Answered Prayer finds Intern Adam Jenkins in Cambodia
At a time when most rising college seniors were contemplating their last carefree summer, Adam Jenkins was winging his way to Cambodia to fulfill a dream. “This is answered prayer! An opportunity to be out in the world doing God’s work!” exclaimed Adam when offered the possibility of doing an internship half-way around the world.
Katherine Parker, Adam’s mentor in Cambodia, is a Community Health and Agricultural Development (CHAD) worker. CHAD is part of the Initiative of the Methodist Mission in Cambodia, and its objective is to reach out in Christian love through local congregations to realize God’s promise of abundant life for all. A primary concern is food security and cooperative livelihood projects such as raising cows, chickens, pigs, vegetable gardens, rice, and other crops to increase food supplies. Cambodians can produce only enough food to last for nine out of the twelve months; so hunger is an ever present problem. Another problem in Cambodia is contaminated water, which is not safe to drink and is the cause of many illnesses. This summer there has been an outbreak of acute diarrhea which has been the focus of teaching workshops led by Katherine. Adam is working with Katherine in all of these areas.
As a student at Randolph Macon College majoring in religion and business, Adam’s skills in both faith development and business planning are extremely helpful to CHAD. There are other skills of equal benefit to our mission in Cambodia, e.g., he has been instrumental in maintaining and updating records of water testing research vital to the fight against acute diarrhea and other water-borne diseases. Adam’s expertise in developing power point presentations and videos helps the Cambodians, as well as us here in the U.S., to understand the goals and objectives of our mission there; his business acumen and training is helping young Cambodians to plan their own small cooperative businesses; and his skill in writing is of special help to other missionaries at the Methodist Center whose first language is not English.
Adam is grateful for the opportunity to intern in Cambodia and to those who made this experience possible. Anyone wishing to know more about Community Health and Agricultural Development can do so at http://chad-Cambodia.blogspot.com
Juanita K. Csontos, Coordinator for the Cambodia Mission