Welcome!

Dear Friends,

After a pensive 32 hour flight from Phnom Penh, with transit interludes dotted in airports, we arrived back home in Maine. The cats were there to greet us at the door of our 1846 year old home grounded at the edge of the ice coated blueberry fields. Very soon we collapsed in bed while at once feeling the familiar pattern of our mattress molding to our tired bodies. The wood stove was rocking with a fire from split oak and maple logs - a fire I set ready to burst into flame after we embarked on our month journey to oversee CASF programs throughout Cambodia.

Somewhere in dream-led sleep, I was abruptly awakened. Someone shouted into my sleep,
"LIGHTS!"

I rolled over and in a flash turned on the bedside lamp. Kitty in sleepy tones asked what in the world I was yelling about.

"Lights!" I answered. "A play director has demanded more LIGHT"

As I sank back into sleep, even more light was shed on the stage of the past month's journey from Phnom Penh to Mondolkiri, and all the personal stops in between.

Light was shed on Kitty singing, "If you’re happy clap your hands." The drama was reenacted village after village as CASF students joined in the song and dance. The sun rose on the girl - poor of the poorest - who with one hand led me to her shack no bigger than the inside of a car. By the charcoals of a cooking fire tested her reading in English and Khmer. Born with one arm connected to a hump on her back, she possessed a smile that was the picture of enchantment and the will to learn.

Touching illumination was shed on the moment when one university student who could now face the world with a glass eye, gave thanks to Sam and Jane for making the medical fund self-sustaining. Tears flowed as she designated them as parents.

Lights! More light than one thousand suns shone when university students blessed Ken and his family for their annual contributions and compassion to be celebrated by a shipment of CASF designer Crocs complete with butterfly logo. The students never forget thanking all our contributors who in the alchemy of giving turn dreams into reality to make Cambodia a better place.

Light was indeed captured in the one hundred thirty students who from the sixth grade to university are caught up in learning and the opportunities CASF provides in health care, food, scholarships, housing, bicycles and personal oversight.

I believe the soul shines in what we see in another's eyes: The shy glance. Penetrating look. Studied vision. Eyes uplifted. You can see the 'ALL' there as survivors of grandparents who
So it is no wonder that following our odyssey in Cambodia, in the middle of the night, I shouted, "LIGHTS!" For it is all about the compassion of Light and greater learning, we are in the sunrise or sunset of our lives really about.

I am reminded that Tolstoy while dying in a train station, summed up all existence in his last words, "MORE LIGHT..."

I trust this sudden revelation of illumination was really what my dream last night was all about, and am truly thankful for the true gift the Cambodian Arts and Scholarship Foundation offers even as we sleep.

Love,
Fred

Fred Lipp is the author of Running Shoes, the story of a young Cambodian girl determined to overcome the obstacles of her circumstances and change her life for the better.

A truly inspirational story.

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