I pulled out of my gate at 6:30 this morning and saw him ambling down the street a quarter kilometer away. It is impossible to miss his silhouette. Head down, shoulders slumped, and unshaven; he walks on as he does every day. His feet shuffle down the dirt road with the familiar pat, pat, pat of flip flops hitting the dirt and rocks. As I pass him, he refuses to look up, to make eye contact, or to acknowledge my presence in any way. His clothes are familiar; I have only seen him in two, possibly three different shirts. Today it is the dirty, green stripped button up with the small hole in the shoulder.
His look is the same that I see all over the city as I go about my day. It is the look of a man who is hopeless.
He and I are alike in so many ways. We both have two sons that we dream will grow and become men with a future. We both have a wife that we want to provide for, to take care of, and want to shower with love and affection. Our wives are both spiritual people.
We also are very different. He has not job or source of income. He gets up daily with no plan other than to hope that someone will ask him to help them and that he can get enough money to buy food for the day. I get up with a full day and more than I can accomplish on my plate. His sons are undersized for their age. Mine are normal and non-descript by most standards. His wife is a soothsayer. She is paid to summon dead ancestors, to predict the future, and to cast spells on people. My wife is a Godly woman who people seek out for guidance, affirmation, and prayer.
The most obvious difference in our lives is that his wife is HIV positive. Without a miracle, she will be dead in a few years from a disease that has the potential to more damage to Cambodia that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge ever did. She knows she is dead, the children know that she is dying, and her husband knows all too well that the situation is hopeless.
I pray for him often. I ache when I see his face. I see one man among thousands enduring the same fate in this nation. God sees every one of them. His Son is Hope; the only Hope that my neighbor has. I pray that his hopelessness will turn to hope in the resurrected Christ.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” 1 Peter 1:3
