Gavin and I just got back from a trip to Cambodia.  It was a vacation…totally unrelated to LUO…but totally encouraging to continue our mission.  I knew that there was poverty in Cambodia, I knew about its war torn history but I don’t think that anything could really prepare me for what we saw.  Our experience was devastating, overwhelming, heart breaking.  Now that I am home and able to reflect on our time…my heart is breaking more and more for the people there.  Yes, there was joy, there was beauty, there was glimmers of hope.  In spite of so much hurt and desperation, the people of Cambodia are full of warmth and love…but the thing that I can not shake, the thing that is haunting me, is the dull, lifeless eyes of the children that I met in a small beach town called Sihanoukville.  Sihanoukville is a  very popular backpacking destination and full of tourists…the locals have definitely capitalized on that.  You can buy EVERYTHING imaginable on the beaches…but the adults are not the ones selling it, their children are.

These kids are unbelievably beautiful and unbelievably hardened.  They walk the beaches from dawn until dusk, every single day…no food, no clean water, no sun protection.  Their job is to sell…they sell bracelets, fruits, pedicures, drugs, sex…they sell everything..they sell their innocents.

In my experience, kids are kids.  Yes, some children have lived through absolutely terrible reality….the kids in La Chureca (the city dump of Managua, Nicaragua) have been exposed to horrible things and made to sell themselves in much the same way.  They are forced to work in the trash…The children in J’Bay have live through unmentionable atrocities.  They have seen terrible violence, they have been abandoned and neglected…but when you smile at them, when you give them a hug, when you run around a start a game of tag…the burdens start to fall off, their eyes light up, for just a minute…they are kids, they have joy, they have a light inside of them that has not been put out by their hardships.  The children that I met on the beaches were not like this.  No matter how much I tried to play, how much I tried to love them, how much I tried to show them that I cared…they just stared at me with dead eyes and told me I was cheap for not buying what they were selling.  They would get angry if you rejected them…because if they did not preform, they would not eat…they would get beaten and go to bed hungry.

Seeing these kids literally made me sick to my stomach.  I sat on the beach a sobbed because I felt helpless.  I still don’t know what the answer is.  I don’t know how to help these kids.  But I do know that after what we saw in Cambodia, Gavin and I are more motivated than ever to continue to try to make a difference in the lives of children around the world.  Our trip ignited a fire to break the chains of injustice that are holding so many precious children back from becoming everything that God created them to be.

We are excited for what this year has in store…excited for the new vision and renewed strength that God has given us…and so thankful that we are on this journey with each of you.  So thankful that because of you, we are able to try to tangibly be the hands and feet of Jesus for these children.  Children are a precious gift from God…they have the potential to change the world…but so many children are being held down by the chains of poverty and injustice and as believers we simply can not stand for it.  It is time to act…2011 is our time to boldly pursue our mission to set children free from poverty.