Childlike Joy

So this week we are taking around 200 children to a play place called Kids City, equipped with a playground, climbing wall, and learning center. There is really nothing else like it in the country and one of our Khmer leaders somehow finagled them into giving us a 50% discount.

This is a really BIG DEAL. Many of our kids have never been to an indoor playground before and this one is quite mind-blowing for them. We take the kids in groups over a two-day period and it is quite the undertaking. Some of our kids don’t have shoes and the ones that do most commonly own flip flops, and the place requires that the kids wear tennis shoes for the rock climbing and socks for the playground. We keep bins of donated shoes and socks at the center for occasions such as this one. So the outing begins with a mad rush of trying to find children a pair of shoes that somewhat fit, then we load them into tuk tuks and take them to the play place.

When they enter the play place their eyes get really big and they often act quite shy at first. When it comes to the rock climbing and large play equipment many of them tell us that they are scared, but they quickly warm up. Even one of the staff told me she was nervous about going down one of the large slides, but I convinced her it was worth trying and she did (10 years ago Cambodia wouldn’t have had anything like this so she never grew up with this kind of thing). At first little hands pull teachers in all directions. Children want to go down the slide with a teacher the first time and they want to make sure a teacher is beside them if they are going to try rock climbing. The Khmer staff were awesome about helping the kids and everyone jumped right in to play. The kids had a blast!

This time was not only a time of pure joy for the kids, but the teachers as well! For me personally, it was the most fun I've had in a while and at 26 years old I never thought I would be saying that after playing on a playground. I went through tunnels, down slides, and on trampolines and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There was no way I could have said no to the invitation of little smiling faces saying, “Teacher watch this,” or “Neycrew (teacher)  Me-Lizza, please go on the slide with me. ”

A day of childlike joy is good for the soul. Good medicine when the world outside is dark and complex problems abound. At HPC we work with over three hundred kids and sometimes working in their communities is hard. It is hard to see innocent children hurt and adult problems trickle down to vulnerable little ones. Just last week one of the little boys the organization works with drowned after having a seizure while taking a bath in the river, another case of a child being raped was brought to our attention, and we always have a steady stream of children with serious medical needs and ongoing abuse cases. *Sigh* He is with us giving us strength and hope to deal with the difficult things on a daily basis, but I do look forward to the day where we can all be filled with deep joy, deeper even than that of jubilant children on a playground.