Every Reason To Cry

 After over 80 hours of travel… here we are, in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. When we pulled up to the orphanage that we’re staying in, I looked out of the window of our van and saw eager and excited children awaiting our arrival. I was a little bit taken back because of the exhaustion that totally overwhelmed my body, so we ate some dinner and went to bed. The next morning, my team and I went down for breakfast and afterwards we saw the sweetest kids playing on the patio. As a little time passed, more kids began showing up. They welcomed us, laughed with us, tried teaching us their language, “Khmer” (emphasis on “tried”), and invited us to play soccer with them. Watching and observing the poverty that these people live in has been so eye opening. It’s so hard to comprehend the amount of perseverance and faithfulness it must take to walk through a life that these kids live with the most unshakable positivity. If you don’t know exactly what “life” I’m referring to, this is how I would try to explain it.

These orphans… they wear broken shoes, or no shoes at all, yet they laugh and smile as they play soccer on rocks and dirt. Their little bodies sleep on a concrete floor in a small orphanage with 39 other children, but they do not complain. They have no toys, so they make toys out of rubber bands and straws. They have been left alone by parents who have died or have left them, yet they have no pity for themselves. They shower from a bucket, but they sing with gladness while they do so. They should complain of hunger, but instead they are filled with the Holy Spirit, as with the richest of foods. They should be weak and broken, but they are strong and complete. They should feel chained down by defeat and devastation, but they walk around FREE in the name of Jesus. They should fear death, but instead they claim the truth that their Father has already conquered the grave. They have nobody to call “momma” or “daddy,” so they find every bit of their comfort, joy, strength, sufficiency, purpose, and hope in Christ. These orphans… they have no reason to smile and every reason to cry, yet they walk around with contagious laughter and joyful spirits.

I don’t know what its like to live like these kids do, but I do know that the joy they carry doesn’t come from the electronics or clothes they have, the money they’ve had given to them, or the family they have. Each day, they wake up knowing that they have no parents, no clean home; they walk around with bare feet and dirty hair, yet FULLNESS radiates off of them when it seems like they would feel completely empty. Their joy and help comes solely from the Lord and although they have every single reason to cry and mourn, instead, they sing.

“Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be full satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.” Psalm 63:3