Join this Passport team to both Thailand and Cambodia!
Behind Thailand’s beautiful beaches, booming tourism, and the country’s ever-smiling faces lies a terrible secret: modern day slavery. Thailand’s red-light districts attract an ugly side of tourism. Thousand of people, even children, are exploited as prostitutes.
The sex industry is fueled by poverty. Families go into debt in order to pay for food to eat, rent for their homes, or even to build bigger houses. When debts are called in, the young girls are sent to Bangkok or other tourist cities in order to provide for their families. While the males go to the temple as monks in order to earn merit, it’s the responsibility of the female to provide for her family.
Cambodia’s story is “same same but different”:
Cambodia boasts one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the temple Angkor Wat. However, the delicious food, beautiful scenery, and kind nature of the people mark the true wonders of this small country.
Cambodia is struggling to heal the scars from one of the worst genocides in modern history. In just a three-year period, one of every five people died, decimating the population and trapping the people in terror. With a predominantly Buddhist culture, Cambodians struggle with the concept of hope for the future. They have never heard of grace. They have never felt forgiveness.
In addition, the hopelessness of the people left behind is unimaginable to much of the Western world. How do you have commerce, government, and business without education? How can you rebuild your economy when without educated professionals?
Faced with inconceivable poverty, the desperate people of Cambodia turn to the only resource they believe they have left: their bodies. Debt schemes trap women in prostitution, and mothers often sell their daughters for meager sums of money. Children are traded as commodities and used to satisfy the twisted desires of others.
Ministry:
For both Thailand and Cambodia, the keys to ending poverty is two-fold: receiving both the unconditional love of Jesus and an education. Practically speaking, educated children grow into educated adults who are able to secure jobs and provide for their families.
While in Southeast Asia, you will serve in both countries and may be involved with schools and rural communities, teaching English and doing local outreaches in nearby villages. There might be an opportunity to join long term ministries reaching out to women in the Red Light areas, sharing the freedom of God’s unconditional love with women who have been sexually exploited.
In Cambodia, you will work with children at local orphanages to share the Father’s love and acceptance. A smile and play go along way in lifting a child’s spirit! You will also help with projects at the orphanage and partner with the local church to reach the community in the surrounding area.
But most of all, you’ll be sharing hope.
When you join us in Thailand and Cambodia, you can partner with the Father to bring hope to men, women, and children who feel forgotten. Share the truth that their true citizenship isn’t in this world, and that they they are never alone.
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Interested in reading more stories about what Adventures is doing in Southeast Asia? Click here for stories from Thailand and here to see the impact in Cambodia.
