Sreyleak, age 23, has a two-year-old son and a five-month-old daughter. Her husband works as a construction worker. She joins the Flourish team a few months ago during the pandemic. Sreyleak is an industrious woman, and she is bright and a fast learner. She also finds love and peace whenever she is in Chress Methodist Church. She rents a tiny room just behind the church and loves to spend all her waking hours in the church with her children because her rental room is poorly ventilated and small. She helps to cook for the children in the church kindergarten and in between times, she catches up with her crochet work. She crochets colourful tote bags and can-cozies. Sreyleak shares that with the money she earns, she can help her husband to pay for the rental of the room.
Sreyleak shared with a missionary that she was learning to tithe and related an experience she had. She owed someone some money, and her husband had a $100 to pay off the debt. She felt that giving away 10% of that $100, which is $10, was a lot of money that she could not afford. So she decided not to give the $10 tithe and reserved the $100 to pay off the debt. She learnt her lesson the next moment: She went out and was caught by a traffic police, who demanded her to pay a fine of $10 for a minor offence!
She confessed that she had robbed God of the $10 but lost it. She was not able to keep it anyway and hence, it was better off if she had given it back to God. The missionary felt sorry for Sreyleak, tried to comfort her, and told her that God would understand and not fault her for not tithing. Instead, she smiled and said to the missionary that we cannot keep whatever belongs to God.
What an inspiring story of a faith journey with the Lord!