Missionaries Joe and Viya Stoltenow – Serving in Cambodia

By

Student Spotlight

Pa-Oun Srey (Khmer for “Little Sister)

To protect the privacy of these street children and their families, we will not be providing the actual names of our students online.
For this months student spotlight we decided to pick what may possibly be the cutest human being on the planet, Pa-Oun Srey. Pa-Oun Srey is six years old and is currently one of two Ray of Hope students in Kindergarten. She has an absolutely glowing personality and is constantly putting smiles on our faces. She enjoys playing with her new friends at our center and loves to eat sour soup with morning glory, a Khmer favorite.

Pa-Oun Srey was introduced to us back in early 2019 from our friend Rachel who worked with expecting mothers in poor and homeless communities in Battambang.  Rachel told us about a woman she was helping who had a little girl who desperately wanted to go to school but couldn’t afford it. So we went to visit the mother and daughter at their home to give them an application for our program. Their house was little more than a wooden shack with a sheet metal roof. There was one main room in the shack with a small area designated for cooking. The entire shack was raised about three feet off the ground and underneath was filled with dirty, polluted water.

We sat down inside and met with Pa-Oun Srey’s mother while Pa-Oun Srey shyly smiled at us from the doorway. Her father was also present but he slept through the entire meeting in his hammock. After learning more about the families background it didn’t take long for Viya and I to agree that she was a perfect candidate for our ministry and soon after that meeting she was accepted into Ray of Hope.

Since starting at Ray of Hope, Pa-Oun Srey has already grown both physically and spiritually. She loves our Bible classes and is very excited to be playing the highly coveted role of Sheep #2 in our upcoming Christmas pageant. She is also loving her time at school and is currently learning her Khmer alphabet. We thank God everyday for the opportunity to have Pa-Oun Srey in our program and that we get to teach her about her Savior Jesus Christ every single day!

 

Follow
X

Follow

E-mail : *

By

Student Spotlight

Chet Law-Ah (Khmer for “Kind Heart)

To protect the privacy of these street children and their families, we will not be providing the actual names of our students online.
When Ray of Hope opened back in 2017 we began the school year with four girls and one boy. That boy was Chet Law-Ah. As one of Ray of Hope’s first students, we have been able to see a tremendous growth in him from a little street kid with crazy hair, into a mature and caring young man. As stated above, Chet Law-Ah is Khmer for “Kind Heart”, and we think the name fits him perfectly.

Chet lives in a slum near the abandon train station in Battambang with his grandmother and his younger brother. His parents are currently in Thailand making a small living as construction workers. From their small income they are able to send small amounts of money back to Chet’s grandmother to help support them moth to month. Due to the distance and constant need to provide, Chet’s parents are only able to visit him twice a year. This is a very common circumstance in Cambodia especially with street kids.

Chet began third grade at the start of the school year at our partner school, Pannasastra University Battambang, and is currently ranked fourth in his class. He is also very good at Khmer reading and writing and, as a result, the school recently selected him for their upcoming reading competition.  The competition will be school wide and will be held sometime in March. We will be sure to keep everyone updated on his results!

When Chet started at Ray of Hope, he was a relatively easy going kid who really just went with flow and rarely misbehaved. Today, he is a model student and is always the first to volunteer with chores at our center. He loves Bible class and learning about Jesus, and we have seen him actively applying Bible lessons in his day to day life. It is truly a blessing from God to have him in our Ray of Hope family!

Follow
X

Follow

E-mail : *

By

Volunteer Spotlight

Meet Rosemary Lee, our current volunteer at Ray of Hope. We first met Rosemary, or Rose, after last years dental/VBS trip when my mother Jodie and the team were flying back home through Tokyo, Japan. While deciding on how to spend their eight plus hour layover they met Rose who was in a similar situation. So naturally my mom invited Rose to join the team on a tour of the city. During their time together they got to know Rose and learned about her life and family ties to Cambodia.

As it turned out, Rose was also returning from a trip to Cambodia where she was visiting family. During her visit to Cambodia, Rose was interested in volunteering with a Christian organization in Phnom Penh, but was not allowed to because she isn’t a Christian. My mom really didn’t appreciate that and stated, “Then how can they share the Gospel with you? “. So sure enough, my mom again invited Rose to join the dental/VBS team the following year.

To my moms delight, and later ours, Rose took her up on the offer and met the team in Battambang this past July. Rose had originally planed on spending May-November backpacking throughout Asia but once she got to know our students she decided to make a change of plans and volunteer with Ray of Hope on a long term basis. She made this decision because she made a real connection with the street kids and felt that it could have easily been her growing up on the streets of Cambodia.

Since Rose started volunteering with us here at Ray of Hope she has been an absolute joy to work with. Her love of the street kids shows brightly through her loving words and actions which is exactly what we emphasize here at Ray of Hope. Whether she’s teaching the kids how to farm vegetables or introducing them to Fruity Pebbles for the first time, it is clear to us that this was not just a chance meeting.

I believe firmly that God brought Rosemary and Ray of Hope together for a reason. Aside from working with the street kids she has also helped our ministry a great deal. Summers can be a stressful time for us here as we bring new students into the program. Each new student brings the cost of running the program up, especially when we’re still looking for new sponsors. Thankfully Rose really stepped up and started a Go-Fund-Me account in which she raised over $1400.00, all of which she donated to Ray of Hope. Thanks to Rose we’re able to buy new school uniforms and shoes for the kids and even a new refrigerator for our center.

Rosemary will continue volunteering with us through mid-October where she will then continue on her journey throughout Asia. During her time here she joined us in our staff Bible studies, usually just listening in, and had a very open mindset when we talked with her about the Gospel. She attended many of our student Bible classes and even came to Church with us a few times. I believe that we opened the door for the Holy Spirit to enter into her life and we are eager to keep in touch with Rosemary even after she returns home.

Follow
X

Follow

E-mail : *

By

Dental Clinic/VBS May 2018

This May we held our third annual Ray of Hope Dental Clinic and it was a resounding success. Our Dentists, Doctors Kyle and Jayme Klepaki, were able to provide dental care not only to our students at Ray of Hope, but also to students from Crossing Cambodia and people from our village. We even opened the clinic to the community near our center to build relationships and spread the Gospel with our neighbors. Overall we saw more than fifty patients!

My favorite part of this years dental clinic, as well as the past two years, is that we prayed with every single patient we helped, even the non-Christians. We wanted them to know that Jesus loves them and that everything we were doing was to glorify Him.

The team also preformed a fantastic Vacation Bible School for Ray of Hope and Crossing Cambodia’s students. The kids loved it and had a blast playing the games and doing the crafts, all while learning about the love of Jesus and all he has done for them. It was also a great experience working together with the Crossing Cambodia staff to reach out to more street kids.

Enjoy more pictures of the trip below.


Follow

X

Follow

E-mail : *

By

Ray of Hope Christmas 2017


Follow

X

Follow

E-mail : *

By

Meet The Newest Stoltenow

Viya and I are proud to announce the newest member of family, Raymond “Ray” Joseph Stoltenow. Ray was born on July 10th, 2017 here in Battambang and he is named after my grandpa Ray who passed away this past February.  He is the greatest gift that God has ever given to us and we are incredibly thankful for his safe and healthy delivery.

Our first family picture.

Viya get’s to see Ray for the first time after surgery.

Viya’s family playing with Ray at the hospital.

Our first picture at home.

Ray Stoltenow 07/10/17                    Joe Stoltenow 06/06/91

Father and son day one comparison.

 

We were also blessed to have my parents fly all the way to Cambodia earlier this month for a great visit. They were overflowing with joy when they saw Ray and got to hold him for the first time. My father even got to preform Ray’s baptism at the local LCMS church here in Battambang. And every morning they would come to our house to babysit so that Viya and I could go to work.

Meeting Ray for the first time.

Definitely “overflowing” with joy haha.

Ray’s baptism,  August 6, 2017.

 

Once again, we are so thankful to our Lord Jesus for giving us this beautiful little boy. We will love and cherish him forever and raise him to know who his Savior is.

I’ll finish this post with a bunch of cute and adorable pictures as promised. Enjoy!

 


Follow

X

Follow

E-mail : *

By

“A Day in Cambodia Part One” Video Blog


Follow

X

Follow

E-mail : *

By

Who Are The Street Kids

 

2017 has been off to a great start for Viya and me as we move forward with our plans t o open our new street children’s ministry here in Battambang. We have been working toward a number of goals to have our ministry up and running by the start of the 2017-18 school year. Tasks such as finding schools for our kids to attend, finding property to rent for our center, and most importantly, enrolling kids into our program, have been our highest priorities. But before we move any further we’d like to answer some questions people are frequently asking by beginning with the most basic question:

 

Who are the street kids?

 

To truly understand this question we’d have to look back in history to the tragic events that occurred in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. In an attempt to rid Cambodia of all western influence, communist dictator Pol Pot and his forces known as the Khmer Rouge committed mass genocide against the Cambodian people. Targeting the highly educated and religious leaders of the country, over 2 million Cambodians were killed making it the second worst mass genocide in the history of the world.

 

Due to the actions of the Khmer Rouge, more than fifty percent of Cambodia’s population is under the age of 22. Cambodia is a broken country.  While it’s slowly improving every day, it still has one of the most corrupt governments in the world. I’ve often described the classes of Cambodia as having a high upper class and an impoverished lower class with little to no middle ground. The general belief in Cambodia is if you are content with where you are in life and don’t complain, then in your next life you will be rewarded.

These places are some typical living situations for the street kids.

 

So let’s talk about the street kids. The kids we work with in Battambang are homeless and very poor. Some live in the slums and others live in abandoned buildings, Most just live on the sidewalk with their families. Some of their parents have low paying jobs in construction or selling food from roadside shops, but their main source of income is their children. When the sun goes down in Battambang and the night vendors and restaurants open, the street kids begin their long night of begging any and everyone they see.

The restaurants some of the kids beg at and also live under at night.

 

The kids are usually very dirty, un-kept, and not well behaved. Besides not getting baths, they also don’t eat on a regular basis with most kids only receiving one meal a day. On top of that, their teeth are almost all rotten and have permanent damage to their gums. What’s worse, there is a great risk of sickness and infection among the kids and their families, with diseases like malaria, typhoid, and in some cases HIV. Due to these factors, there are very few people or groups in Cambodia who are willing to work with street kids.

Some pictures from our dental mission last May. The girl on the right had a ring stuck on her finger and she tried to bite it off.

 

This is where the Lord has led Viya and I come in. Through our new program we will not only start putting these kids in school, we will also be an instrument of the Holy Spirit as we bring the Word of God and the love of Jesus to them through daily Bible classes. We will provide breakfast, baths, tutoring, and we’ve even partnered with Trinity Lutheran Church here in Battambang who have invited us to bring the kids to church on Sundays.

 

Together, with our partners at Global Lutheran Outreach, our goal is to introduce Jesus into the lives of these children and show them that through His Word they are destined for so much more than a life of poverty. Our work here in Cambodia is truly a mission of Witness, Mercy and Life-together.

 

Our fundraising goal for the year is $30,000 of which we have currently raised $16,684.


Follow

X

Follow

E-mail : *

By

Hello world!

Welcome to Global Lutheran Outreach Missionary Sites. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!


Follow

X

Follow

E-mail : *