It had rained heavily that day, so as we worked our way through the alleys of the slum, we had to concentrate hard to negotiate our way around puddles, slippery muddy spots (hoping that it’s only mud), bodas, cars, and thick crowds of people. A hand reached out to me, and I touched the hand, but didn’t look up and said “Sirina ssente.” I don’t have any money.
As I kept walking, I heard, “Aunt Caro!” My breath stopped. I turned around to see the face that belonged to the hand that had reached out to me. It was one of our girls who had run away from the children’s home around July. I went to her in disbelief and just embraced her. My mind was racing. I didn’t know what to do.
She was very high on drugs, and was with another girl who had also run away from the home some time back. I didn’t know the other girl because she had run off before I came to Uganda. This other girl said she had run away because she got pregnant and wanted to abort the baby. I wasn’t sure if my heart could break any more.
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just bring the girls back. They would have to come on their own, if they wanted to come. I begged them to come back and told them how much we love them and wanted them to come back. They told me yes, that they were coming on Monday. I found that a little strange that they seemed to have planned that out, but I later learned that they had actually run into some of our other social workers a week before, and had talked to them about coming back. When we ran into these girls, a friend I was with turned to me and said, “God wanted you to be here right now.” She had no idea how right she was. I had no faith at all that those girls would come back, but I was shocked to find that they came on Monday like they said! God had planted those other social workers there the week before, and had planted me there to reinforce the idea of coming back and to remind them of how they were cared for at DP compared to life in the slums.
Praise God that they came back, but unfortunately the other girl (the one I didn’t know) ran off again a few days later because she found out she was pregnant again. DP talked with her, assuring her that they would care for the baby, but she refused and ran away so she could abort the baby again. I was concerned that the other girl would then run off to be with her friend, but thankfully she has been at the home for a few weeks now. She was tough as nails when she came back, and she’s still very resilient, but is softening some. She is less aggressive now, she’s doing some work making crafts that DP sells, and I caught her flipping through a Bible a couple of times today. I can just pray that God will keep her there and that she will continue to soften and grow.
I almost never give to people who beg for money on the street. You want to help, but when you learn more about what’s behind the begging, you just can’t give to people in those situations. Especially in Kampala, behind kids who beg on the street, there is usually a person making a fortune at their expense. You can’t encourage that kind of system by giving money. And besides, giving money to beggars just encourages them to live on the street. So if I give money or time or effort, it’s to a place like Dwelling Places that is working to get the kids off the street and empower families to be self-sustainable, not to hands that reach out to me on the street asking for a coin.
But that day that I saw her there in the slums, my entire life changed in an instant. I left there feeling shocked, hollow, and numb as I made my way through the town center to run some errands and passed a multitude of street beggars, some disabled, many of them small children. This time, I actually looked at their faces. I didn’t know any of them, but I wondered what their stories were.
I was reminded of a quote I heard from someone at DP. "Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they are not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes." -David Platt
I learned the truth of this quote in an all-too-real way that day. It’s easy to pass a street beggar when you don’t know them. It’s easy to turn your back to poverty when it’s not personal. But when poverty has a face and a name, a favorite bedtime story, a favorite color, when you’ve heard her laughter as you bounced him on your knee, when you’ve held her when she cries...
you simply cannot turn your back anymore.
