Not an easy month!

Apologies for the long lapse in writing.

The last few weeks has been really hectic rushing from province to province.

4-8 may, radion had our first staff retreat after 5 years. All we wanted to do was to give the staff a break from ministry and reward them for their service. It was beautiful to see the team bond closer together.

The relaxing holiday was short lived for our humanitarian team as we had to immediately rush food supplies to refugees in hiding and assisting with their appeals to unhcr.

That left us with less than 1 week to prepare for the medical ocip team from nus.

Now I'm writing from my mobile phone while leading the team. Here are some photos of what we have been doing between the home visitations, education work and all!

Its Never Easy To Loose A Kid

Its never easy to loose a kid.

Over the process of time, kids who join the STK programme become a part of the family. Just this week we had to let go 2 kids.

The first was Meang. Meang comes from one of the saddest backgrounds, loosing both parents to HIV and while he is HIV negative, the stigma stays with him. Since young his family has been battling stigmas and due to neglect almost all the siblings are into drugs and substance abuse. It was only of late where we heard that Meang's teenage brother was in prison for manslaughter after he went into a rampage when he was high on glue.

These are the kind of stories that keep compelling us to keep Meang. Its about giving him a second chance. But we have tried. Amongst all the kids, he is probably the most rebellious and despite the chances we gave him to stay on the programme, he still steals from other kids, broke into our office to steal money, takes kids out to indulge in internet gaming. After more than 6 months, we had no choice but to let this child go, otherwise it may take a toll on the rest of the kids who are on rehab and set a very poor example.

My staff tells me that the day when he was "returned" to his brother. The brother and the wife fought outside the office, quarreling with no one wanting to take responsibility of the child. This breaks our heart and as much as we want to help, we can only help refer him to another children's home.

 The next kid we lost was Nook Nik. A brilliant 5 year old and while we knew that the mother is unstable, we took the risk of taking her in because the mother was so erratic that she wanted to sell her new born child. And the thought of selling Nook Nik off was something we couldn't bear.

We quickly got her in despite her being one year below our acceptance age and hopefully her mom will leave her alone. But our worst nightmare came, when the mother suddenly started throwing accusations that her child was in "evil hands" and wanted her child back at all cost.

As she spoke to her child she said "Don't stay here anymore, they are bad people"
The beautiful and grateful child just replied "Mom, why do you say that ?"

A perfect rebuttal for the mom.

And as we helplessly see her go, our hearts broke knowing that her future is going to be really uncertain. Reminds me of the day when we picked her up, her mom sheltered herself under a umbrella and let the child trail behind totally drenched without even being bothered.

Yesterday, an older kid asked us, why did Nook Nik go ? I just told them the story about how the mother said we were evil people and the child gave this incredulous look. I guess we have really tried our best but these are the things that happen on the mission field and working with broken families.

Its not easy but along with the great joys of seeing lives of children change, heartaches are plentiful.