Let the Baking Begin

Yesterday, I mentioned to my dad that since the holidays are nearing maybe I should advertise on facebook that I will take orders for baked goods, with profits going to New Hope Orphanages or child sponsorships via SEAPC.

This was after I made a batch of apples cinnamon bread which he couldn't stop eating and demanded that it go. Samples! I could make samples for people to try and then have an order form sitting next to the samples! Of course, once you get someone hooked, then they have to buy some, right? So I will be making samples and sending it down to his office and another office, thanks to him enlisting the help of a very generous business associate and brother in Christ. Pray that this goes well!

Also, here is a rough draft of the "Cupcakes for Cambodia" Story that will be attached to the order form so people will understand my heart and God's plan for this!

Cupcakes for Cambodia…

About a year and a half ago, I became seriously interested in baking. I realized how many kids my age didn’t know how to bake (or cook) anything from scratch, and immediately accepted the challenge of mastering home baking from scratch. I became obsessed with baking everything from scratch: if I was making cupcakes, both the cupcakes and frosting had to be made from scratch. It soon became a passion and filled up all my extra time; cupcakes became a particular specialty.

Years before my baking obsession had started, my dad became acquainted with a missionary who worked all over Southeast Asia building orphanages, schools, and starting micro-economic development projects. His specialty and obsession was walking and praying: through cities and villages and for people and over lands that would eventually become transformed into homes for orphaned and abused children. Our family knew we were supposed to be connected with this man and his ministry, SEAPC which stands for Southeast Asia Prayer Center. Around the holidays our families would get together and Mark would tell us about all the new and exciting projects that were going on. We supported them financially and in prayers, as well as participate in their Coins for Kids program to build orphanages and schools as well as support other special projects.

The spring of 2012 I was a senior in highschool, deciding what I was going to do with my future. Other students were filling out college applications and touring universities, but I had prayed that past December about what God would have me do with my future. I just didn’t think that college at that point was part the plan, so I patiently waited. By spring I knew I was supposed to go to work for the family business, which supported SEAPC as well as other ministries internationally, but I also knew that my passion for baking wasn’t and accident. I had a God given dream to use my skills and passion to further His kingdom; God had placed a dream in my heart to start a bakery and donate all the profit to Cambodia to fund orphanages and schools, or child sponsors.

I had the opportunity to visit Cambodia in September of 2012. It was a life changing experience. We toured 5 New Hope orphanages as well as several schools that are partners with SEAPC. They house about 400 orphans, with plans to build an orphanage in every province. Driving through the country I saw the conditions of some of the children living outside the orphanages, as well as heard stories of those who get dropped off at city dumps because their parents can’t feed them. When I got home, I knew it was time to become more active and help these kids. God has plans and dreams for these kids and a future. There were so many success stories I heard of kids who grew up in New Hope homes. I wanted to give more kids that opportunity. I knew it was time to start doing something to make that happen.

So this is how I came up with the idea for Cupcakes for Cambodia. Despite the name, I bake many other things including cakes, pies, bread, bars, cookies, brownies as well as any requests you might have. My goal is to make baked goods with excellence that will sell at a reasonable price and send the profits to build New Hope orphanages as well as sponsor children. 

Children at the Siem Reap orphanage

Without ever firing a bullet.

It's Been Awhile.

And I do apologize, but adjusting to life back in the States was not the easiest thing. I was not really functioning normally my first two weeks back at least. I seemed empty headed I'm sure, but in all reality my head was filled with thoughts of Cambodia, Laos, and Singapore. A constantly flashing of memories from the past 15 days kept replaying themselves, on repeat. After the thrill of seeing what God is doing in a nation so different from mine, seeing with my own eyes, traveling by bus from place to place and interacting with such a great group of people almost constantly made it hard to come back and sit in an office away from everyone. What was harder was being confronted by the American ways of life and thinking. It's an experience like no other, and for a long time everything just seemed so meaningless.

What was not meaningless, was welcoming a new life and miracle into our family, my niece Gabrielle Brynne!

But I remember walking through the mall to find our baby a new outfit and listening to the conversations and with glazed eyes watching everything pass by me and thinking "this is so meaningless."

The drama, the superficiality, the vanity, the materialism. The heaping up of an empire of dirt that fades and burns up into nothing.

So, I was pretty upset. But my life had changed. I had just come from a place where children barely had clothes, and most of the ones outside of the New Hope orphanages had clothes that were filthy.

Children walked around, seemingly unsupervised. It was just after the rainy season so everything was saturated and swampy. I remember seeing a few of the children from the village outside our university playing in about a foot of water/rice paddy.

Starting in the 70's when the civil war and Khmer Rouge turmoil happened, the Cambodian people fried spiders for food.

And we complain when we have to eat leftovers.

I felt the need to do something. I felt a desire to pour out all my efforts to help these people. I expected poverty and scenarios like the ones I saw, but when I thought "This is a person's home and life. I wouldn't want to have to live like this, in these conditions" is when it hit me, this isn't just us touring through, this is a person's life, day in and day out.

Something had stirred inside me during those long exhausting days in the hot humid Cambodian and Laos jungles as we traveled by bus over paved and dirt roads, past mansions sitting next to mud huts and past temples where impoverished people gave the best of their food on an alter to a dead god so that he would be pleased and maybe they wouldn't go hungry again.

We walked through a city stupa and shrine and I saw people who lived in mud huts come into gilded temples filled with beauty and wealth and leave their best in there, to go on and live there life with utter poverty and despair.

Buddha did not offer these people hope. You could feel the hopelessness hang heavy and thick in the air, suppressing, crushing and killing the spirits of these precious people.

You looked into the eyes of people as you drove by down the streets and saw the utter despair, the complacency, the lack of self worth and purpose.

But let me tell you about the people who SEAPC has partnered with...

These people who have such a dream and vision for the children and youth of Cambodia.

The are areas christened the "Killing Fields" in Cambodia from the mass slaughters committed under the reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

And in those same areas men and women of faith are building orphanages, agricultural centers and schools and calling them "New Hope."

Out of the killing fields comes fields of harvest. The pastors and leaders and overseers of these projects have dreams to change a communist, depressed nation.

Without EVER firing a bullet.

They are reaching the youth and training them spiritually and physically to love Jesus, work hard, get good grades, be number one in their class and go on to be managers and overseers of places of business. Children who have been raised in New Hope orphanages have gone on to be doctors and business men. In fact, the houseparent of one of the new orphanages we built had been an orphan himself in a New Hope orphanage.

And here he was, pouring back into the next generation of Cambodian leaders, doctors, lawyers, preachers, and parents.

All of this was constantly on my mind for two weeks.

But, I think I have changed my outlook. As I look back on Cambodia, I choose not to see a nation, struggling to bounce back from decades of war and killing. I choose not to see the hopelessness, desperation, and frustration of a people who can't feed their family or find a job.

I choose to see a people who have a dream, who are determined. I see hope shining in the eyes of those people. I heads lifting, and dreams growing bigger. I see potential and fields of harvest in such beautiful nations.

Sometimes wars are won with guns. But in my opinion, wars are best won with faith, hope and love. Without ever firing a bullet.