In the month of July in Mozambique, I got to spend a few
days with another team on our squad.
Their ministry was at a center for street boys. Basically these boys hustle, scrap, and beg
for food or money. They own the streets
at night. There is something about the
street light life that is glorifying to these boys. It reminded me of Romania and how the kids
there are romantically drawn to independence.
The sad thing is some of these boys have parents and a house to go to;
the spirit of the streets is too strong for them to resist. Moreover, what they do not realize is they
grow up fast. These boys are placed into
a life that forces them to act an age that is far beyond their years. The first morning we met the boys they were a
riot. They were excited to meet us,
figure out who we were, and more importantly just play with us. At first some of them put on a hard facade
making them seem reserve or too good for us.
However, what they do not realize is that they are still kids regardless
of life experience. In the midst of
rowdy little boys, Juddson (one of the World Race guys on the team I was with)
walks over to me and says, “they act like they are tough, but they are just
little kids. Once you start to play with
them they break and smile.” What I’ve
learned concerning children around the world is that they do not get the love
that we got when we were kids.
Being in South Africa now, what I have realized is that playing
with kids might sound ordinary, but it’s not.
Children do not get the love and affection that we see on TV or movies. Kids around the world because of their
situation and circumstance have to grow up fast. And giving a child a day’s attention speaks
volumes. I asked a question the other
day to our ministry contact ‘what is the biggest need for kids?’ His response was, “attention.” Only when we started to talk through that
answer that he showed me how dire kids need attention. Simple put they do not get the learned
attention we in the States have grown up with.
I am beginning to realize how important it is for children around the
globe need to be love (even if it means wrestling 6 kids at a time or having
two to three kids following you around or a child sitting on your lap for hours
on end). All these things are just
examples of how the simple acts of life are not lived out for children. I think the hope (that some ministries have) is
that through giving kids love, attention and affection, that when they have
families they will treat them with the same care they receive now (from
short-term and long-term mission teams).
