Day One: I have never felt God’s presence anywhere as much as I felt it at the safe house in Svay Pak.
We sat on the edge of a small stage – a team from America, waiting for the kids to arrive. We will feed them, play games with them, and, most importantly, we’ll pour love on them.
Our hearts beat a little faster at the sound of one hundred kids bounding up the three flights of stairs, whooping and hollering as they enter the room. Several ceiling fans blow hot, sweaty air around the room, and that air thickens as all those little bodies fill it with their energy.
A pile of flip-flops joins ours at the entrance, marking the beginning of a magical day.
Children of all ages run to us and wrap their sticky arms around our legs. Some want to sit close to us and grab our hands. Everyone is laughing, kids and grownups alike. A few children sit back and watch, fear in their eyes. We keep a gentle eye on them but give them space.
“Socks-Su-By” we say, as we greet them in the Cambodia way by folding our hands in prayer and touching our hands to our foreheads. It means “Hi, how are you?” We’ve practiced for weeks.
They respond instantly with a similar greeting and then begin to search our team members for their new, temporary soulmate. They know. They’ve done this week after week because teams from all over the world come to this place every few weeks or so to offer their help to the most incredible team that lives here permanently and have dedicated their lives to this work.
The children know they’re safe here, and that these people, who look so different from them, are good people and are here to love them, even if it’s for a brief time. And they are hungry for that love.
I, on the other hand, haven’t quite figured out how this is supposed to work. I’ve never done this before.
Oh, my Lord, how am I supposed to say goodbye next week? I love them already! All of them! But this is just the first day. I have a lot to learn.
And there he is. He decides that I’m the one for him. He runs up to me and puts his hand out to high-five with me. I’m guessing he’s about four or five years old. I’m not sure. The kids are all small for their age, many times due to poor nutrition. The kids have learned this Americanized greeting. I let him slap the palm of my hand and then I return the greeting with the more formal Cambodian way. He returns that greeting and looks into my eyes. The twinkle in his tells me that he’s curious about my blue eyes. He stares intently. He tries touching my eye, and I pull back, laughing. He laughs, too.
His eyes are big and brown. What have those beautiful eyes seen? I wonder as I stare back, smile so wide my cheeks hurt. His little mouth is a bit disfigured. Looks like a cleft palate and a rough repair job. Tiny teeth appear in the most endearing smile I’ve ever seen, and my heart breaks. His T-shirt and shorts are filthy, and he smells of sweat, dirt, and urine. I’m tempted to pat his head but that is a no-no in this culture, so I quickly (mid-reach) offer up another high five.
He can’t speak English, and I can’t speak Khmer, except for a few words of greeting, so I continue to speak to him in English, keeping my voice soft and body relaxed so that he will know how happy I am to meet him. He seems to understand and just keeps smiling at me.
“My name is Sue,” I pat myself. “What is your name?” I hold my hand out towards him, palm down, as required in Cambodia. He pokes my chin with a tiny hand and laughs.
I start playing patty-cake slowly, first clapping my hands together and then reaching out for his hands. He’s delighted and jumps up. He knows this game. We go faster and faster until our hands are hot and red. Several of the kids around us join in the game, playing with other team members. It’s one of those moments I will never forget. Our first day and we’ve found a way to bond. No words necessary.
Each day, I seek him out in the crowd, and a dozen times or more, our eyes meet across the room, and we both smile and wave. He laughs at my dancing and singing.
On the third day, I searched the room and couldn’t find him. He wasn’t there, and my heart raced. He lives at one of the nearby brick factories. The brick factories are typically owned by wealthy individuals who don’t necessarily live there, or even in Cambodia, for that matter. They offer “employment” to the poorest of the poor, the parents of these kids. They become nothing more than indentured servants, and sometimes, it’s one of these kids that is sold into trafficking.
Each day, our team went to a different brick factory and delivered 20-pound sacks of rice to each of the families who worked there. Most of them live in lean-tos made of scraps of cardboard, sheet metal, and anything else they can find on the fringe of the quarry. These huts are small, with one room at best, and there are no toilets. Let’s face it, there is little if anything there, but minimal shelter from the red clay dust that permeates the air. They burn their garbage to light the fires of the brick ovens, which burn for weeks at a time. And toxic black smoke mixes with the dust to create a toxic nightmare.
And sure enough, on the fourth day, I found him. I remember running to my teammate, Diane. “I found him!” We hugged each other with relief. He sat with his family on a tarp on the ground under an awning shaded from the hot sun as they received our greeting, and, most importantly, the rice. He smiled and waved, and I waved back at the same time, hopping from one foot to the other to shake biting ants off my feet. It took everything in me not to run up to him, wrap him up in my arms, and run away!
When the rice was distributed, some of us followed the families to their homes and got a glimpse of their everyday lives. I watched my new little friend disappear into a doorless opening on the side of a decrepit lean-to. I climbed back into the van with the rest of the team and cried.
On the last day of our time in Svay Pak, the team stood in a line, single file, and greeted each child with a high-five as they left for the day. The little kids came first, yelling and running. The older kids walked at a slower pace, and we all had tears in our eyes. They knew, and we knew—we might not ever see each other again. I felt like I had a vice around my heart, and I knew I wasn’t the only one.
My little guy came up and wrapped his arms around my legs. I leaned down to return his hug. We made butterflies that day and he proudly pushed his into my hands, gesturing that I should keep it. He painted it completely black. It looked like a bat, not a butterfly. I will treasure it always. I mumbled, “God bless you,” as I wiped sweat and tears from my eyes with my shirt sleeve. Meanwhile, he ran to another newly found soulmate to say his goodbyes.
Each member of our team had stories like this. Dozens of stories. And every evening, we sat at our communal table and shared those stories. We laughed, and we cried.
And that is why I write for children.
