We ran into another opportunity of some free time this week, which has been our best experience to date. In the morning, we got to visit a home for abandoned babies, which we got to love on and hold. I cannot describe the cuteness! We were touring the home and in the empty living room was a few week old infant who'd been left at a local market. Of course, I had to pick him up for the rest of our journey. I loved on this baby for hours and chose to say a prayer over his mama, who I am certain is heartbroken right now. The kids loved playing and singing and were so intelligent for their young ages.
Our time here was heart lifting for us
all. Of course, we had no idea what would come next in our day. We began with
some locals in our sheltered, almost "Americanized" neighborhood and
walked the streets of the city that we had no yet ventured in search of some
faces we had no intentions of getting to meet in our time here. We found
ourselves standing in a huge circle of white girls with some dirty, smelly street
boys who began as young as eight and went on to eighteen. These boys
automatically welcomed us with huge grins and the "family" handshake
known here, not the normal "respect" one. People stopped all around
us in confusion and awe at these girls standing amongst boys who were covered
in dirt, a few with no shoes, no jackets for this winter here, and some with no
underwear or socks. Boys who act so tough during the day and cry at night in
the cold of the winter air. The look these boys portrayed was well, appalling
but they loved us, and we love them.
We ran down the streets with our new family and j-walked our way back
to where some of our local friends had gone to gather a meal for these seven
boys. We came back to four loaves of white bread and one liter of juice. Each
boy was given eight pieces of plain bread and some had bottles in their
pockets. What happened next was when our hearts broke... the boys who remained
without bottles began searching the ditches and streets for an empty USED dirt
filled bottle to drink from. Before eating, they counted their bread together
to make sure they all had the same and compared their juice to make sure one
didn't have more than the others. They were family. They were mean like
brothers and beat and yelled at each other constantly, but family none the
less. I hope we get to run into them again soon, hopefully while volunteering
some time at the local soup kitchen so we can pour into their plates while they
ever so pour back into our hearts.
The African dirt is
beginning to stick to my feet, literally.... and the thicker it sticks, the
more like "home" it becomes.
-Chelsea