Street Out-reach
Walking on the streets of Arusha is much more exciting than walking on streets in Canada, to say the least. One of the main differences is the many happy greetings which are given from all directions, something that does not happen often in Canada. Another difference is that street children appear, sometimes out of nowhere. Because they now know that we will buy them juice and bread if they come say hi to us we often get greetings from them during our daily walks in town.
Today walking towards the Dalla-dalla stand we came across a boy who was in a school uniform. I glanced at him not thinking much until he came and shook my hand and appeared to be extremely happy to see me! I looked again and realized that it was one of the street kids that I had seen on previous visits. The only difference was that before he was not wearing a school uniform. Apparently he was coming from school and was living on the streets. Sadly as is often seen he had a water bottle hiding under his shirt. On the bottom of the bottle was some glue. The heat that is created in the bottle makes the glue fumes just right for sniffing, so I am told. It is unfortunate that at this time there are not enough resources to help these children more. We (Laurent and Tom) walked with the boy to the rest of the group and counted them so we could go buy some juice and bread. After finding bread and enough juices we returned to find that there were some new-comers since 5 minutes ago. We got all the boys to sit on the steps of a nearby building and handed out the bread and juice. As usual there was a little scuffle to get the extra bags so they could store their bread safely. We bought 10 juices at the store and had to have 4 more boys walk back with us to the store so we could get them juices as well. In all there were 14 street kids today, all from the “Stadium Group”. After handing out the bread and juice we were thanked.
Exoudie, one of the boys reminded me to say hello to Katie, as he does every-time, I don’t think he will forget you to soon Katie!!! He has been trying very hard to stay away from the glue. Today he had a big bump on the right side of his head and was very quiet, not his normal self. We have mentioned the idea of boarding vocational school to him and he seemed to really like the idea, we informed him that we would see what we could do...
Another boy whose name I cannot remember proudly showed me his healed head. About two weeks ago he was stoned by the other kids.
Thank-you to everyone for your amazing support and prayers!!
-Tom
http://www.sunriseoflife.com/
Today walking towards the Dalla-dalla stand we came across a boy who was in a school uniform. I glanced at him not thinking much until he came and shook my hand and appeared to be extremely happy to see me! I looked again and realized that it was one of the street kids that I had seen on previous visits. The only difference was that before he was not wearing a school uniform. Apparently he was coming from school and was living on the streets. Sadly as is often seen he had a water bottle hiding under his shirt. On the bottom of the bottle was some glue. The heat that is created in the bottle makes the glue fumes just right for sniffing, so I am told. It is unfortunate that at this time there are not enough resources to help these children more. We (Laurent and Tom) walked with the boy to the rest of the group and counted them so we could go buy some juice and bread. After finding bread and enough juices we returned to find that there were some new-comers since 5 minutes ago. We got all the boys to sit on the steps of a nearby building and handed out the bread and juice. As usual there was a little scuffle to get the extra bags so they could store their bread safely. We bought 10 juices at the store and had to have 4 more boys walk back with us to the store so we could get them juices as well. In all there were 14 street kids today, all from the “Stadium Group”. After handing out the bread and juice we were thanked.
Exoudie, one of the boys reminded me to say hello to Katie, as he does every-time, I don’t think he will forget you to soon Katie!!! He has been trying very hard to stay away from the glue. Today he had a big bump on the right side of his head and was very quiet, not his normal self. We have mentioned the idea of boarding vocational school to him and he seemed to really like the idea, we informed him that we would see what we could do...
Another boy whose name I cannot remember proudly showed me his healed head. About two weeks ago he was stoned by the other kids.
Thank-you to everyone for your amazing support and prayers!!
-Tom
http://www.sunriseoflife.com/
Hi Tom,just wondering if someone sponsored the boy now wearing a uniform or if he is earning enough money to go to school? Very inspiring to read what you are doing, and the children sure have something to look forward to, meeting you regularly and having something to eat. Mom
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