Many of you will remember that last fall Chala’s wife left him. Chala has taken in 40 children who have no family to take care of them. These kids have either been orphaned by the conflict in Burma, or by poverty in refugee villages in Thailand. Some have living parents who abandoned them for reasons ranging from financial hardship to incarceration.  Without a safe place to stay these children were at risk of being deported back to Burma, held in adult detention facilities, or being kidnapped or sold to traffickers in the sex trade.

In the culture Chala and Ma-i-se (his wife) are from, the bride’s parents have a lot of authority. They were living with Chala and Ma-i-se and helping to take care of the children. About the time we met Chala and began to help him with finances they began to demand to be paid for helping or they would leave and take Ma-i-se and their 4 year old daughter with them. Given that there is still not enough money to pay for all of the basic needs of everyone in that home, this was an impossible demand.

The mother-in-law then arranged for her daughter to marry a different man in the town and ordered her daughter to leave Chala and marry this other man, taking their daughter with them. (This can be very confusing for westerners, but it is a normal occurrence in their culture.) Chala has been very distressed ever since. With no one to help at home he has been unable to work and make any money. He has been the only one caring for the children. (After a time the people who live next to the house they live in, a rice farmer and his wife, offered to help from time to time, and have been giving him rice on credit.)

He also has been very worried about his daughter. Stepfathers rarely treat their step children well in most Asian cultures. He saw her on the street selling flowers rather than going to school. In Thailand it is sadly very common for little girls to be sold for sexual favors by their families. Flower selling is often only a step away from this. In our newsletter last month we asked for prayer for Chala’s daughter.

This month has brought a resolution far beyond what we have been hoping for.

Chala’s wife Ma-i-se has returned to him, along with their daughter! She made the decision herself, apart from her parents, and left the other man to return to Chala. Her parents are not living with them right now, they are living and working at a construction site.

This is the best possible outcome that we could have imagined!

Chala is so excited and willing to forgive the past and move forward. He asks us for prayer for both of them, that they will be able to be full of grace toward each other. The children are also very happy as they saw Ma-i-se as a second mother and it was very hard for all of them when she left as well.

The practical outcome is very good. Ma-i-se is now there to watch the children again. Chala has gotten a job in the evenings teaching English and with this he is able to start paying back the debt he incurred over the past several months for rice, school uniforms, and rent etc. For while we have been able to help, thanks to the generosity of our donors and sponsors, we have not been able to cover all of the expenses yet.

This past month brought us much closer to this goal than we have been in the past. Thanks to several large one time donations, the home has enough to keep running for the next two months. We also have more sponsors that are committed to regular giving every month.

We still need more sponsors. In order for us to consider the situation of this home stable there need to be enough regular monthly donations to cover the entire budget of $2800US. We are almost halfway there!

If you would like to sponsor a child please go to the charis project homepage and click on the Sponsor a Child button. It will take you to a secure Paypal link where you can create an account, if you don’t already have one, and start an automatic monthly payment of $35. We will mail you a sponsorship package that will introduce you to your sponsored child, and tell you how to correspond with them.

Many thanks for all of your prayers and support.

Tags: Burma, Burma refugees, Chala, child sponsorship, children at risk, children's home, Human Trafficking, non profit, sex trafficking, Thailand, the charis project

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 4:51 pm and is filed under Burma, Chala, Human Trafficking, Thailand, children at risk, children's home, nonprofits, orphans and other children, refugees, the charis project. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.