Jesus said: ‘Is there anyone here who, if a child or animal fell down a well, wouldn’t rush to pull him out immediately?’
Millions of children have come to cities like Phnom Penh, Bangkok or Manila looking for a better life. But as they come, they fall into a pit. The pit of child labour. Many of them as street working children. The pit is too deep to get out. They are damned to stay down there in the filth, for who knows how many years.
They will grow up and get married in the pit, give birth to more street working children and eventually die in the pit.
Most people, though moved by the plight of the children, are too busy to get involved in the pit.
Some, with good intentions, will ‘throw’ some help into the pit. But at the end of the day the children are still trapped down there. They are still collecting rubbish. They are still begging on the streets. They are still selling their bodies.
A Christian doctor reaching out to street children in Bolivia writes this: ‘ One baby from a wealthy country, stuck at the bottom of a well, generates more heartfelt anxiety than 100 million children trapped on the streets of the developing world ever will.’
But there is hope!
Near the pit, there’s a rope; long enough to reach the children. As long as there is someone holding the rope, the boys and girls down in the pit will eventually be able to climb out and be free.
In a city like Phnom Penh there are now hundreds of churches. There are potentially enough Christians to reach out to the thousands of streets working children.
The Bong Paoun Project is looking for volunteers with a passion for God and for the poor.