Stuff About Joy Without Stuff

We’re working this month with a small segment of that demographic: 20 young adults, aged 15-19, living in a house

provided by Kone Kmeng.   Kone Kmeng is an organization that focuses on providing aid to children at

risk for labor trafficking – a huge problem in most of rural Cambodia.   The kids are not orphans, like

most of the youth outreach projects we’ve helped with, and in fact we’ve been able already to visit

some of their families.   That’s not to say these kids are well off – by coming to the Kone Kmeng house

they’re less likely to be sold off to provide income for their families, but they’re still dependant

on their families to provide money for food, clothes, and education.   Some of the kids here can only

afford to go to school on half time.   Some of them come from very poor families and don’t often eat

very well.   Our incredibly limited World Race budget has seen some hilarious meals sometimes as we

attempt to save money, but even so we’re often eating better than the kids.  It’s strange – many times

I’ve encountered people with less stuff than I have with me on the Race (and living out of a backpack

for a year, while possible, is hardly luxurious) but this is the first time I’ve really taken note of

it.   These kids have maybe two spare sets of clothes, and a bicycle to get around town.   Throw in some

school supplies and communal cooking equipment, and that’s pretty much it.  It’s rough to come face to face with human suffering, and it’s equally hard to see poverty staring you in the face (or coming up to you with a hand held out), and it’s really terrible to see both of those things merge with the hopelessness that so often covers those situations.  It’s incredibly hard to say no, and it’s harder to hand out bread or fresh fruit and see people’s faces fall – expecting money from the obviously rich white people – but harder than all of that is to see joy.

Emotionally I’ve been wrecked more times than I can count on the Race for all sorts of reasons, but the most astonishing impact has come from living with these 20 teenagers.  I’m living with nearly as much poverty as I’ve seen in the slums of Chiang Mai or the streets of Honduras, but somehow these kids manage to be happy nearly all the time.  They sing songs, they play games, and they have fun together – there’s more joy and happiness in that house than I’ve seen in many youth in the States with all the toys and clothes and opportunities money can provide.  I think about all the times I’ve been tempted to complain or bemoan my fate – more so these last few months without laptop or camera, and with home tantalizingly close – and realize that I’ve been living at a higher level of quality for the last 10 months than these kids have for years.  I was sort of expecting to feel guilty for having so much stuff, somewhere around mud huts in Africa probably, and to come home with a general feeling of ‘I’ve wasted my life’ preceding a monster garage sale.  I wasn’t expecting to feel convicted about my life on the Race.  Oddly enough, it’s not the materialism-is-bad opinion I was expecting – it’s the where-is-my-joy question that drives at the heart issue behind all the stuff.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with having possessions.  Problems tend to creep in when you use those possessions as a metric for happiness.  Sound familiar?  I’ve heard this a thousand times growing up.  I’ve never really paid attention to it.  I’ve always thought I had an acceptable stuff-to-joy ratio.  I’ve always told myself I don’t really care about my things, that they could all go away and I’d be fine (and, having experienced that more than once on the Race, that is both more and less true than I thought) – and I’ve always gone back to my comforts without ever really wondering how happy I should be based on how much stuff I have.  Now that I’ve seen these kids I’m finally understanding that real joy is completely independent of possessions.  It’s not about being happy because  I have things the rest of the world doesn’t – although I can praise God for them – and it’s not about being happy despite not having things that others do.  Joy comes, like all good things, from God.  I can depend on Him for everything and not have to worry about whether I have Internet access or a computer or food for tomorrow.  I might have been able to spout that word-perfect before the Race, but I’ve finally now seen it in action, and it’s incredible.

I’ve had a number of months on the Race with what we call ‘relational ministry’ – building

relationships and sharing God’s love with them through time spent together, instead of work projects

or door-to-door evangelism – and I have to say it’s by far my favorite.  I absolutely love the

opportunity to establish relationships with people in the all-too-often short few weeks we have at any

given ministry site, and working with youth is definitely something that I enjoy a lot.   More than the

previous months working with children, this month has been extra valuable to me, because I’m actually

working with my own generation.   It’s been exciting to see these kids for who they are: the future of

a nation just beginning to come out of a modern dark age of war and oppression.  These are members of

MY generation, and I feel incredibly excited to be part of what God’s doing to raise them up.   Their

happiness and eagerness despite all the adversity they have to face is awe-inspiring, and we’ve

already had tons of fun with card games and nighttime English lessons.  I can’t wait to see the life

God has in store for these young men and women as they grow into the people God has created them to

be.

One last ministry month, and then I’m home!  Stay tuned for Cambodia wrap-up and all sorts of end of the Race goodies!