Oct. 13

Hey Folks! Quick update: Val and I just returned home from a few days trip to Nairobi. It was a great trip and we were able to get everything done we needed to! We spent time in the Embassy doing so much and actually got to vote! We met great people along the way from all different walks of life. We met Christians from an assortment of ministries and lifestyles. It was awesome to be around Americans again.
The highlight was that we were able to meet with Val’s pastors, who happened to be traveling through and agreed to spend the day with us! This was such an incredible blessing to Val, that words cannot express. God allowed her to come under their covering, and we were able to receive prayer and encouragement from them that we know will greatly affect our time here. God is so good.
And my favorite part about the trip was meeting Abdia. Abdia is the older sister of one of our street boys. I was so moved by our meeting with Abdia, that I wanted to share it with you. She shared with us the background of our street friend and the stark reality of his life. I felt like God wanted me to take parts of our written record of him and let you in on a typical street boy’s life. It is very personal, and he is a very dear friend to my heart, so I changed his name in the story below.
I desire to give you insight into a street boy’s life to shed light into what we are dealing with and how beautiful these people really are, and how important it is that they be helped. So here is a little snip bit into our lives, and more importantly into the reality of life for the street boys.
Thanks for reading and please continue to remember us in your prayers as we go through some huge transitions this week (God willing, moving into the home!)

Rasheed, The Story of a typical street boy:
Rasheed grew up in a small village outside of Nairobi. He lived with his mom and 4 siblings. At the time I think they lived with his father also, but he had 2 wives.

Rasheed was known for being hilarious, and got on well with his older sister Abdia. They grew up in a quaint little village with one Mosque. He went to the local school, made great friends, and was very bright in class. Abdia recalls he was always making everyone laugh and he was always playing around with his friends.

When Rasheed was the age of 11 his mother died of malaria (2001). He and his siblings were very close to their mother, and deeply wounded. Because his father was a polygamist, they moved in with their “step-mother” who was his other wife. For the next few years of their lives, they went under severe abuse. She physically and emotionally abused them, as she had her own children and despised these children. He submitted to the abuse until his junior year of highschool and then decided it was enough. She was constantly abusing all of them, and Rasheed had had enough. He decided it would be better to run away than deal with this pressure at home. He left at the age of 15. And went to the streets of Nairobi. He stayed there for 6months? Then with friends moved on to Mombasa, where he has been for a few years.

Not only did he have to deal with the tragedy of loosing his beloved mother, but he was being beaten daily by a step mother and unprotected by his father. He mustered up his courage to find if there is something better in life than that and left home. He ran away for greener fields, leaving his beloved siblings behind. Soon he realized the greener fields looked a bit differently than he first hoped.

After struggling to survive in Nairobi, he hopped a bus to Mombasa. The friend he came with, somehow abandoned him and left him alone to fend for himself. One of his first friends in Mombasa was Furah. Furah has lived in Mombasa for a long time, and took Rasheed in. Somewhere along the line, Rasheed started sniffing glue. He became quite addicted to glue.

He spends most of his time sniffing glue, laying around all day sleeping. He still loves to play soccer. And the Rasheed pre-streets, still is inside of him, with his lack of desire to steal and really doesn’t beg much. Good Muslim morals still inside. At night he goes with a few friends to park cars.. here he gets enough money for food for dinner and for the next day of chai and glue. He never makes enough money for anything but the daily needs. He never even saves to buy new clothes or do anything besides eat and sniff glue.
He gets high so that he can pass time and forget about his pains. He spends a lot of time sleeping, and dreams about being at home with his family. He calls his brother or sister occasionally to let them know that he is ok. For a long time he did not tell them he was living on the streets. He couldn’t bare the shame of being known to them as a street boy.
Meanwhile, at home, his father finally divorced the step mom because she was beating his children. The children had complained to the point of sending their youngest sister away to live with an auntie so that she would not be put under the same abuse. And after he divorced her, he remarried another woman, the abuse stopped. But the pain of their lost mother, and their years of suffering abuse still lingers inside each of them. Even if they chose not to run, they are deeply wounded and have dealt with their pain in other ways which could be just as harmful as Rasheed’s rebellious way.

In Feb 2007, Rasheed decided that the street life was too horrible to bear. He concluded that it would be better to go home and face his fears than to live one more day as a chokora.

When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!’ Lk 15:17

He missed his brothers and sisters, his friends, having fun, being a kid, he missed the good life of his past. He called his sister and asked his dad if it would be ok if he came home. His dad said come home, son.

He went home and was welcomed by his family. They missed him so much and loved him no matter what, they were thrilled to be with their brother again. And he was so happy to be home. He was fed, he was loved, he was with those who knew him, he was with his friends.

They tried to ask him, Rasheed, where have you been? But he would never tell them, he did not want them to know what had been happening to him while he was in Mombasa. He was not clear if he was on the streets or not, but they could tell in his eyes that they were worn with the colors of street life. They could tell he had been exposed to so much in the streets, but little did they know what had really happened. Rasheed could not tell them and share his shame, for it is far worse than they could imagine, and he has done horrible things and seen things they would not believe. His sister would press him to know about his life the past few years, and he would even get to the point of anger because he could not talk about it with any of them. He was still their brother, but they started to realize, he was very different from the Rasheed they remembered. He didn’t go out and have fun like he used to, he spent most of his time sitting inside. Just sitting. It was like he was hiding from the outside world, embarrassed of the shame when they see him and look at him no longer as their neighborhood friend but as a street boy, a chokora.
Rasheed, himself, also was realizing that he was no longer the same Rasheed that left for the streets years ago. He was different, he didn’t know that until he came home. Being home, he saw how his family had changed, they have spent the last few years together and have lots of inside jokes and are tight. They are with the new step-mom and things seem to be ok. Life had gone on without him. And now, being home he missed the way he used to have fun with his friends and laugh with his siblings. He also had memories of his dead mother, and the pain that still accompanied those thoughts was strong. And the memories of his step-mom beating him. He looked at the living room and envisioned all the nights of torture that ran him out of the village.

This thought made him want to get high on glue. He remembered the last few years he had spent on the streets and his desire to sniff glue was nagging him. He ran away to the streets because of abuse, but now the streets were holding onto him and he was in prison to the life on the streets. This scared him.

He liked to be around his family, but he felt different. He wasn’t who he used to be, and they knew it. He knew they knew about his habits, even if they didn’t know how bad they really were. His stomach knotted with his deep love for them, it was almost like he had died just like his mother, to them. And he felt dead. He came home, he escaped the street life because he realized home was better, but now that he was home, he wasn’t so sure he could stay.

He spent the next couple of months at home, deep in thought. He thought about his mom, the streets, the abuse, his addictions, how different he was. He didn’t go out with his friends as much, and he didn’t laugh as much. The Rasheed they knew was still there on the inside, but just buried by all the pain from the last few years. In the streets he saw evil face to face. The things that happened during the night that he can never tell anyone about.

He had to fend for himself everyday, some days not getting to eat at all. He hit a point where it was an option to pick food out of the dump. He started to get very familiar with this idea, and a lot of his meals came from the garbage piles in town. He got used to sleeping outside on busy roads. He got used to mosquitoes in his ears, where he had to pass out from glue just so he could sleep. He got used to being filthy, and not having anything but the clothes on his back. He had even lowered himself to beg. He got used to being called a chokora. He got used to being looked at as a worthless piece of trash that people were scared to even walk by. He even started to believe it was true.

He had forgotten who he was. He remembered in dreams, but woke up to the reality of being on the streets needing to get money so he could have something to subdue the pain in his stomach. He remembered the good parts. He had made some great friends along the way, and had some great memories with them. Furah was a good friend, Enoch was a great guy. They didn’t really know Rasheed though. They never really talked about much. They spent all their time together, but the truth is, they never shared the pain of their hearts. You keep that kind of stuff to yourself. No one knows who you really are. So as much as he liked them, they really only talked about money, how to get money, what to do with the money, and if they had more money what would they do. It was nice to not have to worry about money now that he was home, but for some reason he still thought about it all the time.

He wouldn’t realize it, he would be in the room with his family but his mind would be off on these things. He spent so much time thinking, he didn’t even go out so much. But this was ok with him because he was so ashamed to be seen by anyone. It was hard for him to show his face to his neighbors. He still saw his friends, but even they were different than him by now. They had been living different lives.

He loved his family and wanted to make it work to be home, but it was hard, something was different, it was him. Nevertheless, he still tried, and spent time trying to get used to the old way of his life.

One day he was out with the neighbors and one was riding his own bike. Rasheed wanted to ride, so he asked but the boy said no. Rasheed tried to get the boy to let him with words, but then something happened. He got so mad that he beat up the boy. Afterwards he went home. He couldn’t believe what had happened. Something came out of him, it was the streets. The street was inside of him, and it just manifested itself, and he beat up his neighbor, which he never would have done before. There was something inside of him that took over, and he was scared even of himself.

Later his dad came home and his neighbor’s dad told his father. Rasheed’s dad said when he got home the next day, he was going to beat Rasheed for what he had done.
These words cut into Rasheed more than he ever would have known. The thought of being beaten again in this house, was all too familiar. The thought of waiting to be beaten was enough to make him sick. His fears arose, the old life of being beaten became so real again. And this new thing inside of him told him to run back. That this is why he left in the first place. On the streets he gets beaten, why should he come home for the same treatment? On the streets, if he wanted something, he could just beat someone and get it, so why couldn’t he do that now? And now he is going to be beaten by his father? The father that didn’t stand up for him all those years, now was going to punish him, as if he hasn’t already been punished enough. The street was thinking for him, so he couldn’t even think clearly anymore.
He told his sister he had to go. She begged him to stay, but he couldn’t bare to be beaten when his father came home. He resigned to believe that home maybe wasn’t for him anymore. He didn’t really belong there, he had no choice anymore, but the streets were all he had. Home wasn’t home, he didn’t fit, he knew it and they knew it too. He tried, but the streets came out of him and he was sure it would happen again. It was better for him to go back. And then his need for glue would be met again, he would be able to go back to his addiction which he was missing anyways. It was the only way.

So after a couple of months at home in 2007, Rasheed made his way back to the streets of Mombasa with a new resolve.. there is no place for him. He has no business to be at home, and he hates living on the streets but he has no where else to go. Deep in his heart he wants to be at home, he still pictures it the way it was when he was young, when his mom was still alive. But now he knows things are different, especially he is different, and there seems to be nothing he can do about that.

What he doesn’t know yet….

He doesn’t know that God has sent us for such a time as this. God has sent us girls here to meet Rasheed at such a time as this. So that he can finally go home.

But while he was still a far way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son and threw his arms around him and kissed him…the father said to his servants ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Lets have a feast. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and now is found. Lk 15

Rasheed has yet to know that his home is not a small village outside of Nairobi. When he finally goes home, he will not have to worry about being different or being beaten anymore. He does not know that he is wanted and worthy to go to his Father’s house.
This is exactly why we were sent. We were sent to bring our Father’s son home. He needs to realize there is a home where he can get full repentance, healing, and unending love. Where he can be the Rasheed that seems lost right now, where he can lay down his worries about money and all the evil that is trapped inside of his heart that he witnessed in the streets. Where he can laugh again and be the funny kid, where he can use his intelligence and be a pilot but even more than that.. a SON.

And God is going to use this prodigal son to save his hurt and wounded brothers and sisters. He is going to use Rasheed to save his entire family and give real life to all of them.

Rasheed has yet to know there he has a Father in Heaven that calls his name, and longs for him to come home. That there is a place for him with a bed, food, love, joy, and great family times. Where he is called to greater things than he can ever imagine. Where life just seems to get better and better and no one knows him as a chokora, but as royalty.. who he REALLY is.

Carly