Missions News: Children At Risk

We all can identify the children most at risk. They are children of drunken parents, children of prostitutes, children of those mentally ill--children of those who for some reason or other lack the skills to earn a living or to parent well. I have found children at risk growing up under my nose-our landlord's children with parents who seem to have the basics taken care of, and yet I realize that something is very wrong. Here is my story:

Our neighbors asked for a Bible study in 1997, shortly after we moved into our upstairs rooms in Phnom Penh. We led the study for several years, and after that our landlord began teaching. In late 2003, when our landlord was in charge, I saw this ad in the international church email notices:

Is your organization interested in oral healthcare? I am a dental assistant and would like to go to communities to offer education of primary oral healthcare and dental treatment.

I had serious intentions of calling and inviting this dental person to come speak at our Bible study. I thought our neighbors could really use the information they would learn, but I hesitated, not wanting to take back control from our landlord.

Time passes quickly, and now I am looking at my landlord's kids. Most of them have mouths full of rotten baby teeth. At 4, Heng's teeth are so bad that he mostly eats plain rice, ice cream, and soft candy. It got so bad at one point that he lost muscle tone and couldn't walk for a while because he wasn't eating anything healthy. His mother says she can't get him to eat meat or vegetables. This doesn't surprise me because his teeth hurt when he has to chew. His mother doesn't know enough about nutrition to realize that the situation is seriously impacting his growth and development.

So, I am wondering if Heng's development will be delayed--will he grow up "slow?" Will he have learning disabilities from malnutrition? Will he have a weak immune system and be susceptible to the many germs floating around here? Will he grow up not liking the foods that are good for his health and fight a lifetime battle of loving candy and sweets?

Meanwhile, I am also kicking myself for not ever calling that dentist.

My point here is that severe poverty puts children at risk, for sure. But even moderate poverty (working class poor who can afford food daily) poses a risk. It takes all kinds of work on many fronts to help poor families raise their kids up: health education, parenting skills, the Gospel, access to decent schooling and fair credit.

A Cambodian friend is helping men stop smoking, using a Bible-based curriculum. If a man stops smoking, he has much more money available for his family's food and health care. In an indirect way, my friend is helping children at risk.

Mark is working on a committee that develops curriculum to teach Cambodians how to resolve conflict in a biblical way. If that group helps prevent broken marriages and single parent households, it has helped prevent children from becoming "at risk."

I am working on another committee helping churches learn how to reach out to their communities, helping in a variety of ways. Perhaps some of those churches will be able to intervene in the lives of children at risk in their own communities.

The committee work Mark and I are involved with can, at times, seem really dry and boring--stuffy administrative work like fundraising and meeting agendas. However, while we ourselves can help only a couple kids in our own neighborhood, the committee work can help many Cambodian churches help a whole lot of kids. Let's pray for each person, Khmer or foreigner, who follows God here in Cambodia to do his/her part, so that no child grows up "at risk."

Susan and Mark Smith and their adopted Cambodian daughter live out the work of Christ among the Khmer people as staff with InnerCHANGE ministries.