This article was printed in the Calgary (Canada) Herald. Calgary is recovering from record-setting flooding in their city in the past weeks.
They are children who have no home of their own, let alone cherished material possessions. When the wife of their prime minister came to visit recently, they were thrilled when she gifted each one the equivalent of about $12 Canadian dollars.
On Wednesday, those children handed over half of their new windfall to the Build It Forward Foundation, specifying that they wanted the money to go to victims of the Alberta floods. Together with donations from orphanage staff, the final tally came in at $900 — impressive from children of any socioeconomic background.
These children, though, are the neediest of the world’s needy. They live in a place called Place of Rescue Orphanage, a Cambodian sanctuary for children and adult AIDS patients and other unfortunates.
Such an act of generosity is jaw-dropping — the poorest of the poor giving to citizens in one of the wealthiest cities in the world.
Orphaned children giving money to Alberta flood victims doesn’t surprise Blaine Sylvester, director of the Calgary-based Canadian Foundation Place of Rescue, who had the honor of wiring the money Wednesday afternoon to the foundation.
“They consider themselves very fortunate, because their lives are better than the kids they see on the streets,” says Sylvester. “The children may live in spartan conditions and sleep 10 to a house with a house mother, but they’re safe, they’re secure and they’re loved.”
Some of those kids have a personal connection to Calgary. A couple of years ago, a group of them came to Calgary and presented dance performances in various venues around the city.
“One of those places was Bowness Park,” says Sylvester, whose mother-in-law Marie Ens founded the orphanage in 2003. “When they were told that the park had been flooded, they wanted to help.”
Over the past week, Calgary and its environs have seen the worst of Mother Nature, the best of human nature.
Whole armies of smiling volunteers have descended on destroyed neighborhoods, lending a hand to lift a crowbar or haul away a rotted two-by-four, their busy hands offering both practical and spiritual relief to those who have lost so much.
But children in an orphanage, living in an impoverished country on the other side of the planet? If this does not fill your heart to the brim, then I am afraid you might not have one at all.
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Christ Community sponsors 47 children at Place of Rescue 2 in western Cambodia, also started by Marie Ens. This is a photo of some of the orphans we sponsor.
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