Local man plants peace in Cambodia

May 27, 2008
By Deborah Wheeler

South Walton native is Planting Peace in Cambodia

By Deborah Wheeler

While most of the country frets and complains about the price of gas, two former South Waltoners have more worldly concerns to deal with.

Matt Chambliss has joined his former golfing buddy, Aaron Jackson, in the Planting Peace organization. Jackson founded Planting Peace and is based in South Florida. He travels to Haiti and Guatemala once a month where he has opened six orphanages and hands out de-worming pills to poor Haitians.

After Jackson received national news coverage of his mission, he was invited to come to Cambodia to set up a program there.

Chambliss also heard about his old buddy's new life mission and looked him up.

Jackson invited Chambliss to come with him to Sihanoukville, Cambodia, a town on the coast the size of Destin.

Chambliss accepted.

In Cambodia, a country where landmines are prevalent, one in every 200 people is an amputee. With no social or government help, the amputees are left homeless and live in trees. They send their children - as young as age 3 - out to the streets to beg for food.

Jackson accepted the project but had no one to run it. Chambliss offered.

A small eight-room hotel was rented for $8 a day and now houses eight families of 50 of the "tree people."

"I paid the rent for a year. We are putting the kids back in school and teaching them some farming techniques. We're trying to get the amputees back into society," said Jackson.

The help came just in time for this group of people.

"The wet season has started earlier this year and there are many families living in muddy or chest-high grassy areas," Chambliss said via e-mail from Cambodia. "It's hard to watch people try to sell you children or breast feeding in muddy water. But now hopefully all will survive the wet season."

The two young men - both 26 - met on the golf course - one was in the ninth grade and the other in the 10th - and became good friends.

"We played golf together every day," said Jackson.

Both earned golf scholarships to different colleges.

"I never thought we'd be doing this together," Jackson continued. "But I never thought I would be doing this."

Jackson's life of service, which has come at such a young age, came as a result of the sudden death of his grandfather, Chick Grant, with whom he was close.

Chambliss said his newfound mission is something he has been searching for.

"I have always loved helping people," he said. "I had taken two mission trips to Central America (El Salvador, Belize). When I took those trips I found the missing link or void in my heart. I just want to live and help others grow in their own culture. I'm not here to change the Khmer way, just to show the people here that they are much stronger than they have been taught. But when you deal with all these types of situations, it drains energy form you. It is like you are giving them something from inside."

Chambliss turned 26 last week - the first birthday spent without his family. His mom, Clarice Zelenak, of Santa Rosa Beach, said she misses her son, but feels he has found his "place."

"My family has done a lot of missionary work. We worked with AIDS victims and the homeless in Birmingham. Matt had been searching. When he reconnected with Aaron, he said, ‘This is it.' He has never been materialistic. He was kind of lost and tired of school, but he didn't really know what he wanted to do," she said. "His favorite quote is by Albert Schweitzer: ‘The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.'"

Chambliss left for Cambodia at the end of March and doesn't know how long he will be there. As far as his mother knows, he will be there indefinitely, until he gets the Planting Peace program established.