“What is going on” can be a question that we sometimes ask here at the orphanage as we try and look into a problem that is occurring.

I want to share with you the latest answer to our most recent and lingering question. 
For three years we cared for a child that was a great kid, he often made mistakes and poor decisions but was liked and loved by us and the other kids.  His time here was filled with extreme highs with extreme lows.  With this one child it seemed like clock work that every 6 months or so he would get close to being removed from the orphanage.  We would show grace and mercy, he would take his punishment, ask for forgiveness and we would move on. 
He learned from his mistakes which I believe is better than most of us are able to do.
How ever December 2010 we had to remove him.  We gave him a chance to change on a recent problem and yet he forced our hand.  We had to do something we really didn’t wish to do.
The problem this time was that he was effecting other members of our large family.  We sought council ourselves, spoke to him and asked him to stop and he refused.

It was a rough moment for us as it always is for a parent to have a child leave the home early.  There were a lot of reflections over the last couple months if we had done what we should have.  How could we have done things different, did we give him every chance? 

The unfortunate thing about this home is that there are so many of us here, to be effected by a single person.  Sometimes we have to make a sacrifice to remove one for the better of everyone else.

In the end it was not our choice, it was the child’s choice by refusing to obey and follow rules that have been set.

The two questions that always come to us during such problems are “God, what is going on?” and at some point “Who will be the replacement”.  When we look at removing a child we always think about the safety of the kids, are there major disruptions to the house hold and is the current child steeling a life from another child.  Meaning is this child taking advantage of all that we are offering them or are they just coasting by and waiting to leave? 
These are important thoughts as we are an orphanage that focuses on the quality of the up bringing of a child not quantity and numbers.  A child’s bed here is valuable and important, kind of like the parable Jesus told about giving money to the servants and some invested in what they had been given and one did not.  This not to say if we judge a child’s worth to be here or if they deserve it or not but is our main desire that they leave better than they came.  If they are not then we wonder about another kids out there that is missing their chance for a better future. 

So the focus of this blog is not about the child who had to leave us or even why he had to leave. 
It is about the child that replaced him.  One child leaving opened a space for another to come in.

Back to our questions of “God, what is going on?” and “Who will be the replacement”.
As we look back we can say to the “what is going on?” that God saw a child that was not going to change.  So like in the parable He took from the one that did nothing and gave it to another who would.   I love that God gave the child a chance, He gave Pharaoh a chance, He gives us all a chance.
Just we do not all do well with that chance we get.
 
We know God always has another child waiting for us. 

Menea Chang was the “Who?” and over the past two months we have been shown the “Why?”

Menea is a cousin to one of our girls Saveoun and he has been waiting for a home for some time.  When he came in he was excited, but quiet, a little different than our other 7 year old boys. 

Menea joined us in March 2011 and a month later he and the other children got to go home for a week to celebrate Khmer New Year with family they may have. 

Yesterday  a month later we got a call from his mother saying she is broken and needs help, answers and prayer.  She is exhausted and often sick.  She works as a maid in the city to make $50 a month to support her mother, father and her sisters family that moved back home to live with the parents.  She said she has no hope.  She said “at least if I die I have some comfort that Menea is in good hands”.
She called to praise us with the work that has been done with Menea.  She said while Menea was visiting her he took care of himself, washed his own cloths, was helpful around the house and polite. 
She said when she was crying because of her current situation Menea comforted her telling that she needs to believe in Jesus and He will help her to feel better.

She called Ream that day to not only thank us but to also ask more about Jesus.   God is working through and using Menea at 7 years old to help and heal his mother.

So wonderful for us to get that call to help reaffirm the decisions that were made some months ago, that it was a part of God’s will.
It is a blessing to see answers to questions and prayers.

And we very proud of our little man, Menea.

We are going to continue to help Menea’s mother, we will share with her and help her get a couple hours off work so she can start attending church.
We will also help her find hope in HIM.
If you wouldn’t mind giving a little prayer for her and that the help we give her will be the help she needs.  That God would continue to use Manea and us in such ways, in her life and others.

Thank you,
kit

PS: we had some guest here during the time things unraveled with the one child and they also were able to watch Menea come in.  I thank them for their support during that time, it was helpful and I hope this helps for some closure to questions you may have had and to know and see Gods working through it all.