Takin’ it to the streets

I love the way the Doobie Brothers said it.”You don’t know me, but I’m your brother…” Well, I saw my sisters and brothers last night, and they were living on the street. Some didn’t have shoes. The ones who did most likely just have one ratty old pair that they will outgrow soon. Little baby boys are dressed in pink because the parents don’t have a choice in how to dress their child when they only have one outfit. Children wash their clothes in the toilet water at the temple down the street since they are no longer allowed to wash them in the river. Sadness fills the eyes of the children when they look at you and cup their hands out, begging for food. You hear about scenes like this, but it’s so heartbreaking when you see it with your own eyes. You can’t help but desire to help these hopeless children and families. We brought with us bags filled with sandwiches, a bottle of water & some snacks and watched as they literally tore the plastic bags out of our hands into shreds when they found out that we had arrived. It is estimated that somewhere around 15,000 kids live on the streets of Phnom Penh. Some have beds to sleep in at night, but most of them unfortunately do not.

I started crunching some numbers to see if there is something more we as a brothers and sisters in Christ can do about this. The night shelter our team volunteers at can only take in 10 or 11 children at a time due to a limited amount of space. Let’s say 80% of the kids begging on the streets don’t have a bed to sleep in. That leaves 12,000 who need a safe place to sleep. The math is simple. It just takes 1,200 homes to take in these kids at night. In a city of 2 million, is this that unrealistic? The other thing we can do is pray. Through united and agressive prayer, I believe that we as a church can rob the world of false spiritual strongholds that are holding nations like this captive. So what is stopping us?