26 December 2009
Often we have been touched by the sight of young women crammed onto the backs of trucks as they head for work in one of the many factories which employ hundreds of thousands of young women here in Cambodia. If I look south from my veranda I can see a clothing factory where 170 young women work at sewing sweaters. Long hours of work for a monthly wage of only 60 dollars does not give them much opportunity for fun.
Until today. Today the children from Place of Rescue orphanage gave them the fun of a gift of Christmas. A stage and tarpaulin roof was set up beside the factory and chairs hauled over from the orphanage.. The young factory girls from nearby villages never have the opportunity to see dances performed . When the curtains were opened revealing our beautiful young women in their gorgeous costumes I heard a delighted “Ohhhh…” from the audience. I was so proud of our girls as they performed with grace and elegance The Blessing Dance. I know Jesus was longing to bless the young women who watched as symbolically flowers were thrown at the audience depicting blessing. Everyone joined in singing Cambodian Christmas carols or just clapped to the music. Many of the listeners had never heard the story of Jesus before. Today through the songs and the nativity play they had their first chance to begin to understand. The story of the birth of Jesus told in a typical Cambodian way was clear. It was also funny at times and I loved the sound of delighted laughter.
Coupons for a gift and for bread and curry were passed out to everyone and row by row they walked over to the trucks to get a bag of goodies ( a towel, soap, cookies and sweetened condensed milk). Curry and Bread is the traditional celebration meal and no doubt it is being shared with others in many homes tonight.
In the end we had a few coupons left that we handed out to some very poor looking village children. Watching their delight, I hugged Sokhan and told her we had more joy just then than a lot of rich people who exchanged gifts with a lot of other rich people.
We intended to give Christmas to the factory girls and we did that but Christmas came to us too.