street child prayer request

Patrick

Name : Kanyerezi Patrick

Age    : 9 years

 I live on streets, the things I like most are playing soccer, riding a bicycle and I enjoy eating rice and chicken. The reason as to  why I ended up on the streets is that my mom divorced my dad. My dad is a drunk, he would always be drinking and then he would come home and beat me. My mother left him because he beat her too much. I then lived with my stepmom who also mistreated me. She used to deny me food, gave me heavy punishments like fetching water and I had no time to play with my fellow children. One day my dad was very angry and was trying to kill me using a machete so I left home and came to the streets. I cannot go back home.  My prayer request is,  I would like you to pray for me to go back to school and make sure I finish school in order to get a good job so that one day I can be able to help other street children.

I love my kids!

David and I with the younger boys home

David and I with the older boys home

So... David and I are going back to the States soon and before we left we wanted to throw Christmas parties for the street children and for the kids in our home.

Our party with the street kids was fun and hilarious, the kids were quite surprisingly well behaved. We had them get in groups to decorate sugar cookies and they sat like little angels waiting for us to tell them they could begin. They played games and ended things by acting out the Christmas story. We told the boys that the best actors would be rewarded with candy, they acted their little hearts out- at one point I and uncle Abbey were laughing so hard we cried. Then we shared about Christmas, the gift of Jesus and they asked some terrific questions!

Sometimes it is hard for me being their in the programs, with so many children that come up to me and beg me to bring them into our homes. It is also hard when we bring a boy into our home and I realize just how long he was in our street programs before I had noticed him as a candidate for our home, prayed for him and then brought him home. I struggle a lot with the fact that Kato Charles and Frank where on the streets for so long and in our programs before they came home. But I have to remind myself that I am only one person, (albeit surrounded on all sides by so many who do this ministry together with us) and I can only do what I can do, I have to minister to my amazing kids to the best of my abilities and allow God to do the rest. The kids had me pray over them before leaving and it left me with so much peace. I am leaving them but God never, ever will.

We then had a Christmas party on the land with the boys and we had a lot of fun. I tried to make lots of special Christmas treats with my team of happy, cute helpers in the kitchen. There are several boys (Bob, Kato Charles, Monday, Dirissa, Solomon, Hakim and Ibra among others) who just love helping me cook and they are they sweetest things ever whenever they help! We made fudge, no bake cookies and I brought sugar cookies that they could decorate and give out to their neighbors in the village as a way to witness to them with a "Merry Christmas, Jesus loves you!"

It had been a really exhausting week and I had wanted the day to be very special but I think that all my emotions caught up with me about leaving and I began getting a massive headache about 30 minutes before we arrive at the boys homes.  By the end of the Christmas party I was really sick and was even sicker by the time we had to leave the boys the next morning. Saying goodbye to them broke my heart, especially when some of the younger boys began to cry.

God has given me an extremely adaptive personality which I am very thankful for. The only downside, is that whenever I am in a place with people that I love, I feel so instantly at home that it is really really hard for me to leave. It is like that every time I leave Uganda and every time that I leave the States.

My mom says that our bodies are often show us what our heart is feeling even if we are not conscious of it and I definitely believe it. After leaving the boys, going home and resting, although I felt pretty bummed about leaving the boys, I wasn't sick anymore. It is just so hard to say goodbye.

I love my boys so very very much. They are so sweet and caring, smart and just well amazing! The younger boys are really into writing letters, and I literally had a stack of them in the morning as we said goodbye. They were all sweet but some of them made me cry as I read them, I am going to find them so that I can post them because they are so sweet. Looking back over this last year it feels crazy to think about ALL that God has done and how many boys we have been able to bring off of the street. God has been soooo good to us

thanks Amy!

So... Simeon finally did it! 

I see you

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Come come come

We say, He says

Stay stay stay

We plead

But so often you slip into the night

Out of our hands that try to hold on so tightly

And forever we wonder

You thought you were invisible

Because you left and no one noticed

You hid and no one sought you out

But I see you now

and you were never lost from His sight

I think sometimes it can be hard for you

To look through to the other side

Of us who sleep in beds at night

And don't have to fight to survive

Who get food from a fridge rather than a trash can

And to believe that we could possibly understand you

That we could possibly be someone you could trust

But we do

We love you

Please jump

Off of the cliff

That you have so many times before

And trust that this time it will be different

And we will wait here

Watching you

Our faces turned up

     and our arms raised

To catch you as you fall

We will be here

For however long you need it

 

Sometimes when I think about my life, it feels hard to believe.

 I have over 30 children, amazing beautiful kids that I love. They have a home now, a family and hope. They fill up my life and my heart.

There are also so many kids that I have lost too. That have disappeared, that have died, that have run away.

It's been a really hard year.

A good year in many ways, a heartbreaking year in many others.

It's been a hard week too.

The boys are at Bible camp this week and its given me a little more down time (something I haven't had much of in the last couple of months)

I think sometimes that there is a time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to rejoice and a time to mourn

Maybe this is my week to grieve over all that has been lost. All that my kids have gone through, had done to them and have done. And maybe it's not bad to cry every once in a while

Simeon

Simeon and I at camp when he was still staying on the streets

Simeon on the street

 

Simeon at home

Tried to get a smile, this was the closest we got! We'll get there!

Ibra, Simeon and Bob

Meet Simeon the newest addition to our family!

I will admit that it took a long time before I noticed Simeon in our street programs. He was so quite and always slipped in behind the scenes.  He never fought or tried to get his way but stayed at peace with others, mostly by being quiet.

I don't think that I have ever met any child as shut down as him. It was hard to simply draw out what his "real" names were. He had given several names to David that didn't quite match up and it took a long, slow conversation to discover which names were ones he had give himself, others had given him, and his mother had given him when he was born. It was the same trying to find out what his history was and to figure out the clear path of any of his memories. 

Simeon was on the streets for over two years.

I think that the most exciting part of bringing Simeon home is going to be watching how Christ, love and safety "draw him out". I am so excited to see the boy that God created him to be!

Also, Junior and Hakim are doing great! Sweetest, cutest things ever!

Hakim celebrating his birthday for the first time

Hakim at home

Love these boys!

Ibra M., Ibra W., Junior and Bob

Monady, Kato, Sadic and Shafik, they are getting so tall!

Hakim

It has been a tough and heartbreaking week. However, God is so good to us and we are amazed at all the blessings He continues to bring into our lives. We are excited to say that we are bringing one more blessing home tomorrow morning. An adorable boy named Hakim, he is spirited and has a dear heart. Here is a video we took of him at our programs, he is saying hello, his name, and that he wants to go to school but doesn't see how its possible. God works in surprising ways!!!