Stamp out tyranny!

I got this card from my friend Rosemary. She’s in Senegal, Africa for the summer… her second summer working in a boy’s home. Here it is, right after July 4th, when we are reveling in our escape from the cruelty and injustice of taxation without representation. I’m not making light of it. We fought a war to get our freedom.

That’s what Rosemary and her team are doing…fighting a war. In this case the victims are street boys living in Dakar. The Rainbows of Hope web site posts there are 100,000 children beggers in Senegal. Whatever the reasons: famine, poverty or no living parents, thousands of boys are placed in the care of Muslim teachers who are to make them their disciples. Part of the training is to send these children into the streets to beg for their needs. From the photos I’d guess these boys are elementary school age. One she told us about from last year was 7.
Rosemary goes to help relieve the couple who are house parents at Maison de L’Espoir, a small orphanage-type home for street boys. For this small number of boys there is a family. They have health care, get to go to school and be protected. They are loved, not exploited.

Postmarked: “Love, Jesus”

Door to door...

Last year about this time I was in Kenya. My 3 traveling friends and I were linking up with a local pastor in Nairobi to do some door-to-door witnessing. Now when you think about doors where I come from they are usually wood or metal. Some have little windows so you can look out to see who's there. All have some kind of knob to turn or press down and most definitely a locking mechanism for when you're not at home and you don't want anyone else to be "at home" while you're not.

Door-to-door in the slums of Nairobi, well, it was a bit of an overstatement. Some of the corrugated cubicles had doors of sorts or at least a drape of cloth. But we didn't have to knock because the ladies were all outside in the corridors between their boxes hanging out laundry or sitting with their children sprawled on their laps where they could braid their hair.
As we walked down the paths, not one lady of the house wanted us to stop and talk with her there in the walkway or to her and their neighbors together. Certainly not! Clearly that was completely inhospitable. No, the four of us were escorted into the tiny living room where we shuffled around the table to each sit in one of the wall to wall chairs. The sleeping and cooking quarters were neatly hidden behind the hanging cloth that divided their box house expertly down the middle.

Here in the living room is where we noted the calendar taped to the wall and clippings from the newspaper that served as art. The dirt floors were cleanly swept and the owners welcoming and proud to have us as visitors so they could show off Kenyan smiles and hospitality.

We shared about Jesus and most, with beaming eyes declared "I am born again." We prayed together about husbands who needed jobs and children who needed to get into college. We held babies and touched childrens' bowed heads; we clasped hands together and blessed them in Jesus' name.

Upon leaving we found the little doors on our hearts were simply thin curtains, light in the breeze.