IN December 2007, a local farming couple, Allan and Gill Aynsley travelled to Cambodia to find out what they could do to help struggling farmers in that country.
They went with a Sydney based mission group - Benkorp Blessings Ministries, who had been working in the area for a few years.
Their mission was double edged. Gill took her children's ministry of puppets and ran workshops in churches and orphanages. She took 16 puppets with her which had all been donated by people of Crookwell, some members of the Uniting Church, the Bolong Anglican ladies and also friends from the Emmaus community in Canberra, and gave them to the children in Cambodia, who are now using their amazing talent and those puppets to give life-changing, Christian messages to literally hundreds of people.
The main thrust of the visit, however was for Allan to see first hand what he might be able to do to help struggling farmers in this part of the world. They worked closely with members of the New Life Church in Phnom Penh, who have many outreach departments, including an agricultural department.
The aim of Benkorp Blessings Ministries (BBM) is to work with the Khmer people and to develop their skills to make them ultimately self sufficient. Allan and Gill worked closely with the team there and were able to form an ongoing plan to help.
Since their return Allan and Gill have kept in constant contact with the young and inexperienced (but enthusiastic) friends they made while they were there. With the diverse support of the rest of the BBM team, and especially via emails, programmes have been put in place. Water projects have been completed, seeds have been sent over and planted, and model garden projects have been set up to 'show' the possibilities of self sustainability. The New Life team have already achieved some great things in their country.
There is still a need for a lot more training to be done, and Allan and Gill have come up with a plan to bring two of the Cambodian people here to Crookwell, to learn some hands on skills through an intensive programme which has been put together. One young man will be here for eight weeks from the end of September, learning many aspects of farming and horticulture. The other will be trained a little in agriculture, but mainly as a project manager.
"We want to take them out of their laid back Cambodian surroundings, and teach them how to 'work'," said Gill.
"We aim to instil some good Aussie hard yakka - to teach them hands on skills, but also to learn how to motivate themselves and others - to plan strategies and follow them through.
"The aim is to equip these two with the confidence and knowledge to go back to Cambodia and implement various agricultural programmes and set up teams of Khmer people to carry them out and develop them further.
"This will have far greater effect than two Australians going over there and telling them 'how we do it'," Gill said.
There is still a lot to organize - training schedules, visas, plane tickets etc. If you would like to help out personally or financially contact Gill or Allan Aynsley on 48342196. You might like to follow this and other progress - you can visit the website on www.benkorpblessings.org
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