Kids Matter Here

I sit across from him and he looks down at the table while he talks. Sometimes he just needs to talk and there’s not too much I can answer with…how do you give answers to someone who has lived on the street for 12 years? Whose mother left him alone in the hut when he was five, only to never come back? He tells me he feels guilty staying in a nice place and eating food every day when his friends…who are basically his family…are still sleeping in the cold and sniffing kerosene to numb the hunger. He tells me about the other day when they got arrested for something and he went and pleaded with the police to let them go.

He quotes, word for word, Matthew 25:35-40.

“35 I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, 36 naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.’ 37 The righteous will then answer him, ‘When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? 38 When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you? 39 When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’ 40 The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!”

Have you ever sat across from a street kid while they quoted the words of Jesus to you?

A few days later… he and his friends play around down the narrow alley while they wait for me to finish talking with someone. He sent four of them off to Kampala earlier in the morning to a street kid center, where at least they will be a little bit safer for a little while. He couldn’t get enough money to send all of them though. Three of them pose while the fourth one takes photos on a borrowed camera phone. The sun shines so bright in the back that you can’t see their faces in the photo…only silhouettes. They turn their backs to me to make another pose. One boy, the size of my little brother, is wearing a dirty, faded shirt that says in bold letters on the back “KIDS MATTER HERE.” If kids mattered here, he wouldn’t be spending the day roaming the streets with bare feet and an empty stomach.  He would be in school. He would have a home to go to tonight when it gets dark and the fierce thunderstorm hits. Chances are, he has at least one parent somewhere. Maybe they remarried and the step-parent wouldn’t accept him. Maybe they are too poor so they sent him away to find a way to take care of himself. Maybe it wasn’t actually their fault… but I’m almost certain it wasn’t HIS fault, and whatever the story, I know that he probably doesn’t believe those words on his shirt.

Some cultures have a better grip than others on the value of children. But as the church, we should have the best grip…we should be the ones empowering people to take care of their children well. Teaching them to train their children and love them unconditionally the way that God loves us. If they have no one, we should be the first ones caring for them and protecting them. It might look a little bit different for the Church in Uganda and the Church in America… and it might look different for you and me. But everyone can do something.