A Change of Guard

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Friday 5 September 2014

Plum widow opens home to Cambodian student

By Joyce Hanz
Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014, 4:03 p.m.Updated 18 hours ago
 
Two cultures merge with a local Plum woman hosting a young man from Cambodia for three months.
Plum resident Georgie Anstis, 71, opened her home to Cambodian student Chan Oudom Im, and the two have formed a quick bond.
Im is one of five Cambodians to come to the United States for three months as part of an educational program through the Oakmont-based South East Asia Prayer Center and Riverside Community Church.
“I only wanted to study in America, and God provided this opportunity,” said Im, 22.
Anstis grew up in Plum, raised her family in Upper St. Clair, and returned to Plum after the death of her husband.
She offered Oudom his own bathroom and bedroom in her spacious townhouse.
“He is loving every minute of his American experience,” said Anstis.
“When he first arrived, he kept saying that he felt like he was in a dream. He is so neat and such a gentleman, always making up his bed, helping with the dishes, and taking out the trash.”
Anstis felt a calling to offer lodging to Oudom.
“I wanted to give back,” she said.
“This is the first time I have hosted someone internationally, and Oudom eats a lot. He absolutely loves salad. He says salad is like a dessert. He also loves fruits such as cherries, peaches, and plums. Fruit is too expensive for him to afford in Cambodia. I raised four boys so I know all about feeding hungry men.”
Anstis and Oudom love to frequent restaurants and explore Pittsburgh.
“I love eating at Red Robin,” Im said. “I love hamburgers, pizza, Mexican. The food in America is good.”
“Oudom will be attending a Pirates game. ... He knows American baseball,” said Anstis.
Im credits the missionaries that would frequent New Hope with giving him love.
“Many of the people visiting us in the orphanage, they gave us lots of love,” he said.
He always had a desire to study abroad and now in Pittsburgh he is fulfilling that wish.
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Cambodian student Chan Oudom Im with host Georgie Anstis of Plum enjoying a meal at a Mexican restaurant.


He is in his third year of studying International Relations back in Cambodia.

“I am very interested in business and I love to watch the show “Shark Tank” in my room here in Pa.,” Im said.
He will miss the “rolling hills and green landscape” that western Pennsylvania offers.
“I find this country to have very nice people and a society that obeys laws well,” Im said. “It is noisy with lots of traffic and city life back in Cambodia.”
“It is so nice here, and quiet,” Im said. “But I miss my family (four sisters and a brother) ‘scolding' me because I am the youngest in the family.”
Im's childhood was fraught with tragedy. He stoically reflected.
“My mother committed suicide when I was five, and then out of nowhere my Dad showed up after her death,” said Im, who had never met his father before.
“He took me in for two years and then he died from HIV complication.”
Im was sent to live at New Hope Orphanage and remained there until high school.
“I didn't like it (the orphanage) at first. I was stressed. My parents were Buddhists, but the orphanage was a Christian one and the pastors there really helped me and provided love. Without that, I think I would have turned out bad or in jail or something.”
Members of the prayer center, at 432 Allegheny River Blvd., in Oakmont, began praying for Cambodia in 1995 in the aftermath of civil war and genocide.
The nonprofit organization was founded in Oakmont in 1992 by Mark Geppert. His son, Matt, is the president of the organization.
It has built 14 children's homes in Cambodia and helped hundreds of orphans in the past 15 years, according to Matt Geppert.
It also helped educate thousands of Cambodians by building eight public schools.

The organization has been working with Im and four other students since they were children in the New Hope for Cambodia program, which matches Cambodian orphans with sponsors in the United States and Asia.
“Because we're a global organization, we want them to be able to have global standards,” Geppert said.
The students have a schedule each day that includes English lessons, job shadowing, church work and leadership training.
The organization works with 25 nations and helps develop the country through health care, education, parenting and economic development.
Geppert and Riverside Community Church's arts and missions pastor, the Rev. Dave Longstreth, visited Cambodia and found that many of these students had a drive to do more to help rebuild their country.
“This is kind of a dream concept that we've been talking about for the last couple years,” Longstreth said.
Geppert said the organization wanted to continue to follow these students into the next chapter of their lives.
“We're walking with these guys through young adulthood and into their professions,” he said.
Once the program is over in October, the group will work for the prayer center in Cambodia for five years.
Joyce Hanz is a contributing writer for Trib Total Media. Staff writer Emily Balser contributed to this report.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Georgie Antis is such a great and kind lady to give opportunity to a stranger to better themselves. She will be rewarded seventy folds.