The gift

We have been home from Kenya for almost a month and I still haven't had a chance to blog about our trip! Since we have been home we have moved into a new house, started school, had lots of visitors and tried to catch up on our sleep from the crazy trip.

I have thought of a million things to write in this first blog about our trip because God did almost a million amazing things on this trip! I want to start with just one...

This was my first trip back to Kitale, Kenya since adopting our sons, Derek and Reggie. Derek and Reggie have been home with us for 5 years now and are much different children than the little boys we picked up living on the streets of the Kitale ghetto. Being back in the ghetto 5 years later hit me hard....especially as I met with the boys who still lived on the streets....some of them the same boys we met 5 years ago when we found Derek and Reggie. It broke my heart to see them there but I was also happy to see they were still alive. The mortality rate for street kids is high and living into your teen years is an accomplishment.

The boys that really got to me though were the little ones...the ones about the same age of Derek when we found him in almost the same spot. There were 2 of them that crowded around us with sparkling smiles and eyes that flashed with joy when they laughed. They laughed and I cried. In fact I couldn't stop crying. I cried all the way back to our house and then went to my room, fell on my bed and cried some more. Little boys, not more then 6 years old, sniffing glue, running in a pack of older boys, living and dying on the streets of Kenya. Little boys who looked just like mine.

Needless to say I couldn't keep those boys out of mind and we spent much of the next day looking for them. We had all the older street boys we know looking for them too. Finally about 9 PM we found one of them. He just walked up to our van and said "Hi Mom". All the boys on the street call older women mom (or at least that is what they all called me! Perhaps it is because I am Philip's mom). I asked him if he was ready to leave the streets and sleep on a bed, eat a real meal and live with a family. He jumped right in the van and on my lap grinning ear to ear. It is what he did next that I can't forget. We were surrounded by a group of older boys clamoring to come with us, breaking my heart to leave them there. He quietly reached into the pocket of his worn and tattered pants and pulled out one shilling. He reached through the van window and handed it to one of the street boys hanging there wanting to crawl in and join us. He spoke in swahili so I had no idea what he had said (or done) until our driver turned and told me. This little one who had one shilling to his name, who had just literally crawled out of the gutter of his life, with nothing but the rags on his back, had taken the one valuable thing he had and given it to one who had less. He told the boy at the window "You can have this now. I have these people to help me. Maybe this will help you." I couldn't help but think of the story Jesus tells of the widow's mite. How she had given all she had. I know that Jesus saw this gift from one of the "least of these" and smiled. I smiled through my tears and I smile every time I think of it now.

This little one is off the streets and living in a children's home run by our good friends Bud and Kimberly Huffman (check out the link to their website on the connections page of untilthen.org). His TB has been treated (which would have killed him had he stayed on the streets untreated) as were his parasites, infections and malnutrition. When they did the history at Sister Freda's Cottage Hospital we learned that he had walked to Kitale from a village over 20 miles from Kitale that had been destroyed by political violence after the elections. He was four at the time. He couldn't find his parents but he heard there was food in Kitale so he just started walking. At four. Alone. For two days.

Now he goes to school, lives with a family that loves and cares for him and he is no longer alone.

I smile when I think of him, but I just can't forget those other young boys clamoring to jump in the car and find a place where they too could be loved, cared for and part of a family.

Until NO CHILD lives alone on the streets of our world...

Untilthen.org

Peter

This is a blog written by my 20 year old son Patrick who is working with street children in Kitale Kenya.

THURSDAY, JULY 30, 2009

Days spent at the District Hospital with Peter
I thought I was skinny, but having spent the past few days with a friend of mine named Peter, I've realized that in comparison I look like a sumo wrestler. Peter is somewhere in his mid 20's and lives in Kipsongo, a local slum. He first came to Kitale, as part of a group of close to 10 young boys whose parents were killed in tribal conflicts. Pokot raiders came to steal their cattle and the ensuing fight left Peter an orphan. For years Peter and his group of friends lived on the streets of Kitale. Nearly 10 years ago, Peter was arrested for being a street boy and sent to a detention center for 6 months. While in the detention center, Peter was brutally beaten by one of the guards, leaving him with a fractured spine among other injuries. Ever since that day Peter has been unable to lift his arms above his waist or get himself up out of bed or out of a chair without help. He relies on his group of friends to care for him in nearly every task, from showering to eating. In addition to this, the spinal injury has prevented him from gaining any weight. He is so skinny that he looks as if he is a holocaust survivor.

I have been spending a lot of my time ministering to a group of guys in Kipsongo, which is where I have gotten to become close to Peter. A few days ago I decided to take Peter to the district hospital to get x-rays on his spinal cord. Unfortunately the hospital did not have the right x-ray equipment for spinal x-rays but the doctors worried that he might also have Tuberculosis. So instead of a spinal x-ray, Peter got a chest x-ray in an attempt to diagnose the TB. This morning we went to the hospital again for Peter to get his blood tested for TB. Because he was so malnourished, his veins were very hard to find and it was nearly impossible for the doctors to draw his blood. It took close to 3 hours for 5 different doctors to attempt a total of 25 tries to draw his blood before they were able to successfully fill the vial. We are told that we will know the results tomorrow morning so any prayers would be greatly appreciated.

Despite all of this Peter has the most amazing faith and courage. He does not view any of his physical ailments as a burden and is constantly thinking of others. He owns a very small outdoor shop in the slums in which he is able to sell a few items to help pay his rent and buy any food he can afford. He prays that his shop will grow so that he can earn more money to help out his friends who have taken care of him for the past 10 years. This man of God is marked by his unshakable faith and perseverance, something that I will hope to learn from him.
POSTED BY PAT HAMER AT 1:56 PM

charity event

hey guys! we will be setting up a booth at this charity. come and support!

New Stuff here at Until Then!

We have new shirts in our shop! New girl shirts that are the softest shirts I've ever felt and just a heads up all of our shirts are American Apparel.

We also have a benefit in the works.. keep your eye out!! It's going to be epic.

Janu and the Whalesharks have a free show tomorrow (thursday) at the gypsy lounge in lake forest. I will be there with our new shirts and stuff so come and say hey! and listen to some good tunes!

xo

Glue Boys Trailer

DVDs Available at www.GlueBoys.com

An Abandoned Child is Everyone's Child

Driving to Costco today I saw a billboard for the Amber Alert system that read "An abducted child is everyone's child". A powerful statement that really hit home with me.  I know when I see those freeway signs illuminated with bulletins that read Amber Alert....CHILD ABDUCTED....I get a knot in my stomach and an ache in my heart. I do feel like it is my child and I diligently search every license plate on  the cars of the right make and model to see if they have the abducted child so I can help save them.  

In the film, Glue Boys (an award winning documentary by Philip Hamer), we are reminded that while we activate emergency response systems and police services go into high gear to help find the lost child here in America, there is no such response system for the abandoned and neglected street child of the world.    There are over 150 million children that live and die on the streets of our world.  What if we truly saw them as OUR children...everyone's child.  Would we tolerate everyone's child to be abandoned to live in the dumps of Tijuana, Mexico or Calcutta, India?  Would we be okay with everyone's child being sold into bondage as the sexual slave of American businessmen?  What if "everyone's child" was your child? Would you do something then?  I'm sure you would. I'm sure you would move heaven and earth to see that your child was out of danger.  That your child was fed, clothed, educated, their needs were met and they were protected from any harm.   

A ministry we support is Siempre Para Los Ninos in Tijuana, Mexico.  They have just been designated as the first "safe surrender" haven in Tijuana for abandoned babies. This week the department of children's services in Baja California (DEEF) brought 3 babies to live at Siempre. These are babies that had been abandoned (a 2 week old, a 2 month old with an 18 month old sibling) that will now be lovingly cared for by the workers at Siempre until a forever family is found to bring them HOME.  Check out the connections page at Untilthen.org to see how they are caring for the abandoned children of Tijuana, Mexico.  

An abandoned child is everyone's child.  Let them be yours...... 

Picture above is of the 2 week old baby girl now living at Siempre.

"Panic-demic"

Swine Flu.  Words that we had never heard before that now are emblazoned across the front pages of every major newspaper, news website and any other information technology you happen to use.  Words that scream at us to be fearful, to wear a mask, to avoid crowds and public places and certainly don't go anywhere near Mexico!  The last thing I read said that something like 100 people had contracted swine flu in the U.S. and yet over 300 schools are closed. Why the panic?  I guess because the World Health Organization has raised their threat level of a "Pandemic" to level 5 and level 6 means Global pandemic! That is scary stuff.  It sounds like lots of people are going to get sick with what they are calling "mild to moderate flu symptoms" and some of the most vulnerable, like the elderly, infants and those with compromised immune systems may die.  Everyone is talking about it and lots of people are worrying about it. After all, 36,000 people die each year in the world from the flu.

I get it. I know it is scary and of course no one wants to get the flu.  It will be a tragedy when people die from it. However....I can't help but wonder what would happen if the whole world paid this much attention to the most vulnerable citizens of the world who face far worse than the flu every day of their lives.  Every DAY 26,000 children die from preventable diseases around the world.  Every day 150 million children live and die alone on the streets, in the alleys and forgotten corners of our world.  What "threat level" can we post for them?  Threats like starvation, sexual predators, abusive treatment, drug use such as inhalants, neglect and of course disease?  Why aren't we panicking about them?  Over 2 million children will be trafficked for sexual purposes in our world this year.....do we have a "vaccine" for them?  How many of them will be infected with sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, how many of them will be physically and emotionally abused and then disposed of like yesterday's trash.  

An epidemic of indifference and ignorance. An epidemic that is killing millions of children. The most vulnerable in the world.  Left to die alone.  That is an epidemic worth panicking about!