Shoeless Feet

Today we visited my favorite children’s ministry.  We went to an organization called Masana in Maputo, the capital.  This is a day center for boys that live on the streets ranging in age from 8 to 18.  The center is open from 7-2 Monday through Friday but the kids can reach a member of the staff 24/7.  On a daily basis, the children receive 2 meals, a shower, an hour of education, game time, a chance to wash their clothes, a worship service, devotional, and a lot of love.

Although these children live on the streets, most of them are not orphans.  A lot of the boys have a family but for a number of reasons they are not living with them anymore and in some cases the family doesn’t even know the child is living on the streets.  The day center focuses on reintegrating the boys back into their homes.  They do this by making contact with the boy’s family, counseling, placement back into the home, and follow up services after placement.  The catch? The boys have to want to go back home.  It’s not going to work in the home if the boy doesn’t want to be there.  Masana doesn’t force the kids to go back home but they talk to the boys a lot about going back.

During our visit today we were able to experience the day to day operations, play games (checkers, dominos, relay games with balloons), sit in on the worship service, and eat lunch.  I’m really surprised by how many people speak a little bit of English in Mozambique so we were able to communicate with some of the boys.  Unfortunately, our camera died early into our visit so I’ll have to describe most of what we saw and experienced today.

We saw children dressed in dirty, worn out clothes that were 2, 3 and even 5 sizes too big (or too small).

We saw happy go lucky boys with beautiful smiles.

We saw their feet, calloused so badly from walking around barefoot or in flip flops that are too small.  A couple boys had shoes but on closer inspection the bottoms were worn out or they were too little.

We saw more of those big, brown, beautiful eyes.

We experienced love.  These boys love physical touch and adult interaction.  We weren’t there for very long before we were playing and laughing with the kids.  By the end of the day they were laying in our laps either asleep or just wanting to be loved on.  This love is God like love in that it expects nothing in return.  The boys just wanted to feel loved by someone they didn’t care from who or for how long.  We also saw how the staff loved the boys; it was unconditional and genuine.