Saturday Morning

Graduation Day

Well today is graduation day for English camp. We will meet as normal until noon today. Koem Va has not been here for the last 2 days, which has concerned Roger and I, however we do know that he had a nursing testing yesterday that may have gone past the time we left. Fortunately, I got his address so I can send a Bible if I don't see him today.

Although we have been adjusting well and have come to feel comfortable here, last night's sharing time brought some sad reminders of where we are.

Sharing Time #1

Yesterday when we went to the zoo, the church sent along "lunches" for us, because we were gone so long. The lunches consisted of rice (which we've had at every meal) in styrofoam containers with a little meat. We had romotans for dessert. Because it rained, i ate on the bus, but some ate underneath a shelter. As is common here, when the Khmer were done, they just threw the trash in a pile on the ground.

At our sharing time last night one of the students asked if we'd seen what happened with the trash. I had not. The kids who were trying to sell us coconuts were poor farm children. The student shared that as we began to leave, the kids began picking through our trash pile and pouring any salvagable food into a container to take with them. Very hard to fathom.

Sharing Time #2

Roger had a long list of prayer requests for Cambodia that we talked and prayed through last night. In some cases, Roger would give students additional information that he had learned since being here.

One prayer request was for the sex slavery industry here. In our prayer requests (compiled by Operation World), they stated that 50,000 prostitutes operate here. 1/3 of those are children.

Roger shared about a CMA missionary here named Kim who works with the Vietnamese here. As I mentioned before, the Vietnames are looked down on here. Their children cannot attend public schools and they cannot afford to send them to private schools. (As an aside, we have 3 Vietnamese children in our group - Chum Va, Tan Tan and Tye. Chum Va always sings very strong during song time. Tan Tan is shy to a fault and her English is probably the poorest in our group.) Kim is the one who has been bringing the Vietnamese children here. On Monday or Tuesday, she was eating with Roger and told him of a young 12 year old girl who she had been inviting to church (and I believe English Camp). When she went to see her early this week, the girl would not come out to see her. Kim insisted and eventually the girl came out. When she did, Kim noticed that she was wearing jewelry and that her hair had been dyed. Kim knew immediately what this meant. Her parents had sold her to the local prostitution ring. Kim was very upset, as were all of us.

I cannot imagine the desperation and/or evil that would lead someone to sell their 12 year old daughter into such a lifestyle. Things like this are very hard to take in. Unfortunately, as the statistics above show, this happens to thousands of children here.