Recent Read

Brothels, AIDS, orphans, the disabled, forced relocation, lack of education and medical resources, and compounding cycles of poverty: these are the realities of many slums in Cambodia, Asia, and the world, according to “The Urban Halo: A Story of Hope for Orphans of the Poor.” Though the book is yet to be a bestseller, it resounds with me deeply as the author, Craig Greenfield, writes about his experiences of incarnational living in the Cambodian slums and details the ministries that were birthed from living in those communities.

            Craig is a New Zealander who fell in love with a Cambodian refugee named Nay. They returned to Cambodia to live among the poor with an organization called Servants. As you can imagine, living in the slums is tough, unsanitary, and comes with a lack of privacy. Through living there Craig and Nay were able to do life with the locals. They walked through death and sickness with their neighbors and built up a trust with them. Through living alongside of them they were able to see the needs and spiritual darkness of the community and were then moved to action.

            The book mainly details a program they started to help AIDS orphans. They saw many people in their communities affected by AIDS and had begun visiting them in their last days and teaching people how to take care of the person suffering with AIDS.
Then they were seeing that after the parents died the children tended to fall into vulnerable situations, whether that was being trafficked or shipped off to an orphanage. There first thought was that starting a believing orphanage to house the children was the answer. Upon further research they started to think maybe an orphanage is not an answer. Research has shown that children growing up in orphanages often don’t get the attention they need. The ratio of caregivers to children is often unbalanced and it can be very devastating when caregivers leave. People are also finding that children growing up in orphanages don’t know how to function in the real world when they age out, and the orphans Craig and Nay had met did not want to leave their communities.

 After examining some compelling research they decided to look into more of a community-based model. Out of a heart to help these orphans, project HALO was birthed and seemed to develop on it’s on under the Fathers direction. Though started by foreigners the project was largely done by empowering Khmer people and believers to help in their own communities. It was a project that didn’t rely on a large pool of outside support because they were trying to use resources—though small—already in place in the slum communities. Khmer believers would visit the dying and help take care of them. During that time they would also help the parents make a future plan for the children. They would try to find a family member or close friend who could take on the children after the parent’s death. Then in their new family people would check up on children and each child would be assigned a believing mentor that would visit them weekly and disciple them. Most of the children have really thrived in these situations, and they have been able to help hundreds of AIDS orphans. They have been able to challenge the poor that they are capable and they are valuable. It’s a representation of the good news, because we know that with the Father there is hope in dark and desperate situations.

I’m really just scratching the surface in mentioning what this book is about as the book details many of their personal triumphs and tragedies. I tell you about this book because I really believe in empowering the Khmer people to be agents of transformation in their own communities. I believe the hope that we have and trust in can change communities, and in turn change Cambodia. Cambodia has a very dense population of organizations helping here, yet social problems abound. I work for an organization and I love it. We are doing some good things and we are working with the community. Yet, I really believe it is the local body that can make the most change. Though Ryan and I both have things we go do during the day I think some of our greatest time is actually spent just living in community with the Khmer people. No, we do not live in a slum, but we do live in a Khmer community where we are the only foreigners. It is a place where people gradually let us more and more into their lives and then allow us to share more and more with them. There’s just something unique and powerful about this way of living.

-Melissa

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