There is a nameless place where I go. It isn't on maps or included in census statistics. Coincidentally, the world probably would like to remain ignorant of it's existence. It is a bad place. Not glamorously dangerous or interestingly broken, it's just desperate. It lies between Kenya and Uganda - unclaimed and unwanted, a strip of land not 100m wide with no law and little hope. The entire strip is covered in trash and pools of gasoline. Trucks pass in long lines through the place they refer to as "no man's land" leaving wafting clouds of smoke. Shacks made with straw, tin or tarp lean along each side, serving as places for illegal dealings and the sale of leftover goods for no man land's leftover people. The dismal scene is blurry in the heat from engines and the hot sun. Men sit in pools of salvaged trash with tattered clothes and hats, their eyes empty and lucid. Boys play in the dirt, playfighting and pretending crushed bottles are soccer balls or lying lifelessly hoping the day will end. If you watch them for a few minutes your heart will be stirred. When a new puddle of gas is found they gather around it fighting to put it into remnants of bottles and to soak their clothes, even the ones they are wearing, in the black fluid. They breathe as much of it in as they can so that perhaps their minds will float away from them for awhile and they can forget that nobody cares about them. Some of them are as young as eight, many in their mid-teens. There are a couple of girls too. Rumour has it that a street boy can pay 25 cents to rape her. It doesn't matter weather they have no place to go, or if they ran from troubles somewhere, when we saw these kids we knew this was not a place where God delights.

My teammate Michaela blogged about Isaiah 59:15-16

The LORD looked and was displeased

   that there was no justice.

He saw that there was no one,

   he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;

(read it at michaelafinn.myadventures.org)

Who loves these children? Who prays for them? Who shows them mercy?

     We invited the kids to come to the church everyday for a week for games and food. Fourty showed up the first day, hungry and desperate. We dished out the beans and rice we cooked and poured liter after liter of water into their cups. Some boys came high and fought, but we carried on. They thought the floor was just about the best thing ever, pulling each other across it and rolling the way little boys should. Some kids ate and fell asleep in the corner, relieved to be in this safe place. We interviewed them to try to dig at the problems that led to their situations. They are sweet and funny with normal antics and dimpled smiles. We played Uno and told them about God's love. On their way out the door, the first day, one of my teammates shouted out that we wanted to pray for them before they left. I would have expected them to be disrespectful. I thought they would scoff and mock but instead the most incrdible thing happened!

Every one of them dropped to their knees, their faces on the floor and cried out to God! In their desperation, when the devil has them in more chains than I can imagine, these kids have still grasped something so important - they NEED Jesus!

     Yesterday a boy stumbled in late and lay on the floor without eating. I came over to him and lay on the floor too so he would listen to me. His name was Derek and he was eleven. Something wasn't right, his eyes shifted eerily but it wasn't just inhalants. I felt his forehead and made a decision, we needed take that kid to a doctor. Jake carried him on his back to a clinic and returned an hour later with medicine for Typhoid fever, malaria and a respitory infection. This was one sick kid. In the end, however, this is a wonderful story. After taking care of him for the day we drove him home to his grandmother!!! At eleven he has spent almost a year and a half of his life on the street afraid to go home. Just say that there were a few people crying. His grandmother, not angry but relieved, shed a couple tears. Derek was a gonner...

     The more we learn about the street kids. When we put names to faces and stories to their tattered, dirty clothes, the more I realize that the problem is deeper than a lack of shelter. My teammate Hade is raising money to buy land for a halfway house and farmland to sustain it that would be run by trustworthy people from our church with a passion for the church. If you would like to help email him at hhallman92@gmail.com.

Join me in interceeding for this great injustice...

Here are some pieces of a song I wrote for the street kids:

Don't be afraid, He can ransom us

He will call you by name, you are His... (Isaiah 43)

We don't deserve a second chance

We don't deserve a fighting chance

We are filthy sinners, lost

It must have been a high cost

But He saved us

In the shadow of your wings

Take away the homeless things

In their hearts

With justice but through grace

Show them the face

of a Father

The drug addicts are yours

The theifs are in your hands

The prostitutes are on your heart

The abused will be redeemed

The forgotten will be prophets

The hopeless are in your hands...

Oh you love them x100

Please check out annafew.myadventures.org for pictures.