Lenten Stories: Life is better now
ELCA’s 40 Days of Giving
Thank you for reading stories of the life-saving work made possible by gifts to ELCA World Hunger during Lent. Learn more at elca.org/40days »
Life is better now
CAMBODIA
Yim Kheng and her husband, Yi Pheng live in Cambodia with four of their children and one granddaughter. They received a plot of land through a social land concession, a government program intended to provide people who don’t own land with space for homes and to generate income through agriculture.
They cleared the land themselves and planted potatoes next to the small hut they built.
Often the land granted by the government is small, remote and not ready for farming. But thanks to your gifts to ELCA World Hunger, hundreds of families’ land is now usable to grow food.
Yim Kheng and Yi Pheng rented a tractor to clear the land. Now they plant rice on their plot, selling half of the harvest and keeping the other half for their family, earning an average of $260 per year.
Even with those improvements, the rice and income alone weren’t enough to feed and support the family. Because of your gifts, they also received chicken-raising training, materials to build a coop and a small flock of chickens. Their flock has grown to 100 chickens that produce eggs to eat and sell at the market.
Your gifts also enabled Yim Kheng and Yi Pheng to start a small grocery stand, thanks to a loan from the village savings and loan group, supported and trained by Life With Dignity, an ELCA World Hunger partner.
“My life is better now. I have land for settlement and agriculture, a shop, and I am knowledgeable about chicken- raising,” Yi Pheng said.
The world provides enough food for all, but more than 800 million people around the world face chronic hunger. We believe in a God of abundance, so as a church, we live out our call in baptism to strive for a just world where all are fed. ELCA World Hunger is our church’s ministry to end hunger and poverty. We walk alongside our partners and companions in the United States and more than 60 other countries. Your gifts to ELCA World Hunger address hunger and poverty around the world with creative and courageous action.
This Lent, you’re invited to join together with fellow supporters to study, reflect and give during ELCA World Hunger’s 40 Days of Giving. Experience how the grace of Christ moves us to engage in transformative works of love around the world through ELCA World Hunger as God calls us into the ministry of hope, liberation and restoration for our world.
Learn more at ELCA.org/40Days.