The Theater

                Some of the kids that come to the center where I work live in an abandoned, run down theater. After abandonment little residences were set up inside the theatrer and a number of poor families moved in. Over time it has become more and more run down and now you could say it is not exactly a sanitary place to live.

                Some of the staff at the organization have talked about doing things to help clean it up, which would help us to continue developing relationships with the families that live there. As a westerner who is naturally a “doer,” I was pumped about this potential project. My mindset was, “Let me have at it!” I love opportunities to serve and the conditions containing feces and syringes and trash don’t bother me so much. There are people living in there and I’d love to do whatever I can to help!

                Over the months though we've found personal drive and work clothes alone are not going to cut it. Contributing to helping to this place has been one of those many projects that we’ve found to be a lot more complex the more we learn about it. We knew for starters that the place was in need of some plumbing improvements, but the first three plumbers we asked wouldn’t even step foot inside the building. Then a staff member found someone who would and the prognosis was bleak. The building’s system really needed a total overhaul. It would take temporarily relocating many families, having everyone in the building agree to the improvements, and lots and lots of money. Basically, if we spent tons of money on putting a new plumbing system in a building that should be condemned we might as well demolish the building and start over. At this point our organization is not ready to take on that kind of community development in downtown Phnom Penh.

                The next thing we thought to do was remove the trash from the bottom floors of the building. There are mountains and mountains of trash piled up and people from upper floors just throw their trash into the houses of people on the lower floors. We had people look into the trash situation and again not as easy as it sounds. Some of the layers of trash have been there so long that removing them could cause the building to crumble. That’s right! This building on some level is being held up partially by trash!

                So in conclusion I was disappointed we couldn’t physically “do” a lot to help the living conditions of the theater at this time. We will be able to remove the top layers of trash so hopefully that will help a little bit. The reality is that we see so much need all around us and every bit of it tends to be more complex than what we see at first. Often times the situations warrant a much slower pace and require the Father to give us wisdom on what to do and how to do it. The sad reality is that we cannot “fix” every problem; but we can start letting our hearts be broken, our ears be ready to listen, and our hands be ready to act when the Father shows us how we should do something. For the moment we feel that we are being led to remove the top layer of trash as well as continue to try to educate and encourage the families of this theater. Tomorrow we are open to what the Father has next.