Laos Street Kids

Posted by on Oct 29, 2010 in Missions, News & Updates | 5 comments

Latest Update from Dustan & Darlene in Laos, Southeast Asia:

Hey everyone.

We arrived in Laos after two days of crazy travel. The curvy bus rides, through the beautiful mountains, are (to say the least) nauseating. Once we arrived at our first destination we rested up, prayed up, and set out for our next stop. Our goal was to stay one night, catch yet another bus the next morning, and be at our final destination within four days of overland travel.

Thank God we didn’t meet our goal.

We arrived much too late to arrange a truck to the next village, so we hit the town that night. Nick, one of our team members, was walking on the main road when he was approached by two street kids wanting money. Well, our policy, because of much abuse world-wide is to NOT give money. Nick politely refused and walked off. That’s when the Spirit of the Lord started pulling at Nick’s heart.

Meanwhile Wesley & I (Dustan) were buying candy to give the village kids the next day. We walked over to Nick.

“Hey man, what’s up? It’s cold eh?” I asked.

“Yeah dude,” said Nick. “Did you see those street kids begging over there?”

“Yeah, I saw them before.”

“They are asking for something to eat.”

“There’s nothing wrong with taking them to get something to eat.”

“Yeah? Well let’s do it,” Nick said.

We walked just down the street to a noodle shop. Of course two turned into seven, but that was oaky with us as the noodles were $1 for a huge bowl.

“Nick, do you think they will be able to eat all of that? Should they share?”

“I don’t know man. It’s alot of food.”

Could they eat it all? Yes. In fact they ate every bit of it and devoured two more packs of grape Mentos.

“Kop chai,” they said as they put there hands together in front of their faces (like praying).”

“Kop chai lai lai, Yesu,” we said to them. (Thank you very much, Jesus).

The one little girl smiled. She put her two index fingers together and made a cross.

“Yes! Kop Chai Yesu!”

The kids smiled and thanked towards heaven. Someone had told them about Jesus before.

About that time Mandy came out. We were busy making funny faces with the kids.

“Man it’s cold. Do they have jackets?” she asked.

“Two of them do, the others I’m not sure about. A few are barefoot.”

“Well let’s do something about that.”

Mandy, Wesley, & Ashley took off down the street to find coats. All of the stores were closed. When they returned they told the one English speaker there to ask the kids to come back the next morning. The kids said yes, thanked us, and ran off.

A few minutes later a group of High School students walked up. They asked the classic question.

“Can we practice our English with you?”

The team readily agreed. An hour later, after teaching the guys how to shake hands American style, explaining what ‘God bless You’ means, and sharing the Gospel with one of the students, we headed back to the room to finish the night in prayer. The team was touched immensely; blessed to be a part of such a night.

The next morning we woke up and headed to meet the kids at 7:30.

“There’s no way they will all be on time,” I said. “This is Asia.”

I was wrong. When we arrived they were all seated around a corner, waiting. From here it was off to buy jackets, which turned into shoes, socks, jackets, and fruit for breakfast. It took the whole team to manage the excited kids. They picked out there favorite jackets, grabbed shoes, we helped them into their socks, and said goodbye. As they went they were thanking us and thanking Jesus for the new clothes.


Truthfully, we know that once we leave these children will be hungry again. We know that they approach foreigners. It is survival. But does that matter? Can I see someone naked or hungry and walk away when I have the ability to feed them? I know, I know; I’ve been told before, “We can’t help everyone.” Well, statistics tell us that if just the AMERICAN church paid 10% of their income, and 10% of that got out of the church buildings,  we could wipe out the most intense poverty in one year. One year.

It took us around $100 to feed and clothe seven kids for a day. Split amongst the team, thats around $10-$11 a person. I’d say it’s worth it.

The little girl in this picture had to change coats because the first had no buttons. She looked better in pink anyway!

We CAN help everyone. We will always have the poor, but that was Jesus saying you should always help them, in His name, once He was gone.

Thank you for giving to RLI. We use your gifts to travel and spread the gospel, just like this, all over the world.