Another day to play

The older children take care of the smaller ones. Very heartwarming.

Where's Wong-o? The ornery boy in the red shirt is Samir.
Reminds me of when I was little. 

Playing after church with my phone.

 There are several social factors that contribute to so many orphaned children in this area.

• Many of the parents worked in road construction and were killed in road-side construction accidents or by accidents going to and from work. Mudslides are also common in the mountains of Northeast India.
• Alcohol abuse is widespread — many people drink local alcohol after the hard day of work. Because of this abuse, many people die at an early from alcohol-related disease.
• Tuberculosis, diabetes and kidney failure are common diseases found among the poor of Northeast India, and many die at an early age because of these diseases.
• Suicide is also a common phenomenon because of poverty, unemployment, frustration and/or mental disorders.
• The borders between India and Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan are easily crossed and not heavily guarded, so many children are simply abandoned by the millions of refugees migrating illegally.
• In the slum communities, many mothers have no proper social ties nor social standing, so they abandon their children in hospitals, train yards and market places to die or be picked up by someone else.

Child labor in India is a serious and extensive problem with many children under the age of fourteen working in jobs such as road construction, carpet-making factories, glass blowing units, making fireworks by hand and more jobs like these. According to the statistics given by the Indian government, there are 30 million child laborers in the country making India the world's largest child labor force. 

Most orphaned children in India face a bleak future.

• Death by starvation or dehydration
• If they're "old enough" to work, they will be bought and sold into child labor or slavery for as little as a few hundred Rupees (less than $10) to work for the rest of their lives in the sex industry or high-intensity labor industry, either domestically or trafficked abroad.
• Some orphaned children are bought for organ harvesting for children of the upper classes with defects (heart, kidneys, lungs, eyes).
• They will not be able to go to school so they may learn to steal, rob and beg on the street or market places for food to survive. Eventually these children grow up in this lifestyle, marry and pass the same life cycle onto their children.

Some of the children who will be living in Kpong 2 sponsored by Northchurch-Columbus

Mon Sun Restura-Pork & beef dough wrapped pods called momos

Worship this morning with the kids. The local church has been trying to feed and house as many orphaned children as they can. It's common for parishoners to tithe a cup of rice.