So the conversation pretty much went like this- “Hey guys, so abaana is going to do a documentary of what it is actually like for a street child in Uganda, so we were thinking we might sleep on the streets with them one night. You wanna come?”
And we said “Heck yes.”
We got to an area where a lot of the kids sleep. It is well lit, so I figure they feel a bit safer there at night. The streets are always busy with boda bodas and taxis zooming down it. Not exactly a quiet place to lay your head down. Needless to say the white people rolling up in the middle of around 50 homeless kids caused a bit of a stir. We set down in the middle of some of the more quiet kids. These boys were from around 8-12. You could tell they were newer to the streets, mostly because our faces had the same look of not really knowing how this was going to turn out. I sit down next to a boy named Alan, and he hands me a piece of box to sit on. And so begins our night. He had a look on his face that I won’t ever really forget. A bit of confusion, but mostly he was glad someone was there to do this thing with him. He didn’t care if I had any money or even food to give him. He was just happy someone was there to stay near him. That’s really the messy beauty in the street kid life, a family can just happen right there, simply because you are in it together.
Once about 2am hit, we were all pretty tired, and we knew that if we didn’t at least try and sleep neither would these little guys. So I spread my box on the ground, huddled close with Mallory, and pretended to close my eyes. I guess there was just so much going on around me I didn’t want to miss it. I didn’t want to miss the small kid next to me that couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of this random girl that decided to sleep on the streets. Sometimes he would smile, or just look at my skin and the hair on my arms (African kids just aren’t that hairy), then he just grabbed my hand and we laid there. Eventually he fell asleep, and so did I.
We all woke up just before the sunrise and it was time to collect scrap metal and bottles to try and get money for food. So for around 2 hours we walked near the slums, collected lots of bottles and some scrap. Sacks full of bottles; hand in hand we walked to a buyer. I think the kid that made the most had 1500 shillings (roughly 55 cents). For most of these kids that is the only other option besides stealing or starving. They collect trash bottles or scrap metal all day just to eat, and then go back to that same street or slum to try and rest.
Every boy’s story is different. Some are there because their parents were abusive, some just lost their parents to disease and death, no two stories are the exact same. The only common ground all these kids have is they don’t want to be there. They don’t want to be scared they will get beaten by the police, they don’t want to be thirsty and hungry all the time, and they want a family. Just like every story is different, every kid is different. They aren’t all sweet and innocent. Some are really mad at the world and God, some use drugs off the street to numb themselves, some are really defiant and won’t dare listen to instruction. But that’s not really the point is it?
The longer that I walk the slums of Kampala, Uganda, the more I realize how little I have to offer. The more I realize every problem can’t be “fixed” by feeble human works. The more I realize how messy some of life can really get. The more I see the broken fragments our sin has left on the once perfect garden God created for us.
The longer I hold a kids hand the more I see God’s faithfulness. With every child put in a safe home the more I realize God’s promises. The more I do medical on the streets, the more I feel God guiding my hands and mind. When the day seems so uncertain, I feel the consistency of our God.
Some smart person once said that it wasn’t necessarily the fact that Jesus healed the lepers; it was the fact that Jesus touched the lepers. Nobody touched lepers. It just didn’t happen- they were dirty. But that’s what God does; he touches the “untouchables” and reaches those who seem unreachable.
So it all comes down to what the disciples asked of Jesus. Teach us how to pray.
“May your Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven”
In Heaven, kids won’t be starving. In Heaven, they won’t collapse from dehydration. In Heaven, they won’t be homeless. In Heaven, 7 year olds won’t be using drugs to escape reality. So, Jesus doesn’t want those things for his children now, and neither do I. Heaven starts now if we are really listening to Jesus.
I think that for a lot of us (including myself on too many occasions), we have become numb. We think things are the way they are because they just always have been. They haven’t always been like this, and God is setting things right again, back to the natural order of things. And I’m excited about it.
“4 You have been a refuge for the poor,
a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm
and a shade from the heat.
For the breath of the ruthless
is like a storm driving against a wall
5 and like the heat of the desert.
You silence the uproar of foreigners;
as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud,
so the song of the ruthless is stilled.
a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm
and a shade from the heat.
For the breath of the ruthless
is like a storm driving against a wall
5 and like the heat of the desert.
You silence the uproar of foreigners;
as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud,
so the song of the ruthless is stilled.
6 On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare
a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
the best of meats and the finest of wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
from all the earth.
The LORD has spoken.” –Isaiah 25:4-8
a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
the best of meats and the finest of wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
from all the earth.
The LORD has spoken.” –Isaiah 25:4-8
