Uncle Fred heads an organization called Saving Grace. It’s another one of the missions in Lira that’s working to bring children out of the hopelessness of the streets and into a brighter future. Education. Discipleship. Family.
We sat in Fred’s office and talked for more than an hour about what it’s like working with kids who don’t have any authority figure in their lives. Fred told me how he got started. He didn’t build anything to begin with. He didn’t start an organization. He simply went out into the streets and started making friends. “When they were sick, I took them to the hospital. When they couldn’t eat, I brought them food. When it was a holiday, I gave them sodas.”
For nine months, every day that’s all Fred did.
I think there’s a reason why the kids call him “Uncle.”
Then he started inviting kids into his house. To get them off the streets. To model a family setting for them. To put them under authority. Psychologists would call this “rehabilitation.” After a couple months there, the kids go to the center outside of Lira. Here they get to attend school. They learn how to take care of themselves, how to take care of a house. They remain with Fred and Saving Grace until they are able to support themselves.
About a year ago, Fred was driving his motorcycle through downtown Lira when he came across a girl lying on the side of the streets. She was five years old. She was nearly dead. Fred picked her up and rushed her to the hospital where doctors diagnosed her with AIDS. They said there was no hope. She was too far gone. But Fred didn't give up. Today that little girl is enrolled in school and healthy. Her parents are both dead from AIDS, but this girl has a hope. She has a future. This is what Fred does. This is how he lives.
But the most important thing, Fred says? “Pray. Step up your prayer life. If now you are praying once a day, start praying five times a day.” He repeated this a couple different times. He couldn’t stress it enough. “Out of everything, never forget to pray.”
Fred has good cause to remind me to pray. When he was 14 years old, he started praying for street children. He said he would help that group later in life. I look at him today, and I see that God answers prayer.
Not only does Fred pray. He is also a visionary. After our office talk, we walked outside to tour the grounds. These particular grounds happen to be about five acres of land that right now have an office building, a house, a little shack for a kitchen, and two gardens. But Fred showed me much more than that. “This here will be the school, and over there we will build a real kitchen. There will be three more houses for the kids. We will put the visitor parking lot right here, and the staff will park over there.”
The five mostly empty acres came to life as he talked.
And somewhere in the middle of our discussion, Fred told me the most surprising thing of all. Remember Christopher from the last post? That’s Fred’s brother.
Fred is the younger brother who moved to Lira with Christopher and spent the next six months living on the street. God has taken two abandoned fatherless street boys, and He has made a good thing. A very good thing indeed.
