Not forgotten

Its been a while since we blogged. Not surprised really, life happens and things just sort of move on. It isn't front and center in your life. Job, family, bills, etc. But I have not forgotten.



Those children are in my heart and my mind every day. I think about them, I miss them. I wonder what they are doing.

I wonder if they have eaten today? Did they get to sleep through the night without worrying about their safety. Have they been hugged today? Have they been told that someone loves them?





Every time I look around at the excess that my family has, the toys my daughter just leaves on the floor, not to be touched or even looked at for days, maybe even weeks, I think of the little girl I saw who was playing with the tape reel of an old broken cassette tape and the boy playing with sticks, in the midst of so much trash. Those images stick with me.

I think about the school at CHO, where orphans and trafficked children live. A woman I met while we were there said she would love for each child to have their own soft, stuffed toy. They don't. My child has dozens.

Today when my daughter was playing outside in the water hose and her pool, I think of the children I saw playing in dirty water.

When I don't finish all my food, I think of the waste and wonder if those kids have eaten even once today.

I miss them.

I dont want to forget

Of all the things that I saw while I was in Cambodia, especially Poipet, the thing that bothered me the most, that I felt could be easily fixed was the abundance of trash everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It was disturbing. I understand that if the people are so desperate that they will sell their children so that they can eat, that they can not afford to pay for someone to take away their trash but seriously why wont the government do something about this problem? I hurt for the people that they do not even understand basic sanitation. The children live amongst this filth. As you can see from the first 2 pictures the children are having one of their school on the mat classes right in the middle of the trash and animal waste.

Irony

Erin here. So Cambodia. I can't believe you have come and gone. It seems like yesterday when I was planning my trip, planning what to do about my daughter, what about my work here at home? Well, I'm home. Funny how things didn't fall apart while I was gone. Things are actually amazing. Work is amazing, in the 6+ years I have been on staff here at Buckhead Church, this is the first Easter weekend that I have not been extremely anxious and ~ Ill admit ~ stressed out!
Funny huh? God is good like that. He has a sense of humor and he is always listening.

Remember what I wrote a few posts ago, that I was afraid to go and really see people who had been trafficked? I talk about it here at home and fight it and all that goes with that, but going to a place where I will actually see it made me think of what it might be like for someone who supports AIDS research but then is actually given the opportunity to sit next to someone while they are given the news they have the disease or to sit next to someone with the disease while they are in the hospital?














Well, God showed up in Cambodia in that exact scene. And the person who needed to see the sick with AIDS was me. I have never been in the presence of someone that sick. Someone who is struggling to breath, to eat, or to drink even a tiny bit of water. Someone who is so frail and weak that you cannot imagine how they have any strength at all.

One of the amazing things that CHO does is provide nursing care and food for some of the patients at a government hospital in Poipet. Because we wanted to get a holistic picture of what CHO does, this hospital was on the top of our list of places to visit our first morning on the ground. The hospital, as you can see from below, is not providing the kind of care that these patients deserve. Right now the patients with AIDS and the patients with Tuberculosis SHARE a room! The hospital is a concrete building with no air conditioning, open windows, no sanitation and very very little medical supplies.





























There were 5 women here with AIDS and 2 with TB. The TB patients do wear masks over their faces but seriously they still SHARE a room with women who are extremely sick with AIDS.

Most of the patients here don't have family. Most of them are ostracized from their family and only have the nurses here to care for them. The woman pictured below is an exception. The woman in the green skirt and orange top has her husband to care for her. He was there while we were there, rubbing her arms and legs and caressing her hair. He too has AIDS, but he is healthier than she is so he cares for her. It was a very touching scene, the nurse says he comes often.

Who is willing to pay?

Great problems are solved only at a great cost. Evil doesn’t go away quietly. Broken systems do not change without struggle. When Jesus stepped into our broken world to defeat sin and death, it cost his life. Not just his time, energy, and effort. His life. Redemption costs something. Someone has to be spent. I mean, name the issue, point to the place: trafficking in Cambodia and Thailand, the devastation in Haiti, genocide in Rwanda, hatred and killing in Sudan, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, starvation in Somalia or China, gang violence and drug abuse in downtown Atlanta – these problems don’t just go away.

Someone has to be spent.














As I’m looking out the window at the trash dump that is Poi Pet, I’m overwhelmed. Halfhearted measures and temporary concern won’t change a thing in this place. I’m reminded of when Paul wrote in Colossians 1:24:

“Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body which is the church.”

There’s more work to be done, Paul is saying. More to be sacrificed. More to be suffered. He’s not saying that Jesus’ sacrifice was incomplete. No, Jesus died once, for all, for all time. But cultures are still broken. Peoples are still living in darkness. Things like sex slavery still exist. And if we want to take what Jesus has done and make it a reality in a place like Poi Pet, we’ll have to suffer too. We’ll have to sacrifice too. We’ll have to be spent as well. Because redemption costs something, and we’re going to have to fill up in our flesh what’s lacking, what is still yet to be paid.

People are going to have to give. Some people are going to have to go. Some people are going to have to go and stay a while. Some are going to have to choke on this dust and smell these sewers for a while. Someone is going to have to go to these muddy villages and teach for a while. Someone is going to have to love on these girls who’ve escaped the brothels for a while. Somone is going to have to give micro loans and cows and seeds to parents so they won’t sell their children for income. It’s going to take time. It’s not going to be easy or fast. And someone, maybe lot’s of someones are going to have to fund it all.





















Bottom line is that it’s going to cost us if we want to do something about sex trafficking in Poi Pet. Or hey Buckhead church folks, it’s going to cost us if we want to see salvation & redemption come to Buckhead. And I pray that I, that we would be a people who are willing to pay that price. I hope we will not shrink back. I mean seriously, imagine what we could do in our days. Imagine what God could do through us in Buckhead and in place around the globe like Poi Pet in these days! Imagine what we could look back on 10, 15, 50 years from now and say, “can you believe that God used us to do THAT?!” It’s possible. Seriously! God desires to do immeasurably more than all that we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us.

We just have to be willing to pay the price. Our God is a God who gets right down in the middle of the mess, the brokenness, the dirty, the ugly, and the sin of this world, and it will cost something to join him.

Processing ~ More Soon

The Children

The children here are so beautiful. We have had so much fun visiting with them. They are everywhere. Yesterday when we visited one of the villages to see one of the sewing co~ops the children surrounded us like a little swarm. When we first arrived there were a few children and those few followed us to the back of the road to the sewing room. We talked a bit to the women sewing and when we turned around there were about 15 children! It was precious!

Here are a few pictures of some of the children we have seen while we have been in Poipet.

This boy was at the village where we were able to see “School on the Mat” in session. He was playing while some of the other children were in school.

Here he is again.

This tiny, tiny little girl was so shy. She would not look at me or smile. I just got lucky with this picture.

Are you noticing all of the trash that surrounds these children?

I think this is the sister of the little girl above. She was so sweet. She did smile at me!

Some of the children from “School on a Mat” singing a song with hand motions.

These are the same children from above doing one of their lessons.

The children are putting out the mat for school at a different village.

This is our friend Kip, an Australian man, here with the organization “Be a Hero”. He was playing Mouy, Mouy, Bee {Duck, Duck Goose} with the children!

The little boy was trying so hard to catch Kip!

These children live on the grounds at the hospital, we believe their parents work there.

Precious little man! So funny! It took him a while to warm up to us but once he did he followed us around and would push us and then laugh.

So pretty!

This boy is 7 years old, he has HIV, and his parents are dead.

School children.

Little poser!

Street girl playing with her toy zebra.

This precious girl lived in a village where there is a sewing school.

Isn’t she beautiful?

This little boy just tore my heart out! He is covered in little round sores all over his body. I am not sure what he has, someone suggested infantigo.

Look at that beautiful face, precious.

CHO projects

I am not sure how many of you have had a chance to visit the CHO website but yesterday we had an opportunity to visit some of the projects that CHO sponsors. CHO’s philosophy is a holistic one in that they desire to rebuild and restore Cambodia as a whole, and not just in this area or that area.

The process looks a bit like this:

A child is rescued in a myriad of ways {authorities bring them in, they are sent to CHO from people who know about the organization, referrals from hospitals, etc.} CHO will provide medical care, schooling {depending on the age of the child/person}, skill training {sewing, Moto-repair, agriculture and animal raising}, after the person graduates from skill training they will be given a micro loan to start their own business {they pay back the loan in 10 months} and CHO will follow up with them periodically throughout the year to make sure they are doing ok and if they need anything. Chomno’s vision {he is the Founder/Director of CHO} is to see the person through complete healing and restoration. His belief is that in order to break the cycle of poverty here that leads to trafficking in the first place is to give the person a future, an opportunity to provide for their current family or their future family that will lead to stability and a way for that family to rise out of their current poverty status.













Sewing School













Moto Repair School ~ young boys working on talking apart motors and putting them back together













School on a Mat













A school that CHO built!

CHO also supports staff that work at the local AIDS/TB clinic. The government provides the Doctors but does not provide a nursing staff to care for the patients or any kind of administrative staff. The government also does not provide food for the patients so whenever they take their medicine they used to get sick. CHO came in and now provides staff and food for the patients.













Hospital that CHO supports

We were able to visit all of these places and see what CHO does first hand. It is amazing the work they are doing here. The undertaking is so big and so overwhelming that Chomno can only do this by relying on the Lord. As I look around here I am so overwhelmed with the poverty, the need here is so big that I wouldn’t know where to start. But Chomno is a visionary. He sees Poipet 20-25 years down the road. He sees a Poipet that is healed and restored completely. He sees all of his children as working graduates with families of their own. He sees his elementary school as a University; he sees the streets of Poipet free of trash. He sees trafficking eradicated, and a fully staffed and funded hospital. He is amazing.