Cambodia - July 20, 2013

[The following post is an excerpt from my journal as I traveled to Cambodia. The inconsistency in the entry title and datestamp is due to limited internet access while I was on the trip. These experiences were documented in real time, and I am posting photoblogs now that I have returned. In order to protect all those involved with the organization that rescues children from sex slavery and works to prevent others from being trafficked, I have intentionally omitted specific names and locations.]

Saturday, July 20, 2013 - Somewhere in Cambodia

"And Jesus said: 'Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3-4

This afternoon was particularly special. After an educational morning of touring the town on a tuk-tuk (a moto towing a small cart) while learning about this country and soaking in all of the information and cultural experiences, I had settled into the mindset of an adult.

Sometimes I wish I could be a kid again. Sometimes I think I grew up too quickly. Having graduated college at just 19-years-old, I entered the adult life much sooner than most people do. While I don't regret having finished school so quickly, I do often fall into a slump of feeling older than I actually am. I catch myself taking the smallest details of life far too seriously from time to time.

That being said, this afternoon, we took the girls from the safe house to a water park. I was timid at first, as I usually am in new situations, but it didn't take long for one of the girls to convince me to go down one of the shorter water slides. [Come to think of it, I'm not sure how much of it was 'convincing' and how much was her pulling me toward the staircase.]

Once I had remembered how much fun water slides are, I decided on my own accord to go down one of the taller slides. I was wearing basketball shorts which practically provided zero friction on the slide, so I flew down at a speed which felt like 30 mph. Once the girls witnessed this, my decisions were no longer my own- they would be making my decisions for me. And they would decide that I was going to go down that slide over and over and over and over and over again.

It was an endless cycle- slide down, get met at the bottom by another girl, get pulled out of the water and back up the rickety rusted metal staircase, then slide down again. One daredevil girl even convinced me to go down backwards. Let's just say I'm thankful I had a swimsuit on underneath my shorts because somewhere between the takeoff and the landing, the shorts got lost in translation, and at the place where they settled, the waistband would have been more properly named a 'thighband.'

Despite the minor wardrobe malfunction, it was so much fun to let loose and be a kid again! For me, to be a child again is remembering the joyful memories of the past. It's remembering what it was like to have no worries in the world [well, at least not ones that actually mattered]. For these girls, it is opposite. Being a kid again means overcoming the past. It's forgetting about the worries and the scars of being trafficked. But despite the opposite paths we took to get there, today we met in the middle.

We were on the same level this afternoon, the same journey- the journey back to childhood.  We were learning to be carefree children again. I imagine that some of the girls were learning to be kids for the first time. Regardless, we were standing on common ground, swimming in the same direction, sliding down from the heights of adulthood and splashing freely into the joyful pool of childhood. It was a blast. It was refreshing. It was wonderful.


[The following are pictures from the tuk-tuk tour. For the girls' safety, I was not able to take any pictures at the water park.]

coconut sticky rice AKA deliciousness

brick kiln

child labor :-/

raw bricks (pre-firing)