Even though most of these children’s parents rejected them or wanted to sell them into slavery to earn money, Avoda still teaches the children Christian values and tells them that they still need to honor and love their parents, regardless of what decisions their parents made.
So once every month Avoda loads up the children into their tractor “Po-po-po” (which takes our girls to school) and they take them back to the slums where they came from so they could visit their family and say hello. But I also noticed another value in this: by doing this, these children do not forget where they came from and how they (only by God’s grace) ended up in a blessed school Avoda where they can have & learn so many things that none of their other siblings or friends in the slums can have.
And these children really do realize their past and what their present could have been if they stayed in the slums, so they really are very grateful to be in Avoda, and they really showed it when we got back to our school. They were cheering and rejoicing from happiness that they do not have to live in the slums and that they have a new life here. You can truly see the happiness in their eyes.
Their parents live and work on the property shown in the photos below. As soon as we stepped on their grounds I couldn’t help but notice the few inches thick layer of ash that everyone walks in. That dust covers everything and is inhaled by these refuges daily! This dust comes from the brick house ovens that they burn around the clock.
I got a chance to talk to the owner of that business which burns coal to produce enough heat to make these white-looking rocks and white powder that they use in construction material and on soccer fields as chalk lines (Im guessing). So these Burmese refugees live there as cheap labor that has no future.
They live in very low standards. Little self-built shacks out of wood and thin metal sheets. They are all dirty from the ash. Clothes is all torn and worn. Children are running around dirty. Trash is everywhere. It was not a pleasant feeling to be there. But we heard that these are not the worst conditions yet…they will take us maybe next month to another Burmese village that is by far worse than these slums.
Often poor children that live at such places are sold into labor or sex slavery since it brings the parents some money to raise their standard of their living. But we are thankful that we got a chance to go there, so now we have a better understanding of the parents and also these children.
We ask you to pray for those children that got rescued from these slums and are staying at Avoda. Also pray for those little children that are still growing up in these slums who are unaware of the unknown future that awaits them when they get older. Please pray that God could change the hearts of these parents not to sell their children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY57Fgqgjos
