Bringing Christmas to local street kids

Today we hit the street with our youth, hanging out with some of the local kids in our neighbourhood.

The place we spent the most time in is this empty section about 3 houses down from Caleb's school. In this empty sectioned (it's fenced behind concrete walls), lives a man, a woman and 11 kids. They've built a couple of little shacks in the section, and they also have a tiny little store (its a hole in the concrete wall onto the street) where they sell things like softdrink, soap, tomato paste, and other necessities. The kids are not all the woman and man's, I think maybe 3 of them are... all the others are orphans... either Fatima (the woman) is their real Aunty, and they are her sister's children, or they aren't... it's hard to tell because every women here is your 'sister' and every woman who is older than you or takes care of you is your 'aunty'.  Either way, these two amazing people are taking care of all these kids, sending them to a public school, although they can only afford to send them one or two days a week (note: it costs $150US to send a kid to school for a year, if you are interested in sponsoring one, let us know).  They don't have much, they sleep on the ground, maybe share a couple of packets of 2-minute noodles for lunch or dinner between them.

So, today we blessed them. What an amazing day! Our youth are such amazing teenagers too, just connecting straight away with them, playing games, painting finger nails and reading stories....

I had an awesome conversation with their neighbour who kept saying, you don't know what this means to them, you just don't know, thank you for coming and spending time and getting to know them.  

At the end of our visit, we bought out Christmas presents, the result of our church's 'shoe-box' appeal... these kids were so grateful and happy... the hanging out had been a highlight of their week already, and now this! 

We also blessed Aunty with a massive bag of rice, some big bags of milk powder and some multi-vitamins.  What a beautiful experience.... you know, some people go for years with no recognition of the work that they do in caring for people.

The best part of today for me, was seeing these expat kids connecting with these street kids in such a beautiful way.... that both lots of kids were able to see that below the surface, we truly have the same desire for love, acceptance and the same hopes and dreams.  I hope this is a memory that will stay with all of them forever!