A blessing in disguise
An orphan…no one to take care of them…in return, no one to care for…
As a child reaches adolescence, it is customary for children born into poor families to be sent away to find work in order to support their parents who are living in their home village.
Every morning around 6:00am, I watch hundreds of women and girls file by our church with their nametag in hand to spend the day working in a factory. A typical day in the 
clothing factory is spent completing a monotonous task of any of the following: bringing material a table to cut, sitting in front of a sewing machine to sew a segment of the garment, adding finishing touches (i.e. buttons, tags, etc), inspecting the clothing, boxing the finished articles of clothing, or sticking labels on the boxes to ship overseas in order to be sold in a variety of stores. Around 6:00pm, the girls return to their home, a wooden hallway with several small closet-size rooms on each side. They cook dinner over a “hot pot”, a clay pot with coals inside and a wire rack set on the top and sleep on a straw mat on the floor to gain energy to begin the whole process over tomorrow.
They earn a conservative salary of around fifty dollars a month, with most of the money expected to be sent home to feed their families many miles away.
This is just one way girls earn money in Cambodia. Some of the other jobs include waitressing, sales clerk at a store, selling fruit and vegetables, begging, and prostitution. If their family can no longer support themselves, the girls are sent to the city to earn money in any way possible, in order for basic needs of the individual family to be taken care of.
I look in the eyes of the orphans. At the same time I see a hunger for love, I also see a huge sense of HOPE. When they grow up, the orphans do not have a family to support. They have an opportunity to choose the life they desire. 
Wouldn’t it be amazing if all orphans would know how much their heavenly Father loves them and will take care of them? What if every orphan decided to live full out for Christ – for Christ can and will do wonderful things in their lives? Maybe this is why Jesus teaches us the greatest religion is to take care of widows and orphans. What a transformation story! An orphan not accepting the life they were born into and turning his/her life around to live fully for God, who loves them, in order to share the true LOVE with everyone they come into contact with – no matter the cost.
Maybe this is a true blessing in disguise.
