One of the most challenging things I’ve seen so far on the Race happened this month. Our pastor asked us if we would like to visit the local brick factory, where twenty-three families live and work. Entire families are employed there, and children must begin working at the age of five. At first I didn’t really understand the big deal about the brick factory, honestly I was thinking at least these people have jobs, and of course child labor is terrible but it’s a way of life in the third world (jaded much?). But as I listened to our pastor describe just what went down at this brick factory and hundreds like it around Cambodia my heart just broke, again. I didn’t know my heart could take as much as it has these ten months, but God just continues to break it and put it back together. But each time a bit more of it gets left behind in whatever country I happen to be in.
So these brick factory workers make about $20 a week, in order to earn this they must make 10,000 bricks. Many of these workers have taken out loans with the factory owners or buy things like food or supplies to build a house on credit. This causes them to start off in debt to the owner, and as they continue to work they fall further and further into debt because of the poor record keeping of the factory owners. Most of the workers cannot read or write and so have no way to keep track of how much they have paid back or how much they owe. The owners take advantage of this and fudge the records, saying that the workers own hundreds or even thousands of dollars more than they do. If any of the workers try to run away from the factory the owners send out people to find them and bring them back, and then they are charged with whatever costs they incurred to find and bring them back. So basically these factory owners are slave owners and the workers are slaves. They make basically nothing because they pay almost everything they earn back to the owners.
And somehow the children that live here are joyful, they run, jump, and play in giant mounds of clay and dirt that will eventually become bricks, they laugh and giggle at the crazy white people that try to say their names and speak their language really poorly. They held my hands, we played clapping games, we made goofy faces at each other…..they smiled and I smiled back. Simple as that.
I don’t know that I can do anything but pray for those families, that somehow the factory owner’s heart would be changed, softened for the people who work for him, that he would desire to be fair and truthful more than he desires money and power. I pray that the children there wouldn’t be trapped in that lifestyle, that something better, something different is being prepared for them in this earthly kingdom. I pray that the Lord will continue to send His people into the country of Cambodia and that places like the brick factory will cease to exist.
