Jenga

This was our first class and already my heart is broken and my world view is shattered.

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is like a giant game of Jenga--there is an intense need for restoration, healing, peace, intervention, education and economic stability. The most important and urgent need is that of the Gospel reaching these people.

However, the governments, policies, and people groups here are "set up" in such a way that if you attempt to  design a program or promote an outreach here, etc. you run the risk of getting arrested, breaking up family traditions, displacing orphans and tearing apart precious relationships.

You can't move one piece without shifting, toppling the entire tower that is the GMS.

...It is very overwhelming.

There is discrimination everywhere that leads to governments oppressing minority groups. They take away their land and resources, and force young children to seek harsh labor work and prostitution opportunities.

There is ignorance that is exploited, corruption that is legal, and a conscious blindness to the social and economic issues that are making human beings like you and I suffer every single day in ways we, as Americans, can not even begin to imagine.

There is a deep rooted Buddhist morale that tells the abused not to seek help or healing. There is pride that prevents true relationships from being built.

Education is not the answer. Preventative measures don't promise to prevent. Rescuing 8 year olds from brothels does not break this seemingly never ending cycle. If there is to be change, it needs to be revolutionary. I don't even know where to start.

I feel as if I have been living in a blessed safe haven, a bubble of unknowing ignorance.

The call on God's people is simple but great. And, being here, it seems like we are not responding the way we should be.

How can I live in the abundance of my home, knowing that injustice goes on all around me and that I am called to be an agent of light, and not act? How could I ever consider the sufferings of this world anymore than a passing tide compared to the glory that is to come? How can I justify a life of convenience and luxury when His picture, His model is so clear? Why would I want to live and die without putting my life on the line, without bearing the excruciating pain it is to watch my worldview crumble before my childish eyes? Why would I not give everything? Not just my spirit, my heart, my mind. Not just my words and actions and deeds.

But why not my safety? Why not my treasures? Why not my comfort, my savings, my family? Why not food, health insurance, freedom?

There are those in the world--men, women, and even the innocent faces of children--who will never see the abundance of what is listed above. Who will never be held by their mother because they were sold into slavery at birth. Who will never be safe because they are raped by men every single night who, as long as they pay, can do what they wish? Those whose children are taken away in the middle of the night and are never, ever heard from again because a wealthy citizen needed someone to harvest rice. Those who would faint at the sight of an average American meal because it is more than their family has ever had to eat. Those who are now blind because they did not receive simple vaccinations that I, even as an "impoverished" child was able to receive. Those who cannot, do not, speak out against oppression for fear of their very lives. Those who read the Bible in hiding and isolation from their very village.

Those who do not have the ultimate Treasure. The ultimate Freedom. The unshakable Peace and almighty Advocate.

"How?", I am now forced to ask myself, "Could I ever return to the way I was."