I’ve been sifting through the scattered bits of blogs that I’ve never posted or finished and realized it’s now or never…. especially in light of the fact that time is speeding up. The following is something I wrote a couple months ago in Cambodia.
I’m going to paint you a picture of something ugly I witnessed the other day.
I saw a kid sprawled out and sleeping in front of a string of bustling restaurants in an ally way in Seim Reap the other night. I sat down with a friend not far away and a few minutes later he was sitting across from us pretending not to notice we were there. His clothes were dirty and his eyes were glazed over. There was a plastic grocery bag in his hands and he kept holding it up to his face to inhale the contents. I waved to him and he came and sat with us. He spoke very little English, but he was able to tell us he was 14. At one point he ran off and stood behind 2 women who were taking pictures together. He crouched down a few feet behind them smiling and holding up 2 fingers in a peace sign, still holding tight to his bag. A few minutes later there were 2 more boys of a very similar description, holding plastic bags and talking to us. One of them innocently rested his head on my friend’s knee while we were talking.
A man who worked in a restaurant there asked if we wanted him to ask the boys to leave. He told us that there are lots of them in that area. None of them want to go to school, people try sometimes. They wander around sniffing glue and if they stop they get terrible headaches, so they don’t stop. The man who told us this said it with compassion and a sense of helplessness. He said his boss takes the glue away when he sees them, but it doesn’t change anything.
It was all very hard to watch. I saw kids whose innocence had been poisoned and whose lives were very much in danger. But there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
I looked them in the eyes. I let them be kids as much as I could for a few minutes. But after that I felt absolutely useless.
I’ve been wondering what prayer is all about lately. I know that I have a direct line of communication with the God of the universe, but I’m not sure I understand what that means. I know that He cares about them more than I ever could. I know that in my head, at least.
Right now I just hope very much that it means more than I’m able to comprehend because prayer is all I have for those kids now. Even if I hadn’t already left the city, I don’t know what else there is.
