Street Kids Day...

Today…so much went on today.

First, I actually left the house. After three days of being cooped up from this crazy cold I have, I finally decided that I better leave the house today OR go completely insane spending one more day in the house ALONE.

Secondly, this morning we did a food delivery to one of our families. This was the first food delivery that our interns, Kate & Amanda got to be a part of. Also with us, was a guy from the US who is here for a few more days that we just met through a friend and invited him along. His name is Jared. Anyway, we got to town, did the shopping with our social worker, Anne, loaded up the pick-up truck and away we went.

It was a bit of an adventure getting there. The roads were extremely muddy due to the torrential downpour of rain yesterday evening. We can predict now, for the past week, that it is going to rain between 3:00 and 4:00 every day….and it does…a lot. After some intense fishtailing and a cow’s face hitting the back of the pick up truck during the fishtailing, we finally reached our destination. Yes, it was the cow’s fault, not the fault of the driver or the fishtailing backend of the truck. Just to clarify!

This is a family that I have told you about in the past. It is a woman caring for her children and the children of her deceased sister. There are a total of 10 children under her care. They live in a two-room house made up of mud and a tin roof. All of the children were in school, except for the youngest (too young for school), who was entertaining himself with a toy. It definitely wasn’t your typical North American toy. It was a thick branch with a nail on the end of it and poked through the nail was a round plastic lid. This lid was the wheel and he just pushed this thing, the stick around, with a runny, snotty nose and a beautiful smile on his face. He was just precious, having the time of his life with a toy that we couldn’t even fathom playing with in North America.

One of the older boys was home; sick with malaria so en route to town, we took the mother to the pharmacy to buy the boy medication to clear up the malaria.

Once in town, we did a bit of shopping/running around and as we waited for Daniel in the bank, we got bombarded by street boys. Bombarded isn’t the right word because then that would come across that I didn’t like having them all around but in fact, I could spend all day with those kids sitting on a curb. They light up my day. Every time I walk down the street and I hear one of them or even ten of them call my name, I beam.

My little Simon (I have to get a pic of him and put it out for all to see), he’s just a gem. He’s smart, funny and such a sweetheart. He shouldn’t be on the street; he’s too smart for the street; he has way too much potential. Daniel asked him today why he doesn’t sniff glue, he’s exact answer was, “Mary refuses!” Because I don’t like the glue sniffing, he doesn’t do it because he knows that it would upset me. How honest he is about that, who knows.

All the boys were imitating me and my non-existent voice and then they would all say how sorry they were that I was sick and then they’d go back to imitating me. I’m going to take it like I was told in grade school – if a boy teases you, it means he likes you. So, I’m going to say that the kids like me; they know that they can tease me and that I will still hug on them later.

Afterward, we decided to venture to a place that very few white people go….the back of one of the buildings where all the hardcore street kids hang out. For those of you who have seen Glue Boys, it is where most of the footage is shot (garbage piles, kids fighting, selling of glue, etc.). About once a week, Daniel and I would go and stand about two floors up and just look over the veranda down below at the area but today we thought that we would try sitting out there, on the same level as them and just hang out. So we took the interns and Jared and honestly, prepared for the worse. But imagine our surprise, we sat down on the steps of the building and within a minute, we were surrounded by street kids – girls and boys – mothers and babies – and not one single problem. They came over and greeted us and sat with us.

There is a forgotten group of street kids and that is the street girls. They’re life is so much worse on the streets then it is for the boys. They live a life of rape, slaves and prostitution. You don’t see much of them during the day (except in specific areas deep in the streets) but we are told that they can be found at night around the discos, prostituting themselves to the drunkards who come out of the bars. And yes, these girls are as young as 11 or 12 years old, giving themselves over to grown, disgusting men just for a few cents (not even dollars) per man.

These girls have been on Daniel’s and mine hearts for some time now. And this is one of the reasons why we have chosen to go to this place every week; we want the girls to see us, know us because God has touched Daniel and me in a way with these girls, a really passionate way. We’re still in the praying, discussing stages of where God wants us to go and what to do so I’ll leave it at that for now.

After a few minutes of standing a few feet away, one of the street girls, Rose, came and sat right next to me. And then she put her head on my shoulder – I was shocked, amazed and beyond happy. So I slowly wrapped my around her, watching for her expression, for any sign of fear or tension. None…I got to leave my arm wrapped around her the whole time.

After an hour or so, we had to leave as we had the weekly street kid feeding program at our church. So we told all the street kids around us, including Rose to come with us. As we walked down the street, Rose put her arm around me and I did to her as well. We all walked through the town and had a crowd of street kids walking with us. I’m sure most Kenyans thought us white people were crazy – hugging and walking with all of these street kids. The whole way to the church, Rose never let go of my hand.

When we got to the church, there were already about 35 street kids there and we brought another 15 or so with us. The beginning part of it has a bit of ministering to the kids and then comes the food. Rose was a little shy to go and get the food, being a street girl in a stream of street boys – as the boys do run the street so Kate went and got her some food. She stuck beside me the whole time.

All the boys, the ones who weren’t with us in town earlier, did the whole “let’s imitate Mary’s very scratchy pathetic voice.” So that was 10 minutes of fun for them and my kicking their butts! :-)

It was a great day; a great day with the street kids. I love them; I truly love them. I wish that I could take each and every one of them and house them and bathe them and feed them. But all I can do is hug them, encourage them and love them. Maybe that’s enough for now, who knows.

Also, Jared from Canada is coming to Kenya in two weeks so if you want to add anything to me (birthday cards maybe – my birthday is just a few weeks away!! – hint! hint!), let me know. Also, ladies – if you have any flip-flops (sizes 7.5 to 8.5) that you don’t want anymore, please let me know too or email Catherine.

Prayer requests:

1. The interns and Daniel – that they don’t catch my cold. It’s a bad one and they don’t deserve to get it.
2. Me – that I just get healed soon of this horrible cold. I’m tired of the sleepless nights and being out of energy. Ugh, it sucks!
3. Our friendship with the street girls – we just really want to start building a relationship with them, a good, trusting relationship with them.

That’s all. I love you and miss you all.

Meredith
xoxoxoxo