Ignorance Isnt Always Bliss
Imagine that you are a child
growing up in a village of Cambodia.
Your parents work from sunrise to sunset shaving bamboo poles into tiny
strips that will be woven together to form baskets. (These baskets take 12 hours each to make and
only provide your family with the equivalent of $2.) You live in a house made from bamboo and
coconut tree leaves. Most likely it only has one room, and you share that room
with every member of your family. You
get the water you need from a well that you manually pump a few houses down,
and you fill your stomach with lots and lots of rice. Well at least when there is enough money to
buy it. Everyday, you run around the
village barefoot playing with your friends.
But this is only when you arent helping the family make baskets, taking
care of your younger siblings, or using the family bike to transport materials
in order to help make a living. On
Sundays you go into this concrete floor building where you listen to a man
talk to you about God and read you some of His word. You lead a very simple life, but you dont
even know that because this is all you have ever known.
Now imagine you are a child growing
up in a village of Cambodia with a cleft palate and only half of your feet. You know that you look different from your
friends, but you still do the same things they do. You work for your family. You run around barefoot. You go to church. But you have a harder time eating and
speaking then they do. You walk
differently too. And even though you
recognize these differences, you accept them because you dont know that things
could be different. You dont know about
the organization of people fighting to get you the surgery you deserve. You dont know about the people donating
money so that you can get it for free.
You just dont know.
But what if one day, the same man
who speaks on Sundays tells you that he wants to help you get surgery to fix
your cleft palate. What if he takes
pictures and fills out the paperwork and sets up meetings for you to be able to
get the surgery. He talks to your mother
and gets her consent. You dont really
understand what is going on, but you think it is important.
And then when it comes time for
your mother to go meet with the people who are making the surgery happen, she
changes her mind. She doesnt go. She just doesnt understand the ultimate importance.
She doesnt believe that she has enough money to get you to the city where the
surgery will take place and still have enough money for food for the
family. She doesnt understand that
there are people who would help with that too.
And this is all probably true. She
is just afraid of the unknown.
Ultimately, she loves you just the way you are and does not see a desperate
need for your surgery. She doesnt understand things outside of the village or
the medical advances available for you.
And you dont understand how different things could be with the surgery,
so you get over the idea and just keep living your life in the joyful way that
you always do.
Ignorance, in this case, is not
bliss. It actually breaks my heart into
a million pieces. And Im guessing, it
probably did the same thing to you. And
the hardest part about this is that I literally watched it happen. One of my students this month is this boy. Ive watched him struggle to speak. Ive seen the effect of his deformities first
hand. I watched the paperwork being
filled out. I was filled with such joy when I found out he was getting surgery. Ive met his mother. And I was with her when my heart stopped
because I found out she decided not to go through with it. And Ive been there every day since having to
live with the reality that her son is not going to receive the surgery that he
needs because neither one of them really understand what a gift it is.
It hurts. It makes me cry out WHY to the Lord. It makes me so frustrated. But there is nothing I can really do about it
but pray and trust that my God is good.
And so that is what I am asking you to do. Please pray for this boy, and all the other
village children of Cambodia who need surgeries. Pray for the right people to find them. Pray for their families to give consent. Pray for the finances to come. And pray for
the success of these surgeries. Because
these children need you and we know the power of prayer works.
