This past month we partnered with a ministry that helps put street children in schools. They clean them up, feed them, dress them, send them to school, love them, and most of all, believe in them.
We got to work alongside the staff, helping and encouraging them with the children. The staff at this center work long and hard, and sometimes just need someone to say “what you do matters.”
If you see these children on the street, you’ll often see them begging. They’ll be dirty and barely dressed, holes in the clothes they have. Your heart will sink when they ask you for money. And it’ll sink even deeper when they point at their mouth for food. It’ll sink when you feel awkward and aren’t sure what to do, dressed in your nice clothes, plenty of money in your wallet.
You’ll see their dirty hair, filled with lice. You’ll see the wounds on their legs from itching mosquito bites and flies infecting them. The scars that remain from all of this itching.
You’ll see their anger. The fights they break into, the kicking, the punching, the badmouthing. How normal it is to slap each other upside the head and steal their friends money. And the lack of guilt on their faces when the other cries.
If you pick them up in the mornings for school you’ll see where they come from. The trash that surrounds their home. The sheet that separates their bed and the rest of the world, or the mat they sleep on in the market with 7 other people.
But in all of this, there’s so much that you don’t see.
When you walk by a begging child on the street, you miss their story.
You don’t see that this little boy, 4 years old and full of snuggles, doesn’t have parents. His parents are in jail for selling drugs, and he doesn’t have a legal guardian. He barely remembers his parents because they’ve been gone for so long. You don’t see that he roams the streets because, the streets are his home. You see the scar on his eye, but you don’t see the years of abuse it holds. His smile doesn’t tell that.
You don’t see that all he knows is begging. That it’s a job and it’s what he and his friends do. You have your job, he has his. The dirtier he is, the more money he’ll get. That’s the reality of it. If he and his sister are going to help support themselves, they have to beg. What else does a 4 year old do?
You don’t see that he gets picked on by nearly everyone. That kids love to hit him and tease him. That maybe he’s a little feistier sometimes because he just has to be. That no ones taught him what gentle love looks like. You don’t see that he longs for snuggles and someone to just want him back. You don’t get to see the joy on his face when someone puts him on their shoulders to play and run, and that his father maybe never will.
You don’t see that he loves to color. He loves to play soccer and fly paper airplanes. He’s so smart and thrives when learning. That if someone sponsored him, if someone chose to love him, if someone saw him, his dreams could come true too.
This month, I learned a new perspective. I got to see the unseen. The next time I see a child begging on the street, my heart will sink deep, but sink much differently, much deeper. It’ll sink for the lack of love in their life. For the abuse, for the tears, for the pain their heart is enduring.
My heart will sink for them, and it’ll sink for you. As you walk by these children and feel the weight of their world, our world, sink your heart too.
