Mike & John made it home safely (along with their luggage) Wednesday night & we are very grateful for that. The team of Darcee, Jill, and Karen are continuing to work with Ngoga in Rwanda. Here is an excerpt from an email Darcee sent out:
“The 3 [street children] that we picked up were Emanuel, Valence, and Jean Baptist. Baptist and Valence will be forever embedded in my heart. We met many boys… it is so cool to be going out into the village and seeing TTI shirts!!! That is basically how we are finding boys to interview. Our first house was Emanuel, we interviewed him and his family. There are 9 of them living in a house that they rent for 5000 RF [$10 US] per month. The dad is not at home but I think that he tries and support them the best that he can.
Next we tried to get Valence to take us to his home but he kept giving us a story that he couldn’t go home dressed and dirty like he was…. but after talking to him for quite a while he started crying and told us that he didn’t want to go home. We told him to just point out the house and we would go talk to his household and we would not even let them know that he was in the car. So he did after much conversation!!!! Ngoga and myself were the only ones that walked up the road to his house. He hasn’t been home for about a month. Oh by the way Valence is 13, Emanuel is 14 and Baptist is 10. It is heart wrenching to see these boys breakdown.
We walked up the road and found that his mom was not home but we found his brother (who was probably 8 or 9 and his sister who was probably 1). We took pictures of them and went back to the car. We showed the pictures to Shimni (Valence) and his face lit up. Ok so we kept Shimni is the car with us since no one was home and I wouldn’t be surprised that the reason he didn’t want to go home because he was abused. This situation is really common here.
Next we went to find the house of Baptist. This is the saddest story so far. In going to Baptist house we found his 18 yr old brother home. His name is Hasani. And Baptist’s Mom and Dad are deceased due to HIV. Baptist is one of 3 brothers but on this day he learned that one of his brothers has also died because of HIV/AIDS. Baptist lives with his Grandmother (who was not home at the time). Hasani goes to school in Northern Province and was just visiting his grandmother and brother while he is on holiday. Hasani told us that his grandmothers house is not good because she does not care about them and she doesn’t love them. So it is hard to stay with her and that is part of the reason that Baptist doesn’t stay at home. So today Baptist learned that his brother has died, he learned how his parents died and that his brother has HIV and more than likely Baptist also has HIV. Need less to say Baptist broke down to tears with us. Actually we were all in tears… It was so sad… THIS IS THE REASON THE HOUSE NEEDS TO BE BUILT.”
Please continue to keep this team in your prayers as they interview more children, and pray for God to lead us to those who need the help and are ready for the help. Please also pray for God to cause people to give towards the Home of Innocence so we can build it & we will be ready to help these children.
Your prayers are so appreciated.
God Bless You,
Lisa
