The Children of Light: Serving Cambodia- Part 1

Children of Light

Sometimes, you don’t realize how truly blessed you are until you are placed in a situation that really puts you in a place to assess how thankful you truly are. The past several days, time and time again the Lord has put what literally feels like a continuous rushing wind, in my life. The storm, of reminders and opportunities to serve. Ever since I could remember serving others, is something that I truly have enjoyed but having the opportunity to go into the Cambodian country side, in the unreached villages through a program called Snack Pack which is part of the GRACE project, serving orphans and malnourished kids in rural villages, daily. Our day started after about an hour and a half to the rural villages outside of the city, I had heard stories from other students in the past years how much they had enjoyed working with the Snack Program, but did not realize that the entire day would be filled with such emotion and love.

Serving the children specially made peanut butter on bread with custly made soy milk which is a supplement for the children, many of them only knew very few words of English, and I among with some of the other group members knew very little Commai, but recognized a few of the Thai words as well. When we arrived the children were separated into very delicate lines, welcoming us with such joy and love. The children came wearing all that they had, although since they knew it was a special day, many put on their nicest outfit possible, but to an American or others, a two-piece matching pajama set would not be nice clothes, but to them that was all they had, and honestly to me I just smiled and was warmed at the fact they dressed nice clothes to see some Westerners. Playing and serving kids was nothing new to me, but just being around in the village and honestly not knowing a word of Commai (except thank you) was at first quite difficult for me but I used my hands and other ways of communicating.

After the snack pack program, we headed back into the city and went to the ‘inner city’ to work with kids at TinyToons. TinyToons, is a program for ‘inner-city’ or underprivileged children in Phenom Phen, who may be victims of broken homes, alcoholic families, gang violence, may not have enough money for uniforms for school. This program was created about seven years ago, by an American hip-hop dancer. Not only does this program, teach hip-hop style dancing, but teaches English, commai, math, reading and just basics of life.

When we walked in the room and I saw the tile, with a glass mirror, and foam padding on one sight of the room I laughed at myself, because I knew they were going to make us dance. My first thought. I don’t dance. And if you ask a friend or anyone in my family, I can get by, a little but when it comes to the big picture, I am just not the best at dancing. Especially hip-hop, its always fun to do such with my friends and home but  we just make a laugh out of it.  Although, honestly, this time I did better than I usually do, haha even according to the group lol Haha, watching our group dance was fun and we all  realized how much we truly missed dancing or just getting a jam on since we had been gone. 

Part 1 to be continued...

MKG

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light."- Ephesians 5:8