Africa Love

Sitting in the small clinic I watch Mwange as he struts over towards the scale to have his weight measured. He is swaggering so much it surprises me until I look down and notice that he is actually not swaggering but tiptoeing, the heels of both of his feet were just bandaged at our programs- he doesn't own any shoes and he must have stepped on a broken bottle or wires or something to cut the bottom of both his feet.

The doctor takes his measurements, asks him questions, and inspects him. She then tells me that the worms in Mwange's stomach were shouting at her when she listened to it with her stethoscope. When she tells him he grins and shrugs, that wasn't news to him. He is far too tough to tell us that he fears taking tablets and when the doctor tells him that he needs to come early tomorrow morning to take his deworming tablets before eating breakfast he tells us that he doesn't think he will come. Promising him a free breakfast doesn't work but on the way back from the clinic as we are walking hand in hand I pull the, "For me?..." card and it works as he promises me that he will go.

Mwange is always a mystery to me and I am sure that is exactly how he wants it. He is so sweet and endearing, without realizing it he can make a sea of other kids disappear in front of me as he is being his adorable little self. Moments later he will be gone and I won't see him or that side of him again for a while as he disappears into the crowd.

Earlier in the day when he had been telling me about feeling sick and that he had been having stomach problems he lifted his shirt to show my the lumps moving around on his little belly. Above his stomach though a series of deep and nasty scars are raked over his ribs. Forgetting in the moment that I had already asked before (and had not received an answer, just a sad little smile) I asked him where he had gotten such a bad wound, it seemed so completely unnatural and just looking at it you can just tell that it would have bled all over the place. He turned his head in shame and said quietly, "my mother" before dropping his shirt back down and asking if I could finish making his necklace for him (since he said his stomach was hurting him too much to do so himself but he wanted to have it done) so that we could go to the clinic.

Hearing that made me so angry. It should not be his shame that he has a mother that attacks him instead of loves him. It is not his shame at all. I gave him what small comfort that I could before I finished his necklace so that we could go.

I see God work in amazing and beautiful ways here but sometimes it is just so hard to see how these kids suffer and I know they dont suffer alone. Anything that they feel I know God feels even more so as he carries them in His big hands. Jessie was looking over our expenses the other day and told me that we had taken 38 kids off of the street since we got here this last June (and 2 more soon since someone just asked to put two more boys into boarding school! so exciting=-) . That is a lot of kids, and they are doing so well, but it is just so hard sometimes to be with the hundreds of kids that don't get off of the street, I know we can only do so much but still, sometimes it is just hard.

Sharrif peeking out from his classroom during school (you can click to enlarge)

There are no words to express how proud I am of little Sharrif. The little boy who loved to fight and do drugs and passionately explode at the drop of a hat, that little boy is long gone. I used to write about him a lot when he was on the streets, he stole my heart and I was so worried that he was going to be a street child that was never able to get out, but he did.

Sharrif loves his boarding school and is doing SO well! I love it every time we get to see him and spend special time with him. He was always exceptional, endearing, charming, and intelligent, but now he has channeled all of his other energies into moving forward with his life, Sharrif is ready to rock the world! Even the pastor of his school said that he is amazed at how Sharrif has changed, how he now has the respect of his entire class because of who he is and leads them all in prayer before the teacher comes in. God truly worked a miracle in his life and I cannot wait to see what He is going to do next

Thank you all for prayer for little Sharrif

We had surprised all of the boys in our street programs by giving them each a new outfit and taking them to "the beach" (aka Lake Victoria) to go swimming instead of running our usual programs.

There was a boy, Dissan who had been on our heart for sometime and Jessie and I knew that God wanted us to bring Dissan home with us that day. That would be his last day as a street child.

We had the other uncles at the house pull him aside with us and ask him if he wanted to come home with us that day to our home instead of going back to the street. He couldn't stop smiling all day.

Im sorry I havent written more lately, a lot has been going on but I havent had any electricity in Ssenge for around a month now and it is very hard to find other times to type these up when I cant do it at home but I will again soon

love you all

"The next time the police catch me, don't come looking for me, I am able to take care of myself!" Alex shouts over the commotion of the boys around him.

He is a cute yet feisty little dirt ball as usual. Streaked with sweat, grease, and the petroleum jelly that he has smeared on his face and head; he is rocking around on his plastic chair with a serious face looking way too grown up for his 5 or 6 years.

A couple moments later he is kicked in the side by someone and he begins crying, showing for a few brief moments the little boy in him but he quickly recovers and "grows up" again.

Alex did not mean what he said, he said what he wishes he could believe. He wants to believe that the next time the police come in the middle of the night, beat him with metal batons and crowd him into the back of the truck that when no one comes to look for him in prison, it is because he told them not to come, because he really can take care of himself. Because he doesn't NEED anyone.



The day before had been a terrible day. My greatest fears had again come crashing back to me. "The police grabbed Alex and Kato last night" many of the street kids told us. My Kato and my Alex. It was the same day that we had bought a charming little outfit for Alex and had planned to take him out to chips, chicken, soda and ice cream. I felt heartbroken and frantic. All we knew was that the police had grabbed them while they had been working collecting scrap metal and that they were gone. We decided the most probably place for them to be was in a holding call in a nearby police post. So we went from police station to police station in Kampala showing pictures of Alex and Kato and asking them if they could please check with the kids they had picked up to see if they had them.

It is not an injustice it is a tragedy how street children are treated in Uganda. It was terrible going to those prisons and being reminded again just how terribly street children are treated. They pick up street children (and I already knew that this happens), label them criminals just because they live on the street and place them in holding cells with other large and full-grown men who are true criminals. I kept picturing sweet Alex and Kato and having difficulty breathing as we waited for wardens to come back after checking the cells for them.

We didn't find Kato or Alex that day (although we did find other boys from our programs who we did try and help) but through a long and complicated serious of events, they were able to escape where they had gotten to and get back to the church that night. The next day in our programs I nearly cried as I hugged Alex and told him how much he had been missed, he didn't say anything.

Later that day when talking to the boys about how valuable and loved they were and that we would do everything to get them out of prison if they ever got picked up was when Alex piped up and said that he didn't want us to go looking for him. He was still too traumatized from his last 48 hours to open up the door to his heart to allow us in.

Two days later though I was sitting in the container getting beads ready for the boys to make necklaces when Alex crawled into my lap and snuggled up to me. I froze. Never before had I ever seen him so soft, with so few barriers. It caught me by surprise but it was so beautiful, it truly made my week. Later that day he stopped, looked me in the eyes and told me, "Babirye I love you so much" he also told it to my mom as well.

It is beautiful to watch Jesus change the lives of the kids here. To allow us to teach them what it looks like to be loved and cared for so that they can even more freely feel it from a God who loves them infinitely more than we ever can.

Some of the street kids in our programs =-)

LOSS

Several of the street kids in our programs (like 8-10 everyday) always walk me back from the programs in Kivulu to the taxi park. It is my extremely wild little entourage of body guards that jump on the back of slow moving cars as they drive past, give me puppy dog eyes anytime we walk past a food vendor, and yell and swarm around me protectively if any man so much as tries to talk to me (I call them my little body gaurds and they puff up proudly every time). It is really, really precious.

Yesterday, I was walking with 2 boys on my left arm and shoulder and a boy named Kato (he's fairly new to our programs, we have several Kato's) clutching to my right hand. He was looking adorable in his blue cordorouy pants we had given him and red shirt and new haircut. Kato is sweet and respectful but he's feisty too and sassy. I love him so much.

Kato was holding my hand so firmly that through the cars, and mud, and pedestrians, and the other kids who were all trying to be the lucky kid to hold my hand, we didn’t get separated the entire time. As we neared the end of a canal and came upon a main street we needed to cross he froze in his tracks with his eyes wide open and stepping backwards clutched my hand even harder as he shouted to the other boys that the city counsel was out (the people that beat them and take them to prison) and to go back.

I would fight for Kato. I would fight against the world for him and all the other street kids who have positively stolen my heart, often I feel like I am. If the police came to take him away I would do whatever I could to keep him safe. As he froze in terror, I took my hand out of his and wrapped it around his shoulder to let him know that he was secure, that I wasn't going to let him go. His little heart was beating so fast.

I work with young kids who are loved by no one, cared for by no one, and known by no one. It creates a very strong attachment when you are the only person giving that child love and attention, clothing to wear, shoes to put on their feet, haircuts, a toothbrush, soap to bathe with, food, and treats. It is hard for me too because whenever a kid shows up missing, I know what happened or at least a small piece of it. I have seen my street children beaten by police officers, I have seen kids been chased and put into trucks and taken away, I have seen people that police officers have shot and killed, I have seen thieves beaten mercilessly by mobs, just yesterday I walked right past a thief who had been running past police officers and shot in the leg. And my kids are just that, kids- young kids. I will never know what happened to so many of my sweet kids that disaperared from our programs, but I can guess.

Many more kids were beaten and picked up by city counsel last night and the numbers were reduced again in our programs. Although we never found out who the boy was who [we are pretty sure] was in our programs and died two weeks ago, we did find out that there was another street boy named David who was friends with many of the boys in our programs died last week after getting hit by a car in a busy area of town.

I am so scared of losing Kato, so, so scared. I'm scared of him getting sick, of getting kidnapped, of getting picked up by the police, of stealing something or getting triggered and running away. I'm so afraid that I will never see him again, that yesterday was the last time that I will ever see him. I feel that for so many of the boys in our programs. I think I always have an underlying sense of panic about losing boys in our programs. Actually just writing this last post has been really good for me as I have been holding that feeling of fear for him and all the other boys for so long. I feel like it's a constant process of grieving for boys you have lost and opening your heart for new boys.

There is no closure, we never know when will be the last time we will see our kids.

* * * *

IBRA AND IVAN

We lost Ibra and Ivan. They are not coming back. Jessie and I seem to fall in love with little thieves. As we have traveled all over Kampala looking for Ivan he has turned out to be a bit of a celebrity, known for stealing everything- money, shoes, cell phones. He also doesn't settle down. We went all over Kampala and found many different places where he had been staying. In the end we found out that he had been picked up by the police and taken to Kompalingisa a type of prison/rehabilitation center for street children (it's terrible). When I brought a picture of Ibra to our programs all the other street kids began calling him a thief and saying that (just after he had run away from our programs when he thought we were forcing him to go home) he had stolen a bicycle and run away. No one has seen him since.


* * * *

JUMPING OFF A CLIFF

I have now set out on the scariest and yet most exciting and wonderful adventure of my life.

I firmly believe that God doesn't work miracles- He doesn't do anything huge in our life unless we truly put our faith in Him. We have to do that by pushing everything else out of the way so that the only possible way for everything to work out is because of God. You have to jump off of the cliff before God is able to catch you. God doesn't want another Tower of Babel, if he uses us in big ways while your living life comfortably and predictably, we are going to think it was all us, not only will He not get the glory but we will turn it on ourselves. If we want God to work, we need to come to a place where we need Him.

I have to admit that our new home, our new programs, our new ministry is so scary for me. The scariest thing I have ever done. The Ssenge Home was a challenge, fundraising for it and everything, but technically it wasn't my house, it was African Hearts. At the end of the day, it was their responsibility not mine. But Jessie and my new home and programs are different. Just out of my money from being a missionary I am running a home, hiring 10 full time staff and 4 part time staff, putting children in boarding school, and taking care of 60 street children. If my money doesn't come in, I don't know what I would do, what we would all do. But I know it is what God wants. I read the bible and God's love for his people, especially the lost and broken just bleeds through every page. I know that God loves street children, He loves them more than I can even imagine. If he loves them that much, I know that He will provide for them. I know that if I jump off of the cliff after my precious street children who I keep watching fall off, I know that He is going to lift us all back up.

We just hired a body guard last night with money that we don't really have to watch over the street kids that sleep in our church in Kivulu (it is outside on a dirt floor and the kids keep getting beaten up there and stolen from). We also hired caregivers and a teacher to take care of our kids as well. I know that God wants our kids to be fed, loved, taken to the hospital, given clothing. As scary as it is, I just know that He will provide, He has to!

I've officially jumped off of the cliff. It took my breath away for sure but it has been an exciting and wonderful ride. There is no place better than in the center of God's will. Despite the heartbreak that comes with working with street children, I am so happy and fulfilled, I have so much joy. Literally the only nightmares I have here are dreaming that I went back to America. After everything that I have seen and went through here, my deepest fear is leaving the place where my heart has found it's home. Working with street children and watching God become real in their life, there is no greater joy for me than that!

I wish that everyone can have what I do. That they can find the ministry that God created them for, that they can find the place where there heart is broken and filled everyday and get to watch as God uses them in amazing ways to help the broken and downtrodden. Every Christian is called to a life of radical ministry that is tough yes, but immensely satisfying. It makes me sad to think of how many people are missing out on a life of purpose. It makes me sadder still to think of the other people who suffer unnoticed because we as Christians haven't learned how to step it up and reach out.

Thank you so much to all of you who are reaching out to the hurting and especially to everyone who has made my dreams of working with street children possible. God is using you in big ways! Thank you also for ALL of your prayers and encouragement!

God bless you all

Because the paper necklaces had been the main way that we had been raising money for my ministry I decided to start my own business of hiring wonderful older street boys from our programs who were serious about their life and were dying for the chance of earning their own money to make the necklaces. It is so exciting to see these boys working hard and getting a chance to earn their own money, with that money they can work towards doing anything they want with their lives. I am praying that everything will continue to grow and expand with the necklaces but it is just so exciting!


Below is a post from Jessie's blog (jessietorresblog.com)that explains it better:

David is an 18 year old young man who loves the Lord in such a way that it emanates from him. He is gentle in spirit, humble, and desires righteousness. He has been coming to our programs for the last few months and the church has allowed him to sleep in one of the rooms at their secondary school because they can see that he is both responsible and pursuing godliness. We were down at the soccer pitch next to the church today and he came up to greet me, first saying that he only looked smart (equivalent to looking nice) because of me. He was dressed in a new pair of jeans, a nice church shirt, and brown shoes… he looked very smart.

You see, we have been able to teach a few of the older guys how to make paper bead necklaces as a trade so that they can begin to make a living for themselves. They work full time Monday through Friday making bead necklaces at our house in Kivulu, breaking an hour for lunch. These five guys have been dedicated and hard workers for the last few weeks and clearly excited to work. I quickly reminded David that it was his own hard work that got him his new clothes, not my doing.

But he wouldn’t take that for an answer. He proceeded to tell me that there was no way he could communicate how thankful he was to me, that usually he was able to just say thank you but that the hope that I instilled in him was something beyond what he had ever experienced. He told me to look up Psalm 41 when I went home because he thought that would communicate it best.

“Blessed is the one who considers the poor! In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him; the Lord protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land, you do not give him up to the will of his enemies. The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health.” (Psalm 41:1-3)

He continued to tell me how God used me to bring them all hope. He looked out at the boys playing soccer and told me how they had no hope and believed that there was no chance that anyone cared about them. He told me that it is so difficult to be happy or to have hope in a God that loves them when the world seems to tell him the opposite. Because of the way that Abby and I take care of them and love them, he said the boys have a new sense of confidence that they are worth something, that they could be somebody, that God could have a plan for their lives.

David ran away about four years ago and hasn’t seen his family since. He left home because the circumstances were very difficult in their family; days would pass without eating, no chance of school or opportunity for work. He came to the city seeking opportunity, was lost for years in the darkness the city brought, and then found Jesus when he wasn’t even looking. In the last 7 months I can tell that God has begun a mighty work in him. He is working towards saving his money to go back to school, to complete secondary school at an adult school, and to visit his family back home.

No matter how much I communicate to David the impact he has on my life, the inspiration I am filled with as I see him as a man after God’s heart he doesn’t seem to believe me that he has given me more than what I could ever give him. In David, I see God’s work and God’s will for the lives of His people. In David, I see someone dedicated to a God that has allowed him to experience suffering and pain beyond what I could imagine – and truly know that God is good.

Jessie, Collins, and I run across a busy street, leap over the small canal on the other side and breach the top of a small dirt hill.

We find a small group of street kids puffing marijuana and huffing chenge. They stop smoking as soon as they see us near and a boy yells out my name. There is perhaps 10 street boys hanging out in their “home” a dirt spot with a small smoldering fire in the center-the kitchen. To the left side there is a big rock with the sand dug out below it where some of them sleep under at night and other rocks that they are currently sitting on. Cars whiz by on the busy street next to us. There is a young boy of perhaps 9 with shaggy hair who is swaggering around in a puffy black jacket, his drugs stuffed in a back pocket. He’s as cute as a button and I keep trying to catch his eye and get him to smile. He reminds me of Ibra so much that it hurts. A high 12 or 13 year old in a dirty white shirt passes a bottle with a clear liquid, chenge, to his older friend standing next to me. One of the older boys shows us his hands, they are a mass of blisters. Blisters upon blisters cover his hand all over his palm and along each finger. He just escaped prison where they had made him dig every day, all day. Those are the type of prisons they put street children in, it seems like all of the kids from our programs have escaped at one time or another. All the boys are excited to “bonga” pound fists and say hi to us and talk. They are respectful, curious, sweet, and aloof. I feel at home standing there talking with them and wonder how in rest of the world could have forgotten about them when they are sitting right there in sight of everyone.

We are in a slum called Katwe and looking for one of our street boys, Ivan and trying to discover the name of the street child that had just died. Jessie and I actually call him, “her Ivan”. We nickname some of the kids, names that only she and I know. We love all of the kids so much, but there are certain kids that one of us just stop breathing whenever we look at. There’s “my Julius”, “sweet Joseph”, “Jessie’s Ivan”, “our Andrew”, “my Joseph”, “Jessie’s Yusuf” and so many more. And the beautiful thing is that both Jessie and I love ”her Ivan” and “my Joseph” to pieces, but just one of us has a friendship with that particular child that no one else can compare to. And because we both love that child so much, it makes the other happy to see that boy be able to attach.

Earlier that day during our street child programs I had been handing out beads to make necklaces when Joseph comes up to tell me, “the police grabbed Ibra last night.” I look up startled and ask him which Ibra, the Ibra that had run away from our home in Ssenge, or the small Ibra that I was looking for (who still hasn’t showed up). He just tells me again that they took Ibra and when another uncle asks him, he says he doesn’t know which Ibra stayed in Ssenge and that they took 100 kids from Kisenyi last night. It was another crazy night in Kisenyi full of shouting, beating, and running from police officers that beat and round up kids in the middle of the night.

I then hear from Collins that there was a boy in our programs living in Kisenyi who had shifted to Katwe recently who had just died. No one knows the name of the boy that died but Collins tells me he’s pretty sure that I knew him.

Ivan disappeared from our programs around two months ago right before we opened the home. He was supposed to be in it too. We had had the kids who were going to be staying in the home help us get it ready and Jessie had accidently left her purse with money in it in a room when she went out to go buy supplies. Ivan stole a lot of money and ran away. Now all of the boys in our programs steal. If I ever put down a pair of scissor, a 100 shilling coin (five cents), a crayon, anything- there is no way that it will be there a minute later. All of our street children steal. They steal because they must in order to survive. (And it is amazing to see them pretty much always instantly drop the habit when they come into a loving home). But stealing money or something significant from Jessie or I was different for the rest of the boys and they decided it was their duty to continue finding and beating Ivan as punishment for what he had done. It is no big surprise that Ivan shifted from Kisenyi to Katwe a little while ago.

We walked around for hours all over Kampala finding street children and asking if they knew Ivan, or if they knew which boy in Katwe had just died. There are so many street children in Kampala, it is so sombering going around for one child and stumbling upon SO MANY other children who have never been looked for, who no one cares about. All day and no one knew anything. We are worried that the boy who died may have been Ivan because of how all the information matched up but we don't know for sure. We are going again on Thursday to look for him.

This is an update to my previous post about Ibra...

Ibra had spent the entire day at our programs yesterday laughing, playing with us and being his normal, adorable little self. When we told him we were about to leave (he was going with us so that we could resettle him) he immediately slipped away and disapeared. We haven't seen him since.

Ibra was the one who had asked us if we could take him home. He told us that he had been staying with his grandmother and had walked 50 kilometers into town to try and look for his mother because he wanted to stay with her instead, he had ended up being picked up by police and lots of other things along the way to becoming a street child.

I am so worried that we wont find Ibra again. Ibra knows we love him and he wants to go home to a mom that loves him. But I am afraid that he thinks we are now going to push him to go home "because we love him" and the reality of what that looks like if actually were to go home (which I think he is way too scared to actually do, all of us think it is not a good situation). We would never take him home if he didnt want to go but I dont think he knows that. I am so worried that we are not going to see him again. I so wanted him to be the boy that we took into our home. Of the three boys Jessie, Frank, and I are each wanting a different boy (although we each love all 3 of them), Ibra is the one who my heart feels pulled to take home. We are going to pray about it until God pulls all three of our hearts in the same direction. If he doesnt come back though that will never happen. I am praying so hard that God will bring little Ibra back tomorrow to our programs. I know that at the end of the day that it is He who created Ibra, loves him infinately, and knows what is best for his life. Its only God that can bring him back and give us the wisdom to make the best decision for his life.

Please pray for Ibra

When the riots were going on downtown a couple of weeks ago, Jessie saw a group of young street children running away from police officers that were after them (police officers were after all “thugs” and this pretty much always includes street children). They were on the other side of a canal but were about to run away from her and the police, she needed to get to them so that the police would leave them alone and so that she could bring them into the house so they could be safe. She didn’t have time to go around to the bridge and so she had to jump the canal to get to them in time. She ended up falling into a canal ferrying sewage, not clean water, and hit her head and hip in the process. However, she was able to get up, rescue them and bring them up to the house. (And yes, Jessie is my hero.)

One of those street boys was a young man named Ibra and that was how he was introduced to us and our programs in Kivulu. Ibra has the most beautiful smile in the whole world. He is the type of boy who steals your heart without having any idea of what he is doing. He loves to laugh and play and learn. He is certainly the cutest little soccer player I have ever seen, especially when he is trying so hard to pass me the ball that he keeps giving it to the other team and taking it so seriously the whole time. He knows how to stick up for himself and fight for his place in the harsh little world that he is living in, and yet he still retains a constant softness and sweet spirit.

He brightens up my day every time that I see him.

We have one more spot still open in our house, just one. After that spot is filled, because we are going to need to first find sponsors for the many kids that we already care for, it is going to be a long time before we are able to put any more street children into boarding school or into our home. The rest are going to have to wait a very long time.

Ibra is one of three boys that we are praying hard about to see if he is the one boy that God wants in our home.

It is a bit complicated but it is possible that we may be able to resettle Ibra back with his family. We are going tomorrow to try and find his mother and see.

I am absolutely dreading tomorrow.

I hate resettling street children with their families. It is always interesting and helps me learn a lot about my street kids and where they are coming from, but just about always, it breaks my heart.

The last boy that I resettled was a boy named Haluna Galoba. He had said he had run away from home because he was being mistreated by a step-mother but that he had heard that she had moved away and so he wanted to go back home. It was not an ideal situation, but if a street child asks to go home and they say that it is safe and possible, we always try our best to make it happen.

Last week, Collins, an uncle we work with and I took him on the 2.5 hours bus ride to Jinja, walked all over the town there trying to help him remember the correct direction and then finally took public motorcycles (bodabodas) to a small little slum on the edge of the Nile. We got lunch in a little room with no ventilation and then went on a small canoe/row boat type thing across the Nile to where his village was. We walked a while across the island and as we were nearing his home I decided to ask him how he was feeling about coming back home.

His response,

“I am afraid, they are going to beat me with sticks…”

His home was exactly as I expected it to be, a small hut in a little village overlooking the water with his young siblings and family all over the place. It was a very poor village and of the many people that were around, only two men had shoes on with everyone in old and tattered clothing. His family was very excited to see a white person but didn’t care very much that their son had come home. From the start his grandmother not only asked me if we could take Haluna back with us but if we could take some of his younger step-siblings as well. She told me, “I heard that white people love babies, here take this baby, her name is Babirye too like you. I am too old to take care of her, take her…” Haluna’s step mother was so busy nursing, playing with, and giving attention to her own small baby that she didn’t even look at him the whole time. I didn’t like staying in that village for the short time that I was there, everyone was asking me for things or arguing over items that Haluna had brought that we had bought him.

Two of his neighbors pulled Collins aside and asked if they could talk. They said they were concerned for the boy and told him Haluna’s situation. It matched completely with other thins that he had told us and with how everyone was acting now that we had brought him home.

Haluna’s mother had died when he was a young baby and he has no memory of her. She was the only person that ever loved him. His father is polygamous, Haluna has two step-mothers that hate him because he is the son of another wife. The only children they love are their own. Both women beat him constantly and would often deny him food. He spent a couple of months sleeping in the bush because they wouldn’t let him sleep at home. The step-mother that had hated and mistreated him the most had not moved away as he had thought.

The village also thinks that his step mom put a curse on his father so that he would not love him either. The father is away on business often but when he is home he often gets drunk and beats him. When Haluna ran away the father never told anyone or talked about it. He never went to look for him or ask around to see if anyone knew anything. He didn’t care.

In his entire life, Haluna has never had someone love him. He has never known love. The entire trip he asked everyone he saw if they knew his dad, if they had seen him, if they knew how he was doing. He was dying to see his father, he was dying to hear that he was missed, that he was loved. He was dying for the approval from a dad that beat him, that let his other wives mistreat him. A dad that went into town often but who had never bothered to spend an afternoon looking for him when he was living on the streets. And yet that was all that Haluna wanted. I believe that the only reason that Haluna went home was because he was hoping deep down that his dad would have woken up to the son he had had all along and accepted him home for the first time with open arms. I know that Haluna was a Christian because we had talked about it several times and how much God cared for him but the idea of God as a loving, caring father-figure was just hard for him to understand.

It is true that we didn’t know completely what Haluna’s situation was before taking him home but we knew it wasn’t ideal, it never is.

I know that Haluna was living a terrible life on the street but at least there he had a chance of someone finding him. He had a chance of someone finding him who might love him although as Jessie reminded me, he would experience a lot more abuse and trauma on the streets before that would happen IF it ever did. On the streets at least he would have had a chance of going into a home or of someone putting him through school.

There is no CPS in Uganda. There is no government that cares what happens to him. As Collins and I sat down in the little minibus leaving the village it was so hard leaving him and knowing that Haluna was still going to still be beaten, denied food, and cut down in every way. We all know that there is no future for him in his village. He is not going to go to school or grow up and have a chance at getting a decent job. He will be just like all of the beaten down men that were wandering around the village.

I feel so terrible about being the person that brought him back. Collins and I were the ones who brought him “home” and left him in that terrible place.

And I am dreading that for Ibra. I am dreading it so much.

You really ought to meet Ibra. He is the most beautiful and sweet boy in the whole world. He deserves the world. It just hardly ever works out like it should. It hardly ever works out that we resettle a street child home with their families and their family is actually happy to see them. It is so hard to take a street child and to watch them as they hope to go home and have established in their little heart that they are loved, that they have a family that loves them, that they were “missable” and missed and to then watch them come home to strangers- to mother’s that don’t hug them or look at them, to dads that aren’t there, or to a grandmother that asks us to take them back.

But maybe tomorrow his mother will love him (she would have to be an idiot not to really). Maybe his mother will be happy to see him again. Maybe this time we will take a street child home to a family where he is loved.

All we can do is pray for God to change hearts and give us guidance, courage, and wisdom.

Yesterday was my birthday. Being a twin my entire life has been spent sharing a birthday and I have loved it. Now in Ssenge I share it with so many more. Last year Wasswa was the first street child that we took off of the street, when asking him when he wanted his birthday to be (none of the kids we take off of the street ever know how old they truly are or their birthday) he asked to share it with me. Wasswa and I celebrated his first "real" birthday together in the house a year ago. Yesterday we got to share it again. The video above is from the beginning of the party when everyone (the kids and our aunts and uncles) was singing and dancing. We also had a special meal, games, a pinata, and cake. It was so beautiful to me to look around and to see all that God had done in the last year. To watch kids finally get the chance to be kids again. Wasswa never had that before coming home to us in Ssenge. He never had people that loved or cared for him. Now though he is able to have a family and even a birthday with games, and visitors and cake.

In our new house Sadik also wanted to share his birthday with me (as did a few other kids as well but we limited it to one) and tonight we are going to celebrate his first birthday as well. It is beautiful to watch how God is moving here, simply stunning.

Whenever I am in the US it as if all of the color has gone out of my life. I feel a heaviness and sadness that just hangs on me.

But when I am in Uganda all of the color comes rushing back. My life is a wonderful and exciting adventure. I found the place where my heart calls home. I LOVE my life, everything about it, I have so much joy here. That doesn’t mean that it is easy though. Working with street children is so tough. I have to deal with my kids getting kidnapped, shot, put in prison, being beaten and raped at night, and going hungry on a daily basis. I work with kids that are so scared to be loved that the more they begin to internalize and feel loved by me the more they lash out back. But it is all so worth it.

In the US although I am not actively working with street children I am weighed down by them and their sorrow. It may not be “my” street child that is getting beat at night, but I know it is happening and there is nothing that I am doing to help it. The sadness of having my heart in a place where I am not is miserable. As Liz once aptly said to me, “I would love for you to live here with me [in America] but I know that your heart is in Uganda and everyday that you are not living out that calling on your life, a small piece of your heart will die. I don’t want that for you, I love you too much to try and keep you here…” Maybe in the US my life is a lot more comfortable and I don’t see the sad things that I do here, but it is so much harder for me. Here I have the joy of working with street children, of watching their lives change, of earning their trust. Whenever my heart is broken for street children by something that happens here, it is also filled by the knowledge that I am here doing something about it, that God is using me to change the lives of street children in Kampala.

I did it, I found the place where my heart calls home. God gave me a personality that fits just perfectly with working with street children in Africa. It was a calling He gave me before I was even born. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am exactly where He wants me. I am nestled safely in my Heavenly Father’s big hands and I am convinced that even with unpredictable slums, corrupt police officers, crazy roads and exciting public transportation, riots and everything else that there is no place in the world that I am safer.

I take every precaution that I can of course, everyday I realize my safety is completely tied to the effectiveness of my ministry and how I can help street kids. I also realize that I am not invincible and that I need time to process and take breaks. I have an amazing Christian community that I have never had in America my entire life. Jessie and I get coffee and lunch almost everyday at local places here just so we can talk, process, and plan- I couldn’t do what I do without her working right along side me.

And I am living it out now, I am living out my dreams! I live everyday of my life here loving on street kids and former street kids and I couldn’t enjoy it more. I am truly happier in Uganda than anywhere else in the entire world.

Last week there was rioting in Kampala, I was stuck at home in the village but Jessie was living at our other home in Kivulu in the heart of Kampala during all of it. We were able to use our house as a temporary shelter for over 50 street children in our programs to find refuge in. Here is a recent post from Jessie Torres blog about it, (which you can find here: jessietorresblog.com )

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We rush down to the church to gather any boys that stay around there, bringing them up into the safety. One boy in particular I look for over and over again. His name is Julius. I am looking for me but even more for Abby. He is such a small kid and she is absolutely captivated by him. I love him a lot but not the same way she does. I have this constant pressure in my heart to find him, bring him to the house for the night, as if that will make everything ok. I send one of the older street boys down to check for him over and over, yet there is no sign of him.

Sirens continue to wail all over Kampala as we hear updates from the radio about what is going on in the center of the city. All shops are closed in Kivulu, fear of raiding begins to grow. When rioting occurs raiding always seems to come with it. As I walk through Kivulu people are walking with a slight bit of confidence until a police officer with a large gun is seen and then everyone scatters to the closest house or shop to take cover in fear of this man. How long until the sirens stop wailing…

My boys in the house jump and run into the house any time they hear the gunshots so close.

People keep saying this is one of the biggest riots they’ve seen in Kampala in years and yet the rioting has just begun. From my limited knowledge of the situation… a king from the Buganda tribe (which is the tribe of this area) is going on Saturday for a youth rally and the president doesn’t want him to come. People are also upset because the government wants to sell one of the largest markets in Kampala. This would make every vendor in that market area have to close shop and either try to move elsewhere or be out of a job. So the people are fighting the government for their jobs, for their livelihood. Because the ceremony doesn’t even happen for another 36 hours the expectation is that the danger will just continue to escalate. On the radio street kids are being blamed for the sale of the market (because they make the area “bad”) and police have begun opening fire on any large groups of people walking around whether out of fear or desire to show their power. Either way, the ones that love so dearly are in so much danger.
It’s difficult that the rioting started early in the afternoon because often times there are many boys walking the streets looking for scrap or bottles or ways to make money through the city in the afternoon. Abby and I run into our boys any time we walk around the center of the city. Therefore it would have been easy for the boys to get stuck, unable to go anywhere, even to their safe haven – the slum that they stay in. It is so difficult waiting in uncertainty, wondering how they are doing and being able to do nothing but pray.

The radio continues to inform us of what is taking place all over the city as well as in the outskirts. Rioters have broken and blocked all major roads in and out of Kampala so that no buses or vehicles can pass through either direction. A police officer has been killed. The people bludgeoned her to death and then released all of the prisoners that she had been guarding. As many as 5 people are dead.

Night in the slum usually brings the sound of loud music and people gambling and shouting. Instead, the night is relatively quiet. Thankfully, it’s not completely silent.

The following morning as I walked through the city all I could see as remnants from the night before were smoldering piles of ash in the streets where people had set tires and other things on fire. It seemed as if everything was over and back to normal. And then all of a sudden people started running behind me and I saw police head towards the center of the city… I went back to house in time to find out the fighting had started all over again. The rioting and fighting lasted for only a couple of days but by Saturday all of Kampala was vacant except for the presence of military and police officers on every corner and street. So far they say that as many as 24 were killed, but I am sure there were much more killed that we may never know about – hundreds of people had flooded into Kampala’s only free hospital from injuries.

Due to the riots and extra danger we had allowed any street kids to come and stay in the house until the riots passed. They are prime targets on the streets for the police to take out their anger and so all we wanted was to keep as many as possible safe. In addition, the riots covered the city but were especially bad in many of the areas that the boys stay in. So, about 20 boys stayed the night and then another 20-30 came in and out throughout the weekend to be fed and spend time in safety.

Most would imagine that having over 50 boys in and out of a house at once would be chaotic and filled with fighting but to my surprise it wasn’t. Overall they spent time together well and even worked together to get chores done. The boys washed their clothes during the day, did bead work, and watched movies together. I had expected to see separation between the ones living in the house and those that weren’t but there was hardly a distinction. The boys staying the house let the others borrow their clothes so that those living on the streets would have an opportunity to wash their one set of clothing.

On Saturday morning I started to do my laundry and within in minutes I had 6 little helpers (street kids and house kids) surrounding my basin and cleaning my clothes. It was such an endearing sight to see.

Once the fighting had ended we had to explain to the boys that they would need to leave. It was one of the hardest things to do, to tell them they would need to go back to the streets even though the lack of rioting didn’t mean protection or safety for them at all. I had enjoyed so much having a safe place for boys to come any hour of the day, where they knew they would be loved and taken care of. Where they knew their wounds would be treated, their bellies would be full, and they would sleep through the night without beating or abuse.

It got me so excited to eventually have a place like that, one that I won’t ever have to kick them out of. It was difficult to taste what that would be like and then know that I would have to wait… Yet I am still thankful that in such a chaotic time I was able to experience the joy of knowing those boys were safe and taken care of.

We took Sharrif and Davis into boarding school. I am going to really miss those little hoodlums.

Davis is amazing but he has always been so independent, he's a kid who you look it and know will make it. He was a big part of the beginning of my journey working with street kids. He was always one of the boys that we relied on to take care of the others when we were gone or to help us when we needed someone responsible. IN Kisenyi he was always one of my small but energetic little body gaurds and a boy that I had a special love for. He will do whatever he wants to with his life. Davis is exceptional, I miss him so much already.

Sharrif has always had my heart from the first moment I met him. He was having a breakdown because someone took his drugs away from him then, yelling and crying hyseterically. It took a long time for me to earn his trust but once I did he wouldn't let go. Whenever I see him Sharrif clings to me and doesn't let go. I've seen him change so much. After runing away from our home and not being able to come back he became serious about turning his life around. He tried so hard to become good. He began washing his clothing, and bathing before programs, and not bringing his drugs and fighting. I am was and am so proud of him.

It's such a weird feeling every time we resettle kids off of the streets. I always have so much joy that they are in a better life and have hope again. But we always resettle the kids closest to my heart and I miss them so much when they are gone and mourn the closeness with them that I will never have again, its probably like a parents watching their kids grow up into amazing young adults and then going off to college. My relationship of seeing them most days of the week, playing football with them, laughing with them, taking them out to eat, it's permanetly over and replaced by seeing them once every once in a great while. It's very bitter sweet.

Joseph was supposed to go to boarding school but he wasn't quite ready. He will go though, I am praying so soon. He breaks my heart everyday but I know that God has not given up on him just as I never will either. We have jewlery that we gave each other. A ring (and bracelet) that he gave me and a necklace that I gave to him. He never takes that necklace off and doesn't let anyone touch it. Even though he is aloof and tries to act like nothing matters to him, we both know (and everyone else) that we love each other. Please pray that God will continue to work in his heart and that Joseph will be able to go to boarding school.

Please pray for all the boys in our programs.

Today a sweet boy came up to me and taking me by the hand and asked me, "Babirye, can I please go into the home? I am staying on the street. I cant grow up here, there is no future for me, I can't grow up on the street…"

Deep down every street child knows that the life that they are living is an incredible injustice. They know that no child should have to grow up the way that they are. In their hearts they yearn to be loved and cared for, to be special to someone, and to be safe.

Street kids have two emotions, they are either furiously angry or they are happy. A street child that makes fun of another street child can pretty much expect to be stoned in response. Street children know what they should have, what they deserve to have. Everyday that they are denied a childhood and scorned by everyone for their existence as a street child is another day that they learn how to be tough in order to get by. It is another day that they have to use anger to help them fight their way through the streets.

A polite and peaceful boy doesn't get away from cruel police officers, rabid dogs, bad men, kidnappers, and high friends wanting to fight. A child that can't get away from those things is a child that can't survive on the streets. Street children don't have the option of having a range of emotions, of feeling sorrow, disappointment, or anxiety. They have no one to coach them how to feel.

Street children hold so much sorrow and pain with them everyday. It is through their pain that they lash out. They will do everything and anything they can to escape from the reality of the world that they are living in and anything to fool themselves that they don’t know how to feel the pain and abandonment that they feel. They pick up addictions quickly and hold onto them for dear life.

When working with street children it can be one of the hardest things that you have to work through. I see it all the time. I see it when someone calls Andrew a name and he begins yelling with tears running down his face, shaking his finger and picking up the first big rock that he can find to throw. I see it in Zairwa who tunes out into his own world and fights violently with anyone who calls him crazy. I see it in little Julius who does nothing but gamble all day, everyday. I can't even get him to take a break from it long enough to play football or games. I saw it in Sharrif when we were supposed to go to the clinic together to look at a tooth of his and I had to cancel it and he began so angry that he threw all of the clothes we had just given him into the slime at a bottom of a canal and began stomping them into the grime, when he began hurling rocks at us, huffing drugs he had hidden there as fast as he could and running around calling the gathering crowd who was watching him names.

Only with God's direction and blessing are we are able to get through to these kids. People give up on these kids far to easily. People think that working with these kids is easy but its not, its really tough. However, if you change the life of a street child, he will turn around and change the world. There is no feeling greater than when a street child lets you in, lets his gaurd down, learns how to feel again. I cherish everytime a street child tells me, "I love you", "you are our mother", "I have been missing you!" It's hard and I have made a lot of mistakes but God continues to get me through. I have experienced no greater joy than the joy of living out the life God called me to. To looking in the faces of children who now have a childhood and are loved instead of living on the streets. To being hope in dark places.

It saddens me when I think about how differently the streets of Kampala, and Brazil, and Kenya, and India and every other place with floods of street kids would be if people listened to the call God had imprinted onto their heart. They are missing out on so much. I look at the wonderful Christians in my life, starting with my family who stepped out in faith on behalf of the broken and amazed at how God picks them up and carries them through to change the lives of others.

Our boys are doing so well in the Kivulu home! Here is a short video from the day when we opened it (as requested by my mother) of the boys after they had picked out their beds. It was like a million degrees in that room and half of the boys wanted to crawl under their [warm] covers and sleep! It was so cute. Tomorrow they are playing a soccer match against our kids in the Ssenge home, since they were all friends on the street they are so excited and taking it VERY seriously. Afterwards we are taking them swimming at the lake. It should be an exciting day to say the least!

Here are the rest of the pics

Me playing a bit of soccer

I'm about to give out cough medicine, a hot commodity among street kids, im probably laughing because they are cute but rediculous

Sitting in the grass in Ssenge

I was wearing green eye shadow and they thought it was really fascinating to take it off and put it on their own eyelids, lol

Were in Ssenge on a little excursion out of the jungle where I got eaten alive by bugs

Sharrif is a little annoyed because Kato is in the pictture, he's so cute

Again all of these photos were taken by Phillip

Sselga and I walking in Ssenge (formerly fupi if anyone has ever heard me talk about him)

In Ssenge with my boys, its so beautiful there!

Giving out cough syrup to Julius

Giving out medicine

All of these photos were taken and edited by Phillip, Jessie's friend and he has a website here for anyone that wants to see it: phillipglickman.com/blog

Video of Andrew (sorry for Gerald being weird in the end)Andrew is the sweetest boy in the world and a little rascal. Jessie and I love him SO much. Nicholas, one of the boys who was kidnapped is behind him with his hand to his head

It seems that I blinked and opened my eyes only quickly enough to find that God had worked miracles to use Jessie and I to open another home in the slums and taken in 14 more street children. It opened two or three weeks ago. I am not exactly sure how it happened, it just did.

It hasn't been an easy start either. Jessie and I are typically drawn to the younger boys who are the toughest and have the most behavior problems. They may be tough but the have the strongest and most sensitive hearts and feel everything. They are so incredible! Because of that when deciding who to take into the home we did choose our youngest kids, many that we knew would not be easy but who were begging to come into the home and kids who we knew had the potential to be the most amazing kids in the whole world.

The three youngest boys had such a hard time in the house right away. Yelling at us, fighting with the other boys and being angry at everything. The first night we had a major incident come up with them that made me SO worried about the safety of the other boys. The next morning, they were yelling at us that the house was a prison because they were not allowed to go back to Kisenyi and do drugs; 3 of the 13 kids, the 3 youngest ran away within the first 48 hours. Since then we have had a total of 4 kids run away (which is expected and actually a really low number when working with street children, often over half run away).

I felt my heart dropping as I tried my best to explain to Sharrif and Andrew as they were saying they wanted to go, "Please stay! We love you so much, we are a family and want you here! This is not a prison, you have the choice to go, we would never make you stay here if you dont want to. But if you pack up all of your stuff and go back to do drugs you can't come back here, its not safe to everyone here, all the boys here are trying to quit drugs too and be good. Look you can play football or read books or draw with chalk but please dont go. Stay here..." Angrily, Sharrif stormed out throwing rocks over the wall at us as he left. Andrew changed his mind although a couple hours later he too decided that he wanted to go. They came back to the house that evening drugs in hand, angry and trying to start more fights.

A couple days later and every day since then they have come up to me begging to be allowed back into the house and for another chance. I hate having to be the one to make that decision. I hate having to look into the face of sweet little Sharrif and choose between giving him yet another chance and between the safety and protection of our other, amazing 14 other boys. I had to make the decision to protect the other boys and to give other street children a chance who had never received one before. We took in other, even younger boys who have never gotten a chance at being off of the streets and they are doing so well.

When I come to the slums I am still mobbed by Sharrif, Shafik, and Andrew who hold my hand and tell me that they love me and all about their life. They are so dirty now, constantly hungry, they have lice back in their clothing and are again getting beaten at night. They want to go back into the house yet at the same understand at least in part (as much as a child can anyway) that they cannot go back and still have a desire to have their freedom on the streets as well.

It makes me think a bit about how we view God. That we come in filthy and hungry, desperate for Him and experience just a piece of the goodness that He has to give. We then lash out and run away because we become scared that their is a catch, that we will have to give up too much, that we cannot stop our bad habits that pull us away from Him, because we feel that as much bad that we have seen in the world that there cannot possibly be Someone so good. That most especially, with all of the bad that we have done, that there cannot possibly be Someone who loves us THAT much. My kids are scared out of their minds to attach, they are so scared to be loved. They are trying whatever they can to protect their hearts because they dont believe they can bear to have one more person leave them and break it all over again.

It is so hard for me having street child after street child ask me if he can come into the house each day and to have to look him in the face and try and explain to him that although we love him so much that we just dont have the money to take in more boys or the space. I try to explain that God loves them and that I pray everday that God will provide somewhere else for them but it is hard for them to understand. It is hard for me to give back a chance at a normal childhood back to 14 children while at the same time breaking the hearts of over 100 others. Even though we opened the home weeks ago we still havent yet recovered to the same amount of street children in our programs before we opened. The kids stopped coming when they knew they werent chosen and felt abandoned once again.

When one boy Davis,hes around 12 or so and also stopped going to the programs saw one of the boys staying in our home for the first time clean and wearing nice clothing he began to cry desperately saying, "I have been on the streets so long. I have been here longer than all these other kids. I have watched all of these kids come onto the streets and watched them as they went to homes or to school but my turn never comes..." He had simply given up hope. (and dont worry, he is now in our home, doing wonderfully and going to boarding school in less than 3 weeks)

I have had to rely on God so much these last couple of weeks. For His wisdom, His guidance, and His miracles in changing these kids lives and working everything together. Mother Teresa once said, "I know that God will not give me something that I can't handle, its just that sometimes I wish He didnt trust me so much" and sometimes I feel like I can relate to that (although I am no Mother Teresa). I am so honored and HAPPY to be doing the work that I am, at the end of each day no matter how much sorrow I experience deep down I am so fulfilled. Each day I experience true joy. I cannot imagine any other place I would want to be. Jessie and I spent the night in the Kivulu home last night in Ritas little house, (she's the house mom. Looking around at the kids as they were watching a movie and eating roasted corn that we had brought them I couldnt help but thank God so much for protecting them and for providing for them a house and a second chance at life where they are going to school, raising rabbits, eating well, playing, having devotions each night, and just learning how to be a kid again. Even though we couldnt help everyone, I am soooo happy about the amazing young men we were able to take off of the street, I have never forgotten that. God has been SO good, and has worked absolute miracles here. He has been sooo good to us


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Joseph was beaten again very badly last night and taken to the hospital. Another young boy, Moses was also beaten, so badly that he cannot walk and has cuts and bruises all over his face and body. Although we do not have more space in the home for him to stay permanantely I am so grateful that we have a house in the slums that he can stay at until he recovers. None of us thought that he would make it the next week if he would have been forced to stay on the streets. Now he has a bed, pillow, mattress and blanket that he stays on and Rita the house mom spoon-feeds him all his meals and massages his legs and arms with a special lotion twice a day. It makes me so sad that we will have to send him away when he recovers to go back onto the streets but at the same time I am sooo grateful that God has provided us with a beautiful house and wonderful staff that we can take the kids to whenever they get very injured or sick. Please keep Moses in your prayers as well as Joseph who simply needs to survive the next 3 weeks on the street before we take him into boarding school.