A Dollar a Day Can Change Someone's Story

 I cannot even begin to count how many times one of those tv ads pleading for money for some poor kid in some poor country becomes a total buzz kill for me when I'm just trying to relax and watch an episode of Modern Family or some other mindless entertainment.  I have become desensitized to the urgency of hunger in faraway places and the never-ending emotional appeals to get me to give them money right now.   I usually click it to another channel until the whole heartbreaking advertisement is over and done with.

But there I am, in the company of dozens of Vietnamese children who live in an illegal squatter village some place in central Cambodia I never knew even existed. These kids were never in those ads. This place doesn't have a big fundraising campaign to broadcast to millions. It's a dusty little piece of nowhere nestled along side the mighty Mekong River.



Joni had visited the area several times to visit and train local Christians about church planting. A Vietnamese pastor took her to the hidden slums that tourists to the area, who come to see the natural beauty, will never know about.  Immediately it was discovered that these are the poorest of the poor in an already disadvantaged nation. Vietnamese are the largest minority in Cambodia. There is a border between the two countries and a tense shared history that goes back many hundreds of years. These are the people that Joni came in search of, having lived in Viet Nam for ten years before venturing into Camobodia to help serve the needs of displaced Vietnamese people who migrate there for all kinds of reasons. In this particular area, many Vietnamese live there because of the river. The Mekong has long been a home for Vietnamese people.

We help provide funding so that seven kids a day get healthy lunch six days a week. It costs about a dollar a day to feed each child. We are committed to these seven but there are more kids the pastor has identified who are malnourished. We just don't have the money to include them yet. - Joni

Like Hien. This girl is in a family of seven kids. Her parents are cleaners in the local market, a very lowly job. Her dad is a brutal alcoholic who beats his children and his wife and sometimes in drunken rages puts them all out of the home.  She cried when she spoke of this. She's 14 years old.  The pastor has identified that Hien's two youngest brothers  are in need of the lunch program as well. I don't know why we didn't talk about all her other siblings. But this is a glimpse of why a dollar a day for someone like Hien and her brothers is suddenly not a tired out cliche of a fundraising campaign. suddenly that dollar a day is connected to a real person in a real place with a real need.

But really, it's not just about that dollar that helps buy rice and meat and vegetables. Because they come to the pastor's house six days a week, and they come on Sunday for church plus they might also be coming to one of the classes that are offered at the church. Like basic Vietnamese reading and writing. These kids have no school opportunities. I can read Vietnamese and when I could not understand Hien's name I asked her to write it down for me. She indicated no, she cannot write. She is 14 and she cannot write her own name in her own native language. Hopefully she is able to come to the basic Vietnamese classes so she can begin a rudimentary education of simple literacy.   So the bowl of a rice a day could lead the way for her to come to literacy class. It's not just about that dollar anymore.  It's about Hien and her story and how a dollar a day can help change her story; it can help Hien change her own story.

One dollar. One hundred pennies. One child. One story. That's how it works.

If you are interested in helping a Vietnamese child in central Cambodia with a gift of one dollar a day go to We Love Kids, a faith-based non-profit to make your tax-deductible donation. $30 a month. $360 for one year. Help Hien and her brothers change their story.