and life here is fairly simple. We have a peace about being here and find the work very rewarding. I am looking forward to teaching mathematics again at Hope School and am happy to hear that there are a few keen students awaiting my return too.

So thank you to all those who have prayed, assisted my family, asked after us, covered my classes and been a blessing in many other ways.

I look forward to being able to adding future blog posts that do not revolve around me!

Blessings

Fiona Brown