There is a children’s club in Malawi. For the sake of security, I will not reveal the name, but that doesn’t mean I can’t share it’s heart.
When I hear the term ‘street rat’, I’m sure I’m not the only one who jumps to the charming Aladdin who steals and thieves to the beat of catchy tunes, but in Malawi, it’s a sad and very real problem. There are children who come from abusive homes, parents who cannot support them, some are orphaned, and they all come together in the streets. It’s the only place where they can all be the same, have the same problems and solutions, and the same will to live. Here’s the thing, though: it’s illegal.
Enter the children’s club. These kids will be arrested from the streets (for various things like stealing, fighting, trespassing, ect.) and taken to the club. Here, they go to classes, meet with mentors, and some even live, and for at least a couple of months, they got to be as much a part of our lives as we were a part of theirs.
Soccer is the universal sport, and as it turns out, it’s a pretty universal way to reach/connect with kids who deal with a huge amount of distrust in adults. Here we are, six American girls who know less about them than the officers who arrest them, giving them no reason whatsoever to have any sort of faith and trust in us; so what happened? We played soccer. The first day we just decided to get in their space, where they felt safe, and we met them there. It just happened to turn out that their safe place was soccer. And I’ll have you know, the majority we looked like complete clowns trying to keep up with them, but gosh darn it, we did it. And we loved it. We found that one has the cutest smile, one gets excited over the smallest things, the girls love soccer just as much as the boys, there’s one who loves to make people laugh, one who leads the pack, and many more with personalities that will make you fall in love with them.
And now I’m going to break your heart. Just at the start of our last week there in Malawi, the club shut down, temporarily until further notice, due to issues with funding. You see, it’s not government funded. The club runs off of donations, and when those go flat, so does the club. So what happened to the kids? I wish I could give you a definite answer. We were told that some were transferred to another facility, and some were sent home, very likely to family situations that no kid should have to live in.
Why would I share this if it only comes to this ending? Because though sometimes ignorance is bliss, in cases like these, ignorance is just a lack of responsibility. As humans, our number one desire is to be loved and taken care of (don’t disagree, I know it’s true, and I know you know it’s true). This fact shone through in the way these kids lived and loved around us. Yes, they lived through thieving and fighting for a short while, having to grow up much too fast, and hardening their defences against the outside world, but one day in, getting in their world and just loving them, they were different kids than the ones picked up off the street. My friends, I may be actively in the mission field right now, actively seeking out these opportunities, but they’re everywhere, not just in the physically less fortunate, but in your coworker whose father just passed away, or in the divorced single parent, or the parent whose child has broken their heart for the hundredth time. These kids understand and accept that they have a need for love, and so they’re willing to take it, which is allowing them to be transformed.
What would happen if we all lived like that. What if we all lived loved, and lived by loving?
