Come As A Child

A few days ago we visited Jotham's Center, a home for street boys. It's further up in the mountains in a rural area. People stare at a white person everywhere you go, but in this area we are even more of a novelty. You frequently hear them using a word which means "white person". I quote from the movie "Friendship's Field"... "Now I know how Marilyn Monroe feels."
There are 24 boys living at Jotham's Center. Their living quarters is very simple and primitive. They have two bedrooms for the boys, 12 in each room. 3 Bunkbeds in each room. The boys double up on each bunk. When the center was started back in January they had to sleep on the floor, which is now concrete but used to be dirt. The boys keep their few belongings and any extra clothes they have in feed sacks which they hang around the room. We brought shorts and t-shirts that had been sent or Chuck and Debby had bought. The t-shirts are throw-aways from the U.S., stuff the Goodwill stores won't use. They buy them in huge bundles, all different sizes. To these boys who are wearing the same clothes for months, dirty and tattered, our "throw-aways" are like new. They were so excited! Here the boys are lined up outside, waiting to go in two at a time to pick out their new clothes.


Each boy received a new pair of shorts and two shirts. We also handed out chewing gum.


They really don't speak English, but they know "thank you" and they all used it. Afterwards we took pictures of all of them in their new clothes.

Then they prayed to thank God for the clothes and to pray for us. I wish you could hear them. I don't know where each boy is in his faith and relationship with God, but they have next to nothing and the only thing they can have for sure is faith in the God who loves them, sees them, and wants to be their Father. With the simple faith of children who are living off the bare essentials and depending on others to help them survive, they prayed earnestly to the God they are learning to know. They all pray at once and it is such a beautiful thing to watch and to hear. They are not looking around to see what others are doing or if anyone is watching; each one is caught up in his own sincere heart cry to the Father. They may not know much, but I have a feeling they have greater faith than we may ever have in our material comfort and self-dependence. May our Father, our Provider, our Life bring us into total dependence on Himself. For it is only in knowing our poverty that we can become truly rich.