Friday afternoons in Dondo mean one thing: street ministry. Today was our first day, so after lunch we suited up in our capalanas (aka long pieces of fabric that turn into skirts here in Mozambique), headed to the bakery right next door to pick up some freshly baked bread (the girls are still on the Daniel fast, so while the boys munched on muffins, we just drooled), and squeezed into a shapa (the local equivalent to the Metro- remember, we’re in Africa) to head to downtown Beira.
Our translator, Lovemore, told us that the only rule was there were no rules; we just had to follow the Spirit. So, armed with some bread rolls and bananas, we hit the streets.
Eventually we ended up on a bridge that was packed with blind people. Lovemore was a little worried about handing out food to these people for fear of a mob, but he couldn’t set us loose because we speak neither Portuguese nor Senna (the local dialect). Our tactic turned into him sneaking bread to the blind beggars as we stood watch and prayed, and then he went to talk to them with a smaller group (because six white people staring down a tiny dark face can be a little overwhelming). It wasn’t perfect, but such is the way on the Race.
I was in the intercessory group, and as I prayed, I watched the people coming and going on the street. Directly across from me was a blind man holding a tiny baby girl. She mostly sat in his lap, looking up at him, reaching up to hug him, being held as she surveyed the dirty scene around her with eyes that would probably never see much more of the world than the life of a beggar. He in turn held her tightly, helping her stand on her wobbly (malnourished) legs, drawing her back to him if she started to wander, for the man couldn’t see and therefore was unable to offer much in the way of protection if his tiny baby were to run off.
This man had nothing. He couldn’t see. He had no vocation but the life of a beggar. His home was probably under the bridge, surrounded by mud and mosquitos and trash. There was nothing in the way of material possessions he could offer this beautiful little girl, no way to set her up for success, no funding for food or clothes or education or the chance to break the cycle of destitution.
She doesn’t know that. Her whole world right now is safe in her daddy’s arms. It’s a small world, to be sure, but her legs aren’t strong enough yet to begin exploring, her heart too young to have been broken.
But I know. I’ve seen the world, because my legs are strong enough to run around it, and my heart has been broken time and time again by the faces of little girls like this one. Some of them have daddies who have died, others who abandoned them, some, like this child, whose daddy can’t take care of her.
And with this knowledge comes responsibility.
