Sponsored by Luu Tran Anh Kiet

Mr. Pham Van Bon, age 37, and his wife Pham Thi Ngoc Sanh, age 33, have 2 children, a daughter, age 11 in grade 6 and a son, age 5, still at home. They are residing at 62/2 An Hoa hamlet, My An Village, Thanh Phu, Ben Tre. He works as a squid catcher and usually spends almost a month working at sea before coming home. His salary of $3.50 a day is just enough to provide food for his family. Meanwhile, his wife, having no job, stays home to take care of the family chores. Around 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 28, 2012, while he was at sea working and his wife at her parents’ house, someone entered and put the house on fire. In about 20 minutes, everything in the house was burned down leaving them with the debt of 10 million VND to the bank, money that they borrowed to pay back to their creditors. Out of compassion, his boss brought him home and cancelled the trip, though he suffered loss since they had only been out working for 2 days at sea. The family is now temporarily putting up at his wife’s parents’ house in the vicinity. Some of the creditors now agree to wipe out his debts and neighbors give them food and clothing. Police of Ben Tre are investigating the case of the fire. He has no money to build even a shelter for his own family.

After we sponsored this house,  they got additional help from a local group who helped fire victims.  The additional help was not enough to build a house, but  together with our funding, it was enough to build a house with 4 brick walls .  They asked for our permission to do so.  We agreed.  We feel that suffering from a fire that ruined the entire house once is enough for a life time.  If they were lucky enough to have additional help, it's their luck, and we should let them keep it and build a good solid house.