I don’t like hockey, but I love children.

Maybe it’s because I can’t play successfully, maybe a hockey player beat me up and stole my girlfriend in junior high, I’m not sure.

But I do love children. Recently after a night of handing out delicious treats to indoor ice-skaters and inviting them to follow Jesus, one of the grandmothers on my team noticed a child who was just sitting and watching with a sad face. He didn’t have ice-skates. (He didn’t have parents either, he was a foster child). I’ve known him for only a few months, let’s say 6 and he’s a handful at age 11.

The next day, I bought him a pair and watched him ice skate with a smile. Well, to be fair he’s still learning, but so am I. His children’s aid worker approached me a few weeks later to let me know that unfortunately he’s being moved to another foster home, this time farther away. The worker tried to get the child in his care so he could stay but it didn’t work out. This would be like the dozenth time for the child to be moved, and least the 50th time for me to lose a child because of this.

My point in all this is 1.) these kinds of things happen because the world is broken, and as Canada continues to redefine everything that is good, things will continue to break more. 2.) do something GOOD while you can, because you won’t always have a chance.

The boy gave his life to Jesus the last day I saw him (he had his skates with him even though he wasn’t skating that night), and I gave him a hug, and never saw him again.

PS: I gave him a Bible and pointed out that a very important prophet had his name and he was delighted. He asked me for several more Bibles to give to his friends. – Asif Zamir

Cambodia Pisses Me Off

Cambodia Can Be Saved

Cambodia Can Be Saved

Pom, 20, is married and lives with one young child in Takeo province. She and her husband are farmers who make around US$5 / day. She wanted to raise $1,000 USD towards the purchase of fertilizer and a motorbike for her farming startup. $2,600 per year, that’s the average earnings of someone in Cambodia. This project was a huge success.

Anyway you are probably wondering why I’m so upset over Cambodia (see blog title). Back in 2006 or 2007 I met a missionary family who spent a lot of time in Cambodia, and we talked for about an hour about the things they saw there, specifically children being trafficked for sexual or slavery reasons. I’ve heard many stories where even the Cambodian authorities were in on it and would return rescued children directly to their captors (actually, you can read more about it by simply googling Cambodia child trafficking, but be prepared to become very angry.)

Anyway, I made a promise that day to do whatever I could (adding this to a big list of projects I’m already involved in). I wouldn’t be able to put in a ton of money, but I’m sure I could do something.

By empowering women in third world countries, stability, health, safety improves dramatically. I’ve currently got several other projects going on Cambodia, one of them involving rescuing children from the sex trade, and it’s an ongoing process, I don’t think I’ll have any photos to share for privacy reasons, but for those of you kids who think you have it hard in Canada because your parents made you do some chores, you need to think again about how good you have it here. – Asif Zamir