Eggrolls for Cambodia

There is a woman in our Ward, Tevy, who is originally from Cambodia.  She grew up during years of great turmoil and social unrest in their country.  As a teenager, her father was killed because he was educated, and the family was forced to evacuate and walk hundreds of miles to a refugee camp.  There, conditions were terrible, with little food, and no medical attention.  Eventually they were able to flee to Vietnam, then later on to the United States.  Her story is truly remarkable.

Because of her history and connection to Cambodia, Tevy has remained in contact with family members and friends who still live there.  She has started to sponser a village, called Siem Riep, which is in desperate poverty.  Many are members of the church, who continually sacrifice greatly for their faith, and she has made it her mission to help the people of this village.

Tevy teaches Asian cooking classes, with all the profits going to this village.  She is a fantastic cook, and I have taken classes from her before.

These are some villagers after receiving bags of rice which Tevy's
donations from her cooking classes provided.  Amazingly, each bag
 of rice costs them about one month salary.

My Beehive class wanted to do a service project, and my friend Stephanie Johnson, who also teaches with me, came up the idea to make and sell Tevy's eggrolls as a fundraiser, with all profits to go to her village.

Stephanie with some of our Beehives.

Here, Tevy is showing the girls how to make the eggrolls.

 
We invited the Beehives, their mothers, and anyone else who was willing, to help out in rolling the eggrolls.  We had a fantastic turnout!  In total, we ended out selling aroung 1500 eggrolls, and made over $1000 to send to Siem Riep!  We are so excited about what this village can do with all that money!  Our original goal was to earn $500.  It has been a wonderful testimony-builder, reminding me that our Father in Heaven loves ALL his children.  As Stephanie was purchasing supplies and ingredients, things just kept falling into place, which allowed for her to save more money, freeing up more of it to go directly to Cambodia.  It just felt that this was something our Father in Heaven wanted to happen, and happen in a BIG way!