It was a typical morning on the impact trip, eating the same breakfast at the same restaurant. The group met upstairs to talk about the plan for the day; with the meeting ending in a prayer. It was the night before when is realized I had been further away from God than I have been in a while. A while meaning about a week, but I didn’t expect this to happen during this trip. I thought to myself during our prayer that I wanted God to work on me today so I silently asked Him to. Immediately Eric put his hand on my shoulder for the rest of the prayer.
We arrived to Steung Meanchey (a poor community formerly used as the citywide garbage dump) and just like every other time we came to visit – all of the kids ran up to us. They were yelling; grabbing our hands and hugging us. I noticed that the girl who had been attached to my hip the day before wasn’t around but I didn’t think much of it.
After a few minutes of spinning kids around and playing with chalk; little Theary rounded the corner dressed in all white and the same blue headband she wears everyday with pigtail braids. She is seriously one of the cutest little girls I have ever seen! Looking directly at me and smiling without showing her teeth because she is self-conscious about them, she ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug.
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A little background on Theary
Theary and her older sister, Theara, live in a garbage dump community. They live in a tiny shack on top of dirt which rests on the accumulation of years of garbage being dumped on this land. They own close to nothing. At one point Theary and her sister have even eaten dirt to suffice for a meal. They both stay at school for lunch and after school because their mom cannot afford food for them and is out all day long. If it weren’t for their sponsors (through Hope For the Silent Voices) they would be back at home with no food and no supervision throughout the day.
Today there was no school and their mom had left town to go get her hair done… All day long little Theary was attached to my hip again. People were warning me that she looked really sad this day but I was so busy running around and didn’t notice it.
Finally all the kids gathered around to pick out some clothes that were donated for this “Out of the Darkness” Impact Trip to them and I was left by myself with Theary. I picked her up and looked at her and then distinctly noticed the sadness in her little eyes. All is knew to do was hold her. One of her tiny little arms was wrapped around me so tight and the other tiny little one lay limp on the table. 
It was like I could feel what she was feeling and I know that she knew I did. I’m not sure what happened in that next moment but the next thing I knew both of us started crying.
When she was finished crying she told her older sister that she was hungry. Her sister told her that her mom left no food for them. Theary’s reaction was to just lay back down on me again – like she wasn’t surprised she wasn’t going to eat lunch. Theary barely speaks English but somehow in whatever was happening between us that day, we communicated. For the rest of the trip we shared a special bond. And I’m sure when I come back to Cambodia with Hope For the Silent Voices again she will know that she can lean on me again if she needs to.
- written by Nicole
You may be surprised, what you give to them may be nothing – compared to what they give to YOU!
