Choose Justice for the Street Kids

I sat crosslegged on a couch in
Patrick’s house staring at my computer screen and trying to decide
whether to jump into one of the ugliest social problems in Kenya.
The problem was Street Kids, dirty, glue-sniffing, begging
Street Kids. The decision was whether to try and help.

It was a hard decision because I was
comfortable. My team did ministry in the mornings and had the
afternoons off, plenty of time to drink delicious African chai,
work on the novel, and take naps. Patrick’s compound, with its
shady, bougainvillea-covered benches, was like an oasis in the hot,
unfamiliar suburbs just outside of Eldoret.

Who would want
to leave such a sheltered haven for trash-covered streets and lying,
needy kids?

But the night
before I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about our afternoon with the
street kids.

An older boy walked
toward us with a bottle of glue to his mouth. He put the glue in his
pocket, a smile on his face, and came up to us with his hand out for
bread and money.

“You
give me that,” said Lauren, pointing to the glue in his pocket,
“and I’ll buy you bread.” He walked away and came up to me and
Liz instead.

“No,”
I said, pointing to Lauren. “Talk to her. She’ll give you bread
if you give her your glue.”

He finally accepted
and gave Lauren the glue bottle in return for a loaf of bread. He
took off, the green grocery bag slapping against his torn black
pants, that silly, crazed smile on his face.

The glue thing
pissed me off. How dare you do that to your body, your mind? Don’t
you know you are a child of God? Still, I knew that we could take
away their bottles every day and still they’d sniff glue.

To help, to do some
real good in such a short amount of time, I’d have to commit. I
would have to leave the compound and go into the uncomfortable
unknown of downtown Eldoret.

I sat crosslegged
on a couch in Patrick’s house going over my plan to help the Street
Kids of Eldoret. My plan to make some kind of difference in a very
short amount of time.

Should I do it,
God? It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be painful. I don’t want
to do it. I’m not sure I even can do it.

to loose the chains of
injustice…

Is it not to share your
food with the hungry

And provide the poor
wanderer with shelter.

Isaiah
58