by p. Mario Ghezzi

The 17-year-old Cambodian is not yet a Christian but he is learning to know Jesus in the small community of Ampau Prey. Born into a very poor family, he can study thanks to the generosity of a Catholic woman. Her deed reflects the work of “Providence and the Resurrection". He dreams to become a doctor to help others.

Phnom Penh (AsiaNews) – For Easter, AsiaNews is publishing the stories of priests and lay people from Asia. Below is a letter from Fr Mario Ghezzi, a missionary with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), who has been in Cambodia for 15 years.

Lay (pictured) is 17. He hails from Lake 94, one of the poorest places that I have ever seen, on the edge of the world without services like water, electricity, sewers, roads, schools or temples. It has simply nothing, except for the more than 150 families that the most violent waves of life have thrown up there.

Lay is not Christian yet, but he is learning to know Jesus in the small community of Ampau Prey, where I travel every Sunday.

A few years ago, he left Lake 94 through the kindness of Thary, a Catholic woman, who has "adopted" some 30 kids, forgotten by the world but not by God, and brought them to Ampau Prey where they can get an education.

Lay began a new life of daily work, personal care, housework, interpersonal relationships to manage and nurture, serious and constant study and a slow and gradual understanding of the Christian life, the way Christians live.

At some point, he discovered that his eyesight was in trouble but did not dare tell Thary, because he was already receiving a lot from her, too much compared to what he could expect from life. So, he decided to keep quiet and save five dollars to buy a pair of glasses.

After a few months, he raised the fateful amount. He took off in his bicycle and after riding for 20 kilometres under the Cambodian sun, he reached the town of Ta Khmau, the first place that had an optician.

After going into the shop, he asked for the price of a pair of glasses, the cheapest of course. The optician answered with words that must have sounded like an unsurpassed defeat to Lay. Nothing was less than US$ 7.

Dejected, Lay left the store. He looked around and saw a poor and hungry man, sitting about.

Without a thought for his small defeat, he put a hand in his pocket, pulled out the US $ 5 and gave them to the poor man . . .

The optician saw the scene. Impressed, he called Lay back in the store and gave him a pair of glasses . . . This is how Providence and the Resurrection work.

This is a simple Easter that unfolded and flourished in the simplicity of young man and his selfless act. God later chose how to reward him.

What moved the heart of the young optician who unintentionally took part in this Easter of Resurrection in his shop?

The witness that God requires us to give reflects this disarmingly simplicity. It has the colours of Jesus’ silence before Pilate and the crowd. Faced with threats and shouts, it says my glasses are nothing compared to the hunger of this poor man.

This year, Lay will finish middle school. We will then send him to Phnom Penh to high school. He must get a good education because he dreams of becoming a doctor.

Hopefully, we can help him because a doctor with such a heart is not found in Cambodia every day.

Happy Easter everyone.

• cambodia
• lay
• easter
• dreams