Imagine being a young child
5 or 6 years old and losing your father either to disease or violence. Imagine
the grief and feelings of abandonment from losing someone who is supposed to be
there to care for you. Now imagine watching your mother struggle to care for
you and your siblings. The struggles, the poverty, the hunger continue to
worsen until one day your mom realizes she can no longer care for all of you.
Imagine that you are the one chosen among your siblings to be sent away to live
with relatives or in an orphanage. Imagine wandering the streets in a strange
city at 8 or 9 years old wondering if you will have food to eat or a place to
sleep tonight. For these four Cambodians this was reality.
Lunch with our translators: Vitur, Kosal, Panya, and Vuthy
Fortunately
their stories don’t end there. Each of these men were sent away at a young age.
Some lived on the streets, others with relatives, in pagodas with monks, or in
orphanages. Jesus, in His mercy and love, pursued each of these boys. He came
alongside of them when they felt most alone and whispered, “I will never
leave you or forsake you. You are not alone. I am here in the midst of your
pain.” Each man found acceptance and
love in Christ. They found the strength and the comfort that can only come from
Jesus. “My mom died when I was 3 or 4 months old. I was an orphan and didn’t
even know it.” Panya said, “But now, thanks to Jesus He has given me a family
and a mom who really loves me [through my life at the orphanage]” These men
know what it means to find hope and life in Christ alone. Now they are bringing
hope to the hopeless.
Praise
be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and
the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can
comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from
God. ~ 2 Corinthians 1: 3-4
Each
of these young men are taking the comfort they received from Christ and they
are pouring it out to others in similar situations. I met them while working at
Happy Tree Orphanage. Kosal, Vitur, Panya, and Vuthy all desired to come
alongside other orphans. Vitur told me, “I tell the kids, ‘You are not alone.
You may feel alone, but you are not. God is your Father, He loves you, and He
never leaves you.'” Each of these men can say with confidence that they
understand these children’s pain and that Jesus can bring hope. They are His hands
and feet to His beautiful children. They are bringing light to the dark places.
