Our exploration of the Street Kid
problem of Eldoret takes us to the Shirley Center school and
orphanage. As Lauren says, “I can see how the street would look a
little better to these kids.”
Forty children take class in a school
room smaller than my bedroom back home. The age range in the class
are 3 ½ to 14. Forty more take class in a field nearby. Sixteen
orphans sleep in a 9′ x 9′ room. Sixteen more sleep in the
classroom. These are the sights we saw at the Shirly Children
Center just outside of Eldoret.
Moses, our translator and guide in our
Street Kid ministry, told us about a school that his church helps
support.
“It’s a school for orphans and street
kids,” he said simply. I was hesitant to go at first, didn’t care
to see a fancy school paid for by church (and likely mazungu)
dollars. I didn’t realize that the school was one “hole”
in a five hole mud and wood, residential building.
Women do laundry with well water in the
courtyard as the kids’ studious and attentive voices sprinkle from
their crowded classroom. The water isn’t safe enough to drink but
the children drink it anyway, even though it often gives them
dysentery and worms. There’s no other choice. Pastor Justus, the
headmaster recently was in the hospital for a month with dysentery
after drinking the water.
The school has, in Pastor Justus’s
words, “harvested” seven Street Kids. I talk with two of them,
James and Barnabas. They’re clearly the oldest kids in the school,
but they don’t snub their noses at being the classmates of eight and
ten year olds. They rough house with them, James taking one on his
shoulders laughing.
“You are created with a purpose,” I
say to them. “A gift. Something no one else in the world can do.
And when you use that gift you will be filled with joy. You need to
learn how to follow that joy. It’s right here.” I tap their
chests. “That joy comes from God. Do you know what your gift is?”
“Strength,” says James, with a
smile.
“Then you need to carry heavy
burdens,” I say to him laughing, half joking, half deadly serious.
“You need to carry your brothers and sisters here.” I nod to the
children playing in the trash filled courtyard.
I pray for them, that they would dream
God’s dreams, that they would yearn for his Kingdom to come, that
they would hear from the Father how much he loves them.
These kids need hope, encouragement,
acceptance. Though the school is in desperate need of food, they
need hope and love just as much or more. If they don’t have these
things they’ll go to the streets. On the streets they can find
food, can get money, can have a certain kind of acceptance, though
it’s acceptance bought with their fists.
I have never seen or expected to see a
school in such a squalid setting. And yet there is hope.
“Pray for us,” said Pastor Peter,
who also helps with the school. “We know that prayers are more
powerful than anything. We need them more than money.”
