Street Children

Umphang is quite an isolated place. Because of that, there are many harsh realities that people living here do not experience.Yes, there are poor people for sure, but you do not see homeless people here. There was one guy, but he was mentally unstable. People offered to take him in or build him a home but he refused. I have not seen him since we have been back. I did mention in a previous post that the refugees that live here are quite poor, living in very rudimentary houses, but they do have houses. They do not have much money are are relegated to hard labor jobs. You do not see people on the street begging for food. Mae Sot, however, is a different story. Currently, there are more Burmese refugees living in Mae Sot than Thais. On any given night, you will find the night market full of children begging for food or money. Sadly, a lot of it is a racket. The parents of these children send them out daily in tattered clothes to beg for money. They can bring home as much as 3,000 THB ($100 USD) a week! This is how much a Thai teachers makes in a month! This is a very sad thing and it is hard to tell who is truly poor and needs the money or who is scheming. The good thing is, there is no shortage of ministries there helping all of them, both poor and scheming. They have various ways of helping without giving out money. These parents send their children out till all ends of the night. You will commonly see a 9 year old out with a sibling so young that they cannot even walk yet and they are out there ALONE. It's a scary thought what could potentially happen to them. Another thing that they do, is have their children go out with a few dozen roses. They are generally not allowed back home until they are all sold every night, even if they have school in the morning.

While we were there this past week, we were eating in the night market and this little girl (and I mean little!), came over to our table and was pointing at our left over food. We were dining with two missionaries who live and work with the refugees in Mae Sot. They are very familiar with the situation there. She was trying to ask for our left overs, so I gathered it all together, sat her down at the next table and gave it all to her. She ate it all. Then we looked over and noticed her mother off in the distance. We invited her over and offered to buy her something to eat, she accepted. We spoke with them a little afterwards while Doris played hand games with the little girl. They ate to their fill, we prayed for them and we departed. The mother was 6 months pregnant with another child and her daughter is 4 years old. Here are some pictures.