Rathanak's Story
Rathanak is five years old and HIV+. I met him a few months ago at a clinic visit with his mother Lin. His father had died of AIDS five years before and now his mother feeling quite unwell decided that maybe she and her son needed to be tested for HIV.
Project Homecare staff drew blood and it was taken to Phnom Penh for testing.
The next week the results came back, both mother and son were HIV+.
Lin and Rathanak started to come weekly to visit us at our 
clinic.
We meet once a week at a clinic with those who are well enough to come and those who fear alienation from their neighbours.
We provide preventative medications, soya milk powder and fruit.
One week I remember meeting with Lin and Rathanak, instead of the oranges that we normally bring, This week we had brought mangosteins (a very special and delicious tropical fruit). Lin exclaimed to us that she had had a dream the night before that we had brought mangosteins instead of oranges and she had hoped that it was true!
A simple yet significant blessing from a loving Heavenly Father
that made a dying woman very happy. It was on that day that we had brought with us Bibles, New Testaments and children’s Bible Story Books to give away.
Lin was eager to find out more about the Living God who loved her like a daughter, so unlike the spirits of her ancestors that she had worshiped or the impersonal statues of Buddha. So, we gave her a Bible Story Book for Rathanak and a New Testament Picture Bible for herself.
That week Lin and one of the Project Homecare staff, went together to an AOC run cell group meeting in her village. Not wanting to be left out when everyone was looking up the chapter and verse during the Bible Study she later asked for a complete Bible to read herself. We brought her one the next week.
Lin continued to come regularly to the clinic for medication, prayer and encouragement. She regularly attended the AOC cell group meeting and gave her life to Christ.
One week Lin and Rathanak didn’t show up at the clinic, we 
knew some-thing must be wrong. So, we went to visit them at their home. Lin was lying on a grass mat on a flat wooden bed underneath her house, where it is the coolest during the day. She was very sick and weak, unable to sit up,
unable to eat or drink-- the end stages of AIDS had been reached.
We encouraged her in her faith and prayed with her. When we were leaving I was unsure if we would see her again.
A few days later, only four months after being diagnosed Lin
aged 36, died of AIDS but joined her Saviour Jesus in heaven!
Now Rathanak, with both parents gone, lives with an aunt who has taken him in. She brings him to visit us at the clinic weekly for checkups and medication but he is alone in his fight against HIV. What does this life have to offer him, only loneliness, pain, suffering, sickness, and death, unless the love of Christ intervenes.
Please pray for Rathanak and other Cambodians living and dying of AIDS that they will know Christ and the freedom of His salvation for this life and the one to come.
Pray for us as we bring them hope and restoration in Christ.
“Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their Shepard; He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Rev 7: 16 & 17