Mission Teams bring esteem as well as help

How do you build up a beat up generation? Orphans are often ridiculed in Cambodia, mocked as, “Stray Dogs!”  which is a term that would give just about anyone an inferiority complex. But as a child? The results are devastating, unless they get into one of our FCOP homes.

Our orphans are sent to public school, where the other children will try to pick on them, but with 20-30  brothers and sisters it cuts down on the harassment. How do we hedge this bet?  Bring in a team of foreigners on a mission trip.

Most of our homes have never had a group of foreigners stay for an extended period of time. The teams help repair walls, build bathrooms, fix up the cafeteria; jobs that are all fine and good. The real benefit? These demur kids, who have been getting kicked around, find new friends that came half-way around the world just to see them. They go to school and all the students demand to know, “Why are all these foreigners coming to see you stray dogs?”

The orphans chests puff up and they boldly proclaim. “These are my friends, and they came half way around the world just to see me!”  Viktor Frankl wrote, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” This team from Valley Christian Center in Fresno, CA. changed these kids lives.