Normally at this time of the year the holiday season finds me gearing up for the harsh Michigan winters. The standard is slipping on my gloves and hat, ice skating at the famous campus martious in downtown Detroit, waking up extra early to scrape the ice off my frozen windshield before work, bombarding my siblings with sneak attack snow-ball fights and spending sweet time with loved ones overindulging in delicious homemade mama Dewey meals. This year however, the holiday season found me sweating 24/7, battling a rather inconveniently placed heat rash, swatting away pesky mosquitoes not knowing which one were carrying malaria, hand filtering my drinking water so I didn't get typhoid, eating beans and rice for lunch AND dinner for the 3rd month straight, living in an open tree-house with 25 adorable orphan boys bunking underneath us and having my heart brake 1,000 times over for these boys and their stories.
The boys home we were so blessed to live and minister at this December in Chamba, Mozambique is called Kedesh. It was founded by an American named John Wickes who came to Mozambiqie 19 years ago. He began working with street boys, teaching them practical skills linked to his own background in building and construction and eventually opened up his own orphange for them, continuing to teach them occupational skills and what it looks like to live a lifestlye based on biblical principals, striving each day to show them God's way and heart. Kedesh usually houses between 25-30 boys ages 9-18. Many of the boys are orphans or they come from unsafe homes due to physical abuse, sexual abuse, drug or alcohal abuse, neglect or extreme poverty.
Kedesh gets it's name from the cities in the bible (numbers 35:6) that were built for people to have refuge from people persuing them after they accidently killed someone. For the boys here it symbolizes a place of refuge from things that would otherwise have persued them, such as abuse, poverty and life on the streets.
All month our job was to hang out with these awesome gents, minister to them and just do life together. We had a blast playing volleyball, soccer, ultimite frisbee and frisbee golf.
We helped them work on building projects, constructing a hosue and building concrete blocks from scratch.
They showed us their gigantic mixer and how to make "cake" aka fried donuts. We taught them how to make sugar and no-bake cookies.
Kedesh is not only a sanctuary for orphans but also widows in the surrounding village. Every Monday Kedesh welcomes 30-40 widows who come and receive food and common household items that should last 1 week. The boys are active in helping out with this ministry.
One of the boys Juow handing out some bar soap!
The boys are taught responsibility by having to do goat and cow watching duties. They tend the animals for 2 hour shifts at a time. The younger boys are responsible for the goats and the middle-aged boys handle the cows. The older boys have outgrown their duties.
Blondie doing his part like a typical 10 year old 🙂
We had movie nights several times a week. What's a movie night without a solid pillow fight…or two.
We led a bible lesson and craft time a couple of times a week which the boys loved and proudly displayed their art on the walls of the tree house.
We got to swim in the Indian ocean, relax, and jump waves with the boys a few times, one of the days being Christmas morning!
The boys even knew how to braid hair, we gladly let them practice on us!
All in all, my December, my winter, my holiday season may not have looked like it normally does back home in the states. There were no candy canes, no crazy holiday shopping sprees, no Christmas trees or santa clauses, no trecherous snow storms or even snowflakes, snowmen or snow angels. But this Christmas I was truly living out the reason for the season. Jesus came so that we may have life and have it to the full. Every singe day we got to live out James 1:27 and love the lost: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
I pray your holiday season has been and is super blessed and y'all can remember the boys of December in your prayers as well!
