I couldn’t help but feel like I had been transported into a scene from a documentary. Everything I had heard about forced labor and modern day slavery was all too true and standing right in front of me. Man, woman, children entire families working at a Brick Kiln working with no rest in the hot Cambodian sun.
The place was right in our back yard basically. Our contact here wanted to take us to a factory to talk to the workers and to show us what goes on there. Not knowing anything about what we were going to see we walked for only a few minutes until we arrived, to rows and rows of bricks drying out, ovens for the bricks and lots, and lots and clay and dirt piles. Today must have been at least 95 degrees and there everyone was hard at work. I walked over to where they were putting the dirt into a machine that spit out the bricks. The men running the machine signaled for me to try it for myself and help, so there I was putting bricks onto a cart, going at a pretty slow rate, which they all found very funny. A few of us helped out with this, only to receive a round of applause after and with big smiles on their faces they told us that we did a very good job. What we helped with for 5 minutes these people do for entire days, we told them that it is very easy to do something for a short time but what they do is very hard work and we recognize that.
Besides the work being challenging and exhausting there is something more tragic behind all of this. The workers, many being children are in debt to this brick factory, well actually to the boss that owns it. The workers themselves are extremely poor and some have families. The deal the boss makes with them is to lend them money for food and living expenses and what they have to do to pay him back is work. What they make is about $2 per family a day, not nearly enough to live on so what the boss does is lend them more money. They now have to work even harder and longer and are in more debt to the factory. If they are sick or take a day off it means they don’t eat and if it rains then they can’t work and don’t get paid resulting in having to borrow more money from the boss. What they get paid leaves them with the harsh reality that they will never be able to pay off their debt. I asked our contact if anybody has ever paid their debt and left the factory and he answered quickly with “no, no one can ever pay their debt".
The workers live at the factory and are not allowed to live anywhere else. If they try and leave and live somewhere else or escape their work, the boss has also paid off the local authorities to bring them back to the factory since they are in debt to him. The factory owns these workers, these men, women, and children.
As we talked with them and played with the children they laughed, smiled and listened. But what really could we tell them; there wasn’t much that I could have shared that would have changed their situation. At one point I was holding a baby about 9 months old, this baby will grow up here and I hate that. I couldn’t think of much except wanting to just go and punch that boss in the face and then punch every single corrupt police officer in the village that he pays off. My punch is horrible though, and that wouldn’t have done anything. In all the emotions wrapped up in seeing this first hand what it really made me think about was how grateful I am that God’s promise is greater then only giving us a good life on this earth. I don’t know if any of these children or families will escape their lives of working at the brick factory, or when they will get out, I pray it will happen, and I pray that the legal system in Cambodia changes soon by people stepping up to change it, and im hoping for better work conditions.
What hope is there to offer now except that there is freedom in Christ. Freedom that they belong to God who cares for them and that no one else owns them.
In a very polite way while time went on they told us that they would love to talk more but if they don’t work they won’t eat. This afternoon we went down to the market and bought 100 kg of rice and some food. Trying to give back a little to the people who showed us their lives and gave up their valuable time. Trying in some way to show them that they are beautiful, seen and not forgotten loved and not looked down upon.
Please pray for freedom for the families, and children working in this brick kiln. 
