Hope in the Streets
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.
Psalm 34:18
Hope for the Streets of Africa*
There is a problem on the streets of Africa. According to UNICEF, there is an estimated 30 million children living on the streets spread across the African continent. Street children are kids who spend their lives on the streets scavenging for food, water, shelter, and work. Most of these kids look for work doing odd jobs from parking attendants, to landscapers, to shoe shiners; doing anything and everything to earn enough money for their next meal.
But how do these kids end up on the streets? Many street kids are either without families, or have been forced to flee to the streets due to familial abuse, wars and armed conflicts, poverty, natural disasters, or a myriad of other reasons. Trauma is what makes kids end up on the streets, but their trauma does not end there. These children daily experience hunger, violence, sickness, homelessness, and a lack of all parental protection, love, and care.
Street children are some of the most overlooked, but most hurting factions of African society. They stand at the street corners begging for work or for pocket change. They loiter near restaurant dumpsters waiting for food scraps to be thrown out. These kids are doing anything they can do to survive and cope with life, but they are looked down upon as dangerous and dirty as people see their clothing, their substance abuse, and their bad attitudes rather than seeing a hurt and struggling child using whatever they can find to cope with the dangers they encounter every day.
Although these children are disregarded by their society, praise be to God that He does not disregard them. Follower of Jesus Christ all over Africa have been given a heart for these kids, and RiverCross training has equipped them to break the downward spiral of vulnerability in their lives by first transforming the way the trainer views them. One RiverCross trainer commented, This has been life transforming for me as a mentor, as a leader, because I now have the ability to address certain issues - to really understand each child as they are, not to judge them. It's important to know what happened to the roots of a street kid - it is not that they were born rude or boastful, but trauma has been a trigger in their lives.
We thank God that He cares so deeply for each child who finds themselves on the streets, and we thank God that He allows RiverCross to play a part in each child crossing the bridge to hope, and being set free to thrive.
*Although the stories we share are true, some identifying details have been changed.
