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Jim and Roberta McLaughlin
Missionaries
Cambodia
Jim and Roberta McLaughlin are Maryknoll Catholic missionaries in Cambodia. Jim is a microbiologist, now using his training to help develop a well-functioning microbiology laboratory in Cambodia; Roberta is bringing her organizational development skills to her new work at an NGO as a teacher, particularly in life skills and critical thinking. Prior to their work in Cambodia, the McLaughlins spent two years in Bolivia working at a shelter for street children.
Why we chose this work at why we keep doing it:
Jim - "For me it was a couple of things; one is the way I was raised by my parents to care for other people. My maternal grandfather probably had a lot to do with it. He was always somebody who was very altruistic. He worked very closely with American Indians in Montana and became an honorary member of the Blackfoot tribe in Montana.
 Jim and Roberta McLaughlin
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The exact moment we decided to start our next chapter:
Roberta – "We were around 55 and living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jim was a university professor at the medical school, and we said, 'You know, we just have been given so much. We've been so blessed.' Jim had just received tenure and been made a full professor and he said, 'I think now's the time.' We had saved some money, and we could just resign from our jobs. We didn't even retire. And so we both resigned to go overseas, and went first to Guatemala and worked there with poor children also."What we see as the impact of our work:
Jim – "People live at such a minimal level. A teacher makes $25 a month. A university professor makes $45. Seventy percent of the people in Cambodia live on 66 cents or less a day...Families have to pay the teachers to have their children go to school, because the teachers don't get paid adequately by the government, so the teachers extract a little bit of money from every child that goes to school. A little bit is a lot for families that have three of four children for whom they have to buy uniforms and books and pay the teacher on top of that. So what happens is a lot of kids don't go to school. So much of the money that people send to us to help in our ministry goes to provide scholarshipsNot everyone will find themselves in the position to do what we're doing, but almost everyone is in a position to do something.
specifically for girls, because the girls are the ones who are first kept out of school if there's not enough money.Lessons learned:
Jim – "I just have to be careful, because there are many, many needs, and it would be just too easy to get strung out, and not to focus on really what I want to do, and what needs to be done which is, first, to build up the microbiology laboratory at the National Laboratory of Public Health so that can become a model laboratory for other microbiology laboratories in the country. I really have to focus on that, and build up that lab, so other people can come in and see what a good microbiology lab can and should be. But there are so many ancillary things that need to be done. Just getting supplies is a big challenge.
Roberta – "One of the messages I'd like to convey to people is that not everyone will find themselves in the position to do what we're doing, but almost everyone is in a position to do a little something. That might be in San Francisco with the food bank or with homeless shelters or with whatever needs there are in the city. And there are so many needs that can be addressed overseas. On the Internet, you can look up Cambodia and find different projects underway. There's the "Build a School" project. For $1,300, you can actually build a school in a village. And if the school is built, there will be more reason then for the government to send a teacher there. There's also the Heifer Project, where you buy a cow for a family, and that makes all the difference in the world because then they have the responsibility when the first calf is born to give that to another family. It just continues the cycle of hope for people. There are just so many ways that people for $50 a month can make such a difference in the lives of people."
