The Need No One Else Would Fill

I am out this week at Covenant Cedars for Royal Family Kids Camp (RFKC).  It’s a week of fried chicken, fruit snacks, and spaghetti.  A week of “Pharaoh, Pharaoh” and “Oh ma chey chey!”  A week of doing terrifying things for the sake of a nine-year old (things like the zip line and the 3-story-tall water slide).

The campers at RFKC are foster kids.  Kids between the ages of 5 and 11 who, for some reason or the other (and usually the reason isn’t a very nice one), have been involved or are still involved with Nebraska’s social services.

They’re pretty messed up kids.

Proof that it is possible to destroy a child’s character in a mere 5 years.

Living examples of the results of trying to raise a kid with something very opposed to the love of Jesus.

They remind me of the kids I met in northern Uganda.

Her mom abandoned her babies, and his mom was abducted by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army; you might want to google it if you don’t know what I’m talking about).  His dad was on drugs, and her dad has AIDS.  His dad is in jail.  She never knew her mom.

Like Sarah.

I met Sarah at a police woman’s house.  Sarah lives at this house because she is a total orphan.  “Total orphan” is the term Ugandans use to explain that both a child’s parents are dead. (The word “orphan” can mean that one or both of the parents are actually alive, but are either unable or unwilling to care for their child.)  Sarah’s dad used to be a pastor.  But he was killed by the LRA.  They killed him with a panga.  Which is an African word for machete.  Sarah cried and cried when she told me what happened to her parents.  I wondered if she had been there and watched the day the LRA killed her father.

Sarah’s mom died of AIDS.

If Sarah didn’t live with this police woman in Lira, she would be on the streets instead.  There is nowhere else for her to go.  No one wants her.  No one cares whether she lives or dies.  No one is interested in what she wants to be when she grows up.

In Nebraska when we have kids like this, they get picked up by social services.  They get placed in foster homes.  They get sponsored by the government.

In Africa, the police who get the call about an abandoned kid are the only hope those kids have.  If the police don’t care, no one else cares either.  In Lira, at least some of the police saw the need no one else would fill.  They decided to do something about it.

How many Sarah's are there in northern Uganda?

How many Sarah's are there in Nebraska?