Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Street child prayer requests

Thank you to everyone who prayers for our children still living on the streets, periodically we meet with two of the street children in our programs, ask about them and how we can tell other people to pray for them. We then pray with that child and try and encourage them. Here are the prayer requests from two children in our street children programs. Also, David and I are going back to Uganda in just a little over a week and one of the first things that we want to do is bring in more children into our homes. Please pray that God will guide us, from the many children in our street programs, which children He wants for us to bring into our home!


Ssekamaya  Patiya

I was at home when my dad did not want us to go to school, he would make us work in the gardens  and he would wait for the time of harvesting so that we can sell of the surplus to the market, we did what our dad told us but all the money we got he used it for personal things and he told us we can dig again but all it was in vain. It was one day that my elder brother came and took me to stay with him, he told me he is going to take me to school and as soon as we reach his home. I waited for some time to see my brother fulfilling his promise but as I was waiting he came up with an idea that we should plant rice and we can earn good money from it then your dream will come to pass. We cleared the land, planted rice in it and I was told to look after it, I used to go there a lone from morning until evening because I had to prevent birds from destroying the rice but some time I felt tired and rested but whenever, he could find me resting or the birds in the plantation I was beaten badly.

After we harvested the rice we got a lot of money and my brother told me that next week I was going back to school. I dreamed about going to school, and I started drawing pictures how school looks like and how I could look when am in the school uniform. Two weeks passed and I reminded him, he told me can we plant rice one more time and I accepted but in pain. He did the same thing again by having me work and harvesting the rice but using the money for himself and not helping me.   I ran to my uncle's home, he welcomed with both hands and I explained to him why I had come to his house, he told me his family was already too many and too big a burden. He told me he could not afford to take me back to school,  but that if one day he can become rich, he would take me back to school. The following day I was told to go to the garden and dig, water the crops, I stayed there for some good times and I had given up on my dream because every time I could look at my uncle's children going to school, tears became my drink. One day we were having lunch my elder brother came and he told my uncle that he wanted me to go with him, we reached home and I was punished heavily, he gave me orders of cooking food but I was not supposed to eat until he comes home. I was starving and my big brother would beat me anytime he saw me eating. I was told to work. Life became hard and I felt that I was not loved but instead I was forced to work for others gain. I made up my mind and escaped from there, I walked day and night for three days until I reached Kampala.

I have many things that I would like for people to pray for me for. Please pray for me to have a place to stay and be safe. Please pray that I will  find people who can treat me as if am their own child and love me. Please pray that I can go back to school and that my dream of studying will come to pass. 

God bless you. 

Street Child Prayer Requests #2



Juma Madangi

My name is Juma. I am nine years old, my mother died and I stayed staying with my father who married another woman. We were staying with my with my step brother called Mendy his mother went to Juba in Sudan but did not come back. 

We were told to fetch water yet we could find a big line of people waiting to get water, this delayed us, we had to go home late at night and when we reached home she used bad language to abuse us  and every time saying," I wish you had died with your mother and that could make me feel at ease", every time she used to remind me of my  mother who died and I felt soooooooo bad.

We used to go to school but as soon as we reached home, we were told to go to the garden dig, look for fire wood and from there we were told to fetch water, we could not stomach that and one day my step brother ran away from home, as we were in our holidays I fetched water and sold it to people that was the money I used to escape from home. I go a taxi from Mukono to Nakawa and I slept there until morning and walked to Kampala.

Please pray for me. Pray that I will have hope and that I will have a good life off streets. I also want to go back to school, because it is through education that one can have a better life, please pray that God will find a way to make that possible.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

We will continue to pray and to reach for more



"We are paralyzed in a poverty of hope because, first, we underestimate the value of what God has given us to transform lives. Second, we underestimate the value of a single life. And third, we underestimate God’s determination to rescue us from a trivial existence if we just free up our hands and our hearts from unworthy distractions and apply them to matters that make a difference in someone else’s life. …Likewise, when our grandchildren ask us where we were when the weak and the voiceless and the vulnerable of our era needed a leader of compassion and purpose and hope – I hope we can say that we showed up, and that we showed up on time. And that the very God of history might say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'”

Gary Haugen, Terrify No More

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Thank you

I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone that sent books, games and legos for the boys! It was such a blessing and I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts! We cannot wait to give it to the boys! We are going to be bringing in many new boys in the next few months if the Lord allows and we are so excited for them to have them to play with! 

THANK YOU!!!!!!

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Yes it is the same boy!

Enoch in blue at home!

Enoch

Enoch Bossa our newest addition

Enoch Bossa

Enoch Bossa in blue



Enoch is doing very well at home! It is hard bringing him home when we are so very far away but I thought I would share an email that Irene sent me on how he is doing:
"Dear Abby and David,

 Here are some of the pictures of Enoch Bossa in Daniels House, he is very happy, he told me he did not except that he 
can feel loved and cared, he said this is the home I always dreamed of and he told me to tell you and David, " thank you
sooooooooooo much", he is looking forward seeing you here in Uganda.

Enoch started schooling and he is doing great and I think he will not find it hard to pass because he loves God and schooling
as well, of all the boys he is the only one who can wash his clothes and get cleaned well, he is amazing."

Please also continue to pray for the other Enoch in our home (we now have to Enochs. Enoch Bossa who just came in and Enoch Wabulembo). Enoch Wabulembo is having a really hard time and needs a lot of prayer right now! 
<3  

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Enoch is home

Enoch at the street children programs
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I had been hearing about a little boy named Enoch for  (not the cutie-pie in our home, "another one") for a couple of days and getting some subtle hints from friends that he would be, "GREAT for the home". One day I heard that he had come to the programs. He had touched a transformer box and had been severely electrocuted. He was swaggering around when one of our uncles, Lawrence found him. He brought him to the programs where Amy treated his badly burned hand and his head (where the electricity exited). We quickly fell in love with him and wanted to bring him into our home. However, before we could he went missing. 

He keeps going missing and we have been praying for him and looking for him for a long time. Every night David and I have been praying that God would bring him home to us.

We finally found him again a week again, but after asking about his home, he thought we might take him home against his will and this really scared him and so he went into hiding.  Our uncles went everywhere in the slums looking for him.  We wanted to tell him we weren't going to force him to go anywhere and we  simply bring him into our forever homes. After about a week he decided to trust us and came back to the programs.

Two days ago they found Enoch and we were able to bring him home!  We are rejoicing that after searching for him for such a long time, God finally led him home and that he is now a part of our family.

Working with street children it is always about, "the one". Seeing children one by one, listening to them, one by one. Watching a heart wake up, one child at a time.

 It is through relationship, and trust, and sacrifice, and that can only be done, one child at a time. Not through numbers but through relationship.

 Enoch was just one street child. One child of the many in our programs. He was just one child of many arrested that day, one child of many being held in a cell and finding a way to escape. But to God and to us he is precious, loved and now, he is family. He is like that lost sheep, the one that was sought for until it was found.

 I am praying that God will continue to make it possible for us to bring more children home that have none and to open our eyes to see like He sees.