After a 4 hour ride from Siem Reap in the most awesome jeep ever, we arrived at our new ministry for the month. We worked with Crossing Cambodia in Battambang, Cambodia. This is an organization that sponsors children in the area to go to private school or preschool. They pick up the children every morning from around town, bring them to the center to have breakfast, shower and change into uniforms. In the afternoon children come from school for lunch and activities. They come again after school before we take them home. Throughout the day we have the preschool-aged kids on site.
Our host, Greg describes the heart of Crossing Cambodia perfectly on their website:
“The street children of Battambang are unique in so many ways. Most of them just want to play, to be picked up, and to have someone tell them that they are special and loved.
The kids that we work with come from all over Battambang. Some come from a community of homeless families near the riverside, some from a small slum behind an old health club, and others that live in the abandoned railroad station. The families in all these locations are squatters and there is no way to know when or if the government may choose to evict them.
The adults spend much of their time drinking or gambling while the children are sent out to beg or search for recyclables to earn money to buy meager meals and feed the parents’ vices.
The kids struggle to stay in school and are frequently malnourished and lacking in opportunities just to play freely and be children. Without education and jobs many of the boys will either be drawn into life as gangsters or as beggars who sniff glue on the street while the girls run the risk of being sold into the sex trade or married off at a very young age.
Our mission is to trust God and seek out ways to change this.”
Greg, his family and the 5 employees of Crossing Cambodia love the children so much that it comes through in everything that they do. From teaching English, drawing, hugging them in the mornings, dressing their wounds or playing trains with them.
It has been a fun month of teaching and playing with kids; but it also had its challenges. For instance, I learned to not freak out…as much at the sight of mice, rats, tarantulas, cockroaches and other insects. Also, the food was typically beef or chicken; but could be any part of the animal. But more important than the physical things, was that these children came from difficult home situations and it was very difficult to bring them home daily. I just wanted to continue to hug and love them.
