The smell of urine and human excrement assailed my nostrils as we climbed the haphazard stairs to the long brick wall. I tried to jump over the stagnant, reeking puddles, but the dilapidated, barrier-less stairs made it difficult to maneuver anywhere else. What was at the top of these stairs, and why had we all been drawn to this wall again and again over the past week?
Four days earlier, Drew had first pointed out the wall from across the town. Rukungiri’s hills made it easy to look out and identify different landmarks from our visits around town. We knew the wall’s location was somewhere near the All Saints Church where we had attended church on Sunday. But as to what the wall enclosed, and as to what mysteries it held, we were still unaware.
A Prison, Andrea had thought. She wasn’t far from the truth.
Beyond the stairs was a small entryway, opening up to reveal the flattest expanse of land in all of Rukungiri. It was a Football (Soccer) Field, or, more precisely, the local stadium. Weeds and grass grew knee-high, and the periphery of the field was covered in thick bushes. Several small offices sat across the field from each other, but broken windows and puddles within revealed that their only function presently was as yet another place for human inhabitants to relieve themselves.
It was then that Johnson, the man who had accompanied us there, began to tell us about the occupants of the field. The untold street children of Rukungiri come to the field each night, hovering beneath the bushes for warmth, hiding from the police who threaten them but do little to protect them from the adversity that keeps them in their present status. Some have fallen prey to alcoholism and marijuana, when they have enough money to purchase these vices, yet most of them are trapped in a prison where homelessness and hopelessness abound.
Johnson shared part of his own story with us. He, too, had been a street child, prone to stealing, lying, and cheating. One day, a woman began to minister to Johnson, giving him bananas and showing him a love that he had never experienced before. She eventually took Johnson into her home and began to pour into his life, giving him the skills that would ultimately pave his way through school, university, and on to become the head of Compassion International’s local Rukungiri Child Development Center. Johnson’s heart is to reach out to these children, just as the woman who had compassion upon him did, not so long ago.
We didn’t see the children face to face when we went to visit the stadium, but their shadowy existence was clear from the bits of trash that dotted the field.
We don’t know who they are yet. But we believe God is calling us to do something, somehow. After all, it was for such as these that Jesus came to the earth to show the love of the Father. We are praying that God would show us how to love “the least of these,” to bring hope to the hopeless, peace to the restless, and restoration for the broken-hearted. We want to see God’s love overwhelm these children. We want to see lives restored. We want to see hope renewed.
And above all, we want to see Jesus in these children, and to show them how beautiful and loved they are in the eyes of our Almighty Father. Thank you for praying for us as we seek the Father about how to best serve His children in Rukungiri.
