Story of Help Smart

Story of Help Smart



There was an old farmer leaving with a wife and 3 sons. He is quite rich at the time because he has 17 cows. One day he told his wife : If I died, you are to give our eldest son 1/2 of the 17 cows, the second son 1/3 of the 17 cows and the youngest son 1/9 of the 17 cows, with killing the cows. The wife does not know how to divide them according to what her husband wanted.



One day, the old farmer died, the widow was totally lost. Fortunately, she knew of a volunteer who leaves in the village. This volunteer has been helping people for many years. When she approached the volunteer, he to told her : That is easy, I have a cow with me, take my cow with you, your problem will be solved. The eldest son gets 1/2 of 18 cows, that is 9 cows. Your second son get 1/3 of 18 cows, that is 6 cows. And the youngest son get 1/9 of 18 cows, that is 2 cows. The widow also did not know that after adding 9 cows, 6 cows and 2 cows, the total is 17 cows. So she has an extra cow and decided to return it to the volunteer.



Everybody was so happy, not longer after the volunteer got back her cows, the cow that belong to the volunteer gave birth to 2 calfs.



The moral of the story is that we can be helping people, but with limited resources, we must also learn to Help Smart like the volunteer. In this case, he gave one cow to help solve a problem. In return, he get back 3 cows, how nice.

Vocation with a Cause - My First Trip to Cambodia

Voation with a Cause - My First Trip to Cambodia

As per what I have said earlier in my blog, I try to travel to a country each year where I have not been to before. Each place I go, whether it is for the first time or not, there will be new insight and new lesson to be learnt to share.

I was in Cambodia from 9 to 13 Jul 2008, with my wife and 14 other of my volunteer friends. I called it the vocation with a cause because it is also an overseas service project cum holiday. This is my first trip there and I hope to go back there again. We were there to build a new classroom for a school, give away cloths, shorts, bags, stationary, tip-bits to 2 ophanages and tour Angkor Wat, Bayon and some other historical sights.

Introduction

We booked our own air-tickets through internet with Silkair as early as April 2008. Each air-ticket is about S$320. Some booked in May 2008 only pay about S$280. We know a local tour guide in Cambodia, he book the hotel for us and got us a 20-seater mini-bus. The charges for the whole package is S$458 per head for twin sharing, inclusive of 4 nights stay at 5-star hotel, tour at Angkor Wat & Bayon, city tour, USD20 entrance fee to Angkor Wat and all meals. I should say what we paid is very reasonable.

As for our service projects, we brought with us about 400 kg of things for the children and adults of Cambodia. At Singapore check-in counter, we supposed to pay for excess baggage but Silkair was very kind to waive it because we said we are bringing the old clothes for the poor in Cambodia. We managed to raise USD4,200 to build one classroom in Cambodia.

(to be continued)