Vision and Mission Statement

Vision Statement:

I have felt a growing calling to missions and development work in the developing world and inner city since high school. I noticed that I had a great passion for serving God and caring for people, and was fairly flexible and well-rounded. I had also loved the short-term mission trips I was able to go on, and was confirmed and encouraged in this calling by those around me. In college, I chose to major in civil engineering because I had heard that engineering skills are in high demand in the mission field.

I had no particular geographical focus until I noticed that during the month of January 2010, Calvin offered an engineering-oriented class in Cambodia, a developing country. I jumped at the opportunity. Over that month-long class, I felt at home in Cambodia, greatly enjoyed meeting Khmer people and learning about the culture and language, and felt a strong call to return. God has continued to open the doors to Cambodia for me through a senior engineering design project that served an organization in Cambodia, and through this internship opportunity with World Missions.

As I am graduating from college, returning to Cambodia is the thing I am most sure is within God’s will for me. So, I am planning to go and trusting that He will either provide for me to go there, or show me something else that He wants me to do.

Mission Statement:

I will be serving three organizations through CRWM. The Genesis Community of Transformation (GCT) seeks to engage in community development in villages, provide education and job training for women and youth, and teach farmers agricultural techniques that bring health to communities and the environment. The New International Builder’s Community (NIBC) is focused on equipping educating future Christian leaders – both young children through their kindergartens and primary school, and young adults through their preparatory school and institute. The Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia (EFC) Women’s Commission desires to care for the needs of Cambodian women and develop their character, enabling them to transform society.

In Cambodia, I plan to learn Khmer, teach English at NIBC and EFC, and assist in writing and editing proposals and other documents at GCT and EFC. I will also help with community development and make use of my engineering training for farm site development at GCT, assist in developing radio program units on women’s issues in Cambodia with EFC, and delve into Khmer and international church life. Through this work, I will support and serve CRWM’s partners in Cambodia.

I am so excited to follow God back to Cambodia and serve him there. I pray that I may quickly learn how I can most effectively serve these organizations and support them in the good work they are already doing in Cambodia. I hope to love people well and to share what I have learned through my own faith walk and my education. At the same time, I am gratefully looking forward to being enriched by the faith and strength of my Khmer brothers and sisters. I can’t wait to explore and learn about a new place, culture, and language, and – ready or not – to be stretched and uncomfortable, and to feel how much I need God every moment. Finally, I hope to discover more about where God is calling me, and what the next step on my journey will be.

Support Letter

Dear Family and Friends,

A year and a half ago, I left a beautiful country and people. I longed to return, although my interim class had ended:

I want to come back to Cambodia, where I am leaving my Khmer sisters and brothers from Genesis Community of Transformation, New International Builder’s Community, and churches near Siem Reap. Many of them are about my age, and in Christ, truly feel like siblings, taking me in as a sister. They lead amazing, faithful lives of sacrifice to serve their God and fellow man:

Leaving family behind,

Working twelve hours a day on top of classes,

Studying harder than they ever had in school,

Memorizing the book of Romans in English,

Praying for the Buddhist mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers

who are persecuting them for their faith, and

Giving their lives to revive their country.

They have beautiful, golden-brown skin, which they are ashamed is so dark. They apologize for their English, which is light-years ahead of my Khmer, are patient with my poor capacity to understand them, and delightedly and graciously teach me to count and say my alphabet in Khmer. They beg me to come back to Cambodia and teach English. I want to come back so I can help and encourage them in the small ways that I can— teach English, computer usage, calculus?—and find my faith bolstered, surrounded by their open, passionate communion.

I have now graduated from college, and to my great joy, God has blessed me with an eleven-month internship in Cambodia with Christian Reformed World Missions (CRWM) from July 2011 to May 2012! Through this internship, I have the opportunity to go back and serve our brothers and sisters in Christ by volunteering for three partner organizations of CRWM, as you can read more about in the brochure.

Amidst the job-finding scramble of graduation, returning to Cambodia is the thing I am most sure is within God’s will for me. So I am planning to go and trusting that He will provide for me to go there, but I know that I cannot do this work alone. I will need both prayer and financial support to be effective in the work God has called me to. If you feel that God is calling you to participate in this ministry, please partner with me through prayer or financial support.

I plan to send out a prayer letter by email or snail mail every-other month to keep partners updated; if you would like to receive one, please email me. Between prayer letters, I will be keeping this blog.

The total cost for the eleven-month trip is $10,668. 80% of this must be raised, at least in pledge, before leaving the US. If you feel led to give financially, you can make a check payable to CRWM, including my name and the number 803802 on the memo line. CRWM's address is: 2850 Kalamazoo Avenue SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49560.

If you are interested and would like more information, I would love to talk more about Cambodia with you in person or through email:

Email: emailalhayes@gmail.com

Thank you for your time and consideration! I am excited to see how God will use you and many others to provide for his work through your prayers and gifts.

In Christ,

Amanda

On Returning from Cambodia January 2010

I want to come back to Cambodia,

where my elegant six-story hotel stands beside a thatched hut with a rusting roof of corrugated steel. To drift again after dark past bright-painted wooden houseboats exuding the glow of battery-powered televisions. Back to the sudden interruptions of cell phone music in villages without electricity or running water. I want to go back and peel vegetables at the farm, sitting on grass mats among our beautiful Khmer hosts from whose ears protrude cords connecting to ipod nanos. And to lash an old viewfinder to a cheap tripod and run around with a sharpie-marked PVC pipe—and a space-age GPS—to survey the land:

This land spread wide and flat, with

room

For my spirit to fly out

To the Red sun

That sets in the Bluing

Green hills.

Here, I met a farmer who proudly showed us his biogas generator-fertilizer maker-toilet-garbage can. And while he may have learned how to build it from a westerner, we westerners could all learn from him the courage to stake his livelihood on the hope that full-out caring for his land and using its resources sustainably might actually improve his life as well.

I want to come back to Cambodia, where I am leaving my Khmer sisters and brothers: Ratany, Tiffan, Boren, Leanghy, and Sil from Bethany Global University, Navy and Ravy from churches near Siem Reap, and Thavry, Sana, and Boral from Genesis Community of Transformation. All of them are about my age, and in Christ, truly feel like siblings, taking me in as a sister. They lead amazing, faithful lives of sacrifice to serve their God and fellow man:

Leaving family behind,

Working twelve hours a day on top of classes,

Studying harder than they ever had in school,

Memorizing the book of Romans in English,

Praying for the Buddhist mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers

who are persecuting them for their faith, and

Giving their lives to revive their country.

They have beautiful, golden-brown skin, and which they are ashamed is so dark. They apologize for their English, which is light-years ahead of my Khmer, are patient with my poor capacity to understand them, and delightedly and graciously teach me to count and say my alphabet in Khmer. They beg me to come back to Cambodia and teach English, and they take down my email so they can practice by writing to me. I want to come back so I can help and encourage them in the small ways that I can— teach English, computer usage, calculus?—and find my faith bolstered, surrounded by their open, passionate communion.

I want to come back to Cambodia, where American bombs cocked the rifle that shot forth Pol Pot’s unthinkable Khmer Rouge, rivaling Nazi crimes against humanity. Where,

Had I been born thirty years earlier,

and Khmer,

my education and

smooth, uncalloused skin

would have sent me to Tuol Slang for torture,

then to the killing fields to be knocked out and buried alive,

along with every doctor,

lawyer,

teacher,

engineer, and

monk

that the Khmer Rouge could find.

Or, escaping this fate,

where I would have been worked

and starved to death,

watching my family and neighbors fall around me.

Even now in Cambodia, I’d be lucky to live to age five, and even luckier to escape my run-in with appendicitis at age 17 –

A legacy of massacred doctors.

I would be beyond fortunate if my family could afford to send me to school long enough to graduate middle or high school, let alone college –

A legacy of murdered teachers.

I want to come back to Cambodia because it makes me sick

to live in a gorgeous renovated Calvin apartment

with clean, free running water

and no worries

about food

or healthcare,

as I absorb a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of education.

I ponder Jesus’ command to his disciples in Luke:

Sell your possessions,

give to the poor, and

lay up treasure in heaven.

And I wonder if an earthly savings account might really make me a rich fool.

Or I read John the Baptist’s call:

Give food to the hungry if you have it; give

1 cloak to the naked if you have

2. And then I get up, open my closet, and count at least

7 items which could count as a “cloak.”

I want to come back to Cambodia so I can share my education with the one who has none, but at the same time, I want to go back to Cambodia to earn a better education than I can get at Calvin.

I want to come back to Cambodia, but I try to hope that soon, no one there will need me any more than I need them. That’s good development, and it reminds me of good parenting, especially as I watch my parents slowly release me into the world. And as they bless me by letting me see their weaknesses and asking my advice. Likewise, we have a lot to learn from Cambodia. And there’s a lot to do besides coming back to Cambodia. The first thing that we have ever been asked for is prayer –

Prayer for water,

For leaders,

For electrical power,

For teachers and writers of English,

For computers,

For wisdom and success in the work NGOs are already doing,

and especially for awareness among our church communities –

To procure more prayer!

But as we pray, we also have to ask ourselves:

Can we be the answer to our own prayers?

For myself, I want to come back to Cambodia – teach English, help write grant applications in English, use my Engineering education, and encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ. But beyond a longing to come back, Cambodia has added substance to my ideas about development, no matter where I go. Finally, in Cambodia, I’ve felt even more peace in the idea that I just need to serve –

Let God decide

when and

where and

how:

Maybe in Cambodia when I graduate,

but definitely

Right here,

right

Now.