This past week has been a whirlwind.
The day after I wrote about the street children, we went in
the morning and delivered over 100 chapatti, along with 2 full jugs of
chai. Our team was up until 2am making
“mzungu� chapatti (as Reverend Gideon said).
I guess we still need more practice on what African chapatti looks like,
haha.
So we got up at 5:30am to heat up the chai and get things
ready for the big “mission�, as Reverend Gideon kept referring to it as (that man
is my favorite). By 7am (Mzungu time) we
were at the Veranda where the street children sleep at, surrounded by about 60+
kids. They were SO well-behaved and got
right into a single file line to receive their breakfast. We handed out 66 cups and received 66 cups
back. If you treat a child like a thief,
they are more likely to adopt that identity, but if you treat them as though
they are trustworthy and worthy of love, they WILL react to that as well.
Many of the kids that we had taken away the bottles of shoe
polish from had new ones tucked away under their shirts. I wanted nothing more than to go up to each
one and take away this source of poison to them. We want to develop their trust though and
love them exactly as they are, drugs and all. I’m praying that the Lord will
replace their desire for the drug with a desire for Him and for a new life
through Him. Not that it’s going to be
easy, but that desire needs to be there on their part.
I kept seeing Jesus in these children.
There was one little
boy who was quite persistent about wanting another chapatti, but we had to be
fair and make sure everyone received an equal amount. After about a minute of whining, the little
boy next to him tore half of his and handed it to his friend. This little boy cared more about making his
friend happy than he did about not having stomach pains.
There was also a young woman there with her 2-year old baby
(who looked about 6 months old) and many of the little boys took portions of
their chai and poured it into an empty plastic bottle she had, so the baby
could have some food for later.
We kept receiving kisses on the hand from the little
boys. They were so happy and their
feelings so easily transferred onto me.
It still hurts to see these children so deprived and destitute, but through
the kisses of these little boys, Jesus kept stirring feelings of redemption in
my spirit. Jesus is there, in every face
of a hurting street child. Jesus died to
take on their pain. Jesus suffered the
ultimate injustice.
“For we do not have a
high Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all
things tempted, as we are, yet was without sin.
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help in time of need.� Hebrews 4:15-16
I may not have any idea the pain and suffering that these
children are experiencing, but their Savior does. How beautiful that He can walk alongside His
children and comfort them right where they are at, knowing exactly what they
need.
We are going to be cooking the street children lunch
sometime this week, and we are collecting a large amount of clothing for
them. Reverend Gideon met with the
church council yesterday to discuss long term action, and it sounds like this street
children ministry is a priority to many members. Gideon also has an acre of land that he wants
to start building a home on, specifically for these children. I trust that the Lord is only going to
further this stirring in Reverend Gideon’s heart and the hearts of Deliverance
Church after we leave.
A few days ago we were able to go and visit Adhiambo. She seemed to be doing pretty well and the
nurses said she had been really cooperative with everything. She doesn’t understand English at all and she
is pretty shy, but we can coax some smiles out of her. We brought her some of our clothes and she
really liked them. The nurse said that
her leg isn’t actually broken, but that her Achilles tendon had been
severed. The hospitals are run pretty
differently here, as they weren’t able to wash/dress her wound until we bought
a basin and soap for her. And she is
only allowed to stay in the hospital for up to two weeks, and then she needs to
be taken in by someone to provide home care for her. Both of her parents are dead. She has a
brother who lives in Uganda, but he is gone doing fur trade 90% of the year and
his wife doesn’t want anything to do with her.
Mama (Reverend Gideon’s wife) is going to go and try to talk with her
and talk some sense into the sister-in-law. I am praying that the Lord can
soften her heart and redeem the situation.
The Lord has been teaching me so much lately. About how BIG His love is. It’s so
unbelievably big. In hard situations, I
typically want an explanation. I want to
know why injustices happen and how they can be stopped.
But God has been revealing Himself to me the way He revealed
Himself to Job. In the first part of
Job, the Lord allows Satan to put hardships in Job’s life. Like massive hardships; all his children die,
his animals are stolen, and sores afflict his body. Through all of this, Job WORSHIPS the
Lord. He does ask the Lord what He did
to deserve all of the hardship, but he never turns His face away from the Lord. I love the way the Lord answers Job.
He doesn’t give an explanation for why He put those
hardships in Job’s path. He only tells
him who He is. He tells him that He is
the God who:
Laid the foundations of the earth,
Contained the Sea so that it
would not overtake the world,
Commands the mornings to
arise each day,
Garmented the sky
with clouds,
Started and
will end the world.
The week the Lord has been showing me who He is. He is the
God who:
Knit me together in my mother’s womb,
Knows my thoughts and actions
before I do,
Has plans to prosper me,
and not to harm me,
Put these children
on our path, so that we may be His hands and feet.
Loves me so much that He allowed His Son to
die for me.
Our God is majestic,
just and loving.
While I may desire a specific explanation at
times to why hardships are allowed to occur, I only need to look at the
character of God to know that He is a God who is worthy of my trust. He is a
good Papa.
Here are some pictures of the street children, taken by my beautiful teammate, Ruth Blum 🙂
