Battambang

These last few days I have had the privilege of spending time with Jon Morris in Battambang, Cambodia.  Jon and Elin are missionaries Newlife supports through Our Acts 1:8 mission programs.  They are based in Kona, Hawaii and work with Youth With a Mission (YWAM) in training young people for mission around the world.
 
Over the last few months Jon has led a Justice Discipleship Training School.  The school has 50 students from all around the world.  After three months of intensive training, they travel to the mission field in small teams to Togo. Thailand and Cambodia.  The range of ministry they engage in is really impressive.  Teams minister to prostitutes in Phuket, recently released prisoners in Chang Mai, AIDS orphans in Togo and Cambodia and with the poor in all three countries.
 
Here in Battambang, the team help staff a youth centre that attracts hundreds on young people.  They teach in a village where children are unable, or too poor to attend school.  They work with kids in another centre that have been rescued from sex slavery, some as young as 6 years old.  This is mission at the deep end.
 
Even the little I have observed so far has reminded me of the repeated calls in the scriptures to 'do justice'. See Micah 6:'8, for example.  Doing justice involves reaching out a compassionate hand to meet people at their point of need.  But it also means being a voice for the voiceless when it is required (see Proverbs 31:8-9).  The church at its best has been such a voice through history, from Mother Theresa (India's untouchables) to Martin Luther King Jr (African Americans), from William Wilberforce (Slavery) to Lord Shaftesbury (Child Laborers). 
 
It seems to me that every generation has its voiceless ones.  The nagging question for me, who are they for us at Newlife?  Who is God calling us to advocate for?  How is God calling us to be involved in his redemptive, peace-making work in our world?  These questions and more niggle away at me.  Will you join me in seeking after God for answers?  When they come, by God's grace, may we have the strength and courage to act and speak