On our first day of ministry with the Street Kids, we try to make friends. This leads to some funny conversations.
We have nothing, no food and no money.
We’d left it all to meet the Street Kids on as even a footing as
possible.
As we walk along the sidewalks of
Eldoret, we pass a group of Street Kids reclining in a planter.
Their eyes get big when they see us, and they jump up. “Mazungu.
Money,” the thought passes through each of their minds.
“Hello,”
I say to them as they bandied up alongside of us. “Haberi
ako? How are you?”
“Fine,”
they say in unison. Then the begging starts.
“Five
bop?!” says Lauren. “No, you give me five
bop! You want money?! No, you give me money!”
I chuckle, thinking, “That’s an interesting approach to make friends, Lauren.”
A teenager Lauren
and Matt had met before runs up to us with a smile. His name is
Andrew. He’s wearing a red jacket, with “Rooney #9” written on
the back with a black sharpie, making a do-it-yourself jersey from
the Man U striker.
“You
prayed me,” says Andrew to Lauren. Apparentley, she had prayed for
him last time she was here. Then, he says, “I lost you.” He had
been looking for her since then.
It takes a few
minutes before Andrew and the rest of the boys give up begging and
start talking to us like real people. Matt and I talk to Andrew,
the oldest, while Lauren sat on the curb with five smaller ones.
“Where
are your parents?” Lauren asks Andrew.
“My
father dead,” he says in his broken English
“I’m
sorry. Where is your mom?”
Andrew doesn’t
understand, but one of the younger boys, Dennis, speaks good English
and translats for him. He tells us she lives near Mt. Elgon, in
Western Kenya on the border of Uganda. He asks us for money to go
visit her.
Lauren turns to Jackson, the boy who speaks English.
“Why
don’t you live with your mom?”
Jackson tells us she
lives in town, but she doesn’t have enough food for him so that’s why
he begs on the streets.
Other kids come
begging. Andrew shuns them away, “No, Joe has no money.” He’s
very protective. As soon as they leave though, he says, “You buy
for me shoes,” pointing to his rubber sandals. Apparently he
thinks it’s only the other kids I don’t have money for.
After
about an hour and a half we say our goodbyes to the Street Kids and
start to head home. We are excited. We’d made three or four friends
amongst the kids and met a contact who we could partner with in the
future. We took the long mutatu
ride home high with accomplishment.
