Maybe I should keep the bottle.

If I would it would be to help me remember and never forget.

The image of God is in everyone I meet.

*****

Today was a normal Saturday.

We had a few stops in town.

One was typical.

Just a short visit to the local thrift store.

I decided to sit in the van quietly reading while my family shopped.

It wasn't long till I saw him walking slowly along the street dragging a large bag.

He came to my window and asked for some food.

He couldn’t have been more than 12 or 13 years old.

I searched for something to share all the time chatting.

I asked his name.

As he answered my questions I learned his story.

He wasn't far from home.

He had lived in the crowded city settlements people call the slums.

His mother and father had both died.

For 4 months he had been living on the streets.

When I asked if there was no aunt or uncle he simply said

"They escaped."

It was his way of saying they had abandoned him when the care became too difficult.

I watched him sniffing the bottle he held to his nose.

I could faintly smell the fumes from where I sat in the van.

I asked him where he had gotten the glue.

He told me a man gave it to him to help him forget that he didn’t have a home.

There was something about his face.

I couldn't know if all the details he was telling me were true.

But I believed that he hadn’t been on the streets for long.

He didn’t have the hardened look that comes from years of surviving in vile surroundings.

He said he slept on a verandah at night with other boys.

I asked him what he really wanted.

He told me he wanted to go to school.

He had loved the science class the most and wanted to become a scientist some day.

***

I've read that Kenya has over 250,000 children living on the streets.

That number has become even greater the last months.

Food prices have increased drastically and families struggle to feed their children.

As terrible as it seems parents will send a child to live on the streets

Others run away.

Some just find it their last resort to survive.

I surprised myself when I asked him if he would give me his bottle.

Boys hang on to their bottles.

They sniff to forget their problems and slowly the fumes destroy their brains.

The addiction is the only way to cope with a life of never ending trauma.

I was even more surprised when he actually handed me the bottle.

I told him he couldn’t sniff glue and someday become a scientist.

****

 There had to be a way.

 Here was a child who needed a chance to go to school.

Helping children who have lived on the streets is difficult.

The life becomes normal.

They can fight efforts to help reintegrate them into society.

I see so many street children in Nakuru.

I didn't know one ministry who would come and give a boy like him another chance at life.

My heart’s been broken more than once with frustration and wondering why there isn't a real way to help.

I had a nudge from the Spirit

that we couldn't just drive away and forget him.

I messaged a friend

and asked if she knew any one who helped in a situation like this.

She told me about a woman whose family is involved in ministering to street children.

I had just met this very woman Thursday at a random gathering of homeschool moms.

Within minutes of my talking with her she had a national worker call me and ask to talk to the boy.

While the rest of the family left to finish the shopping one child and I had stayed at the store waiting for the call.

We had deadlines.

My daughter had said we had three afternoons of work to do at home.

But some interruptions are too urgent to ignore. 

I told her the young boy willingly gave me his glue bottle.

She agreed that it was a sign that he could truly want to be helped.

He talked to the woman on the phone.

He said again he wanted to go to school.

He didn't know how to speak into the phone clearly.

I helped her get the information she needed.

She asked me to write her number on a piece of paper.

She said I could add my own number too.

Her instructions were for him to borrow a phone on

Monday and call so she could find him.

I told him that he has a future and a hope.

I said that God is his father.

And there are others like me who can love him with a mother’s love.

I wrote the numbers on two slips of paper and told him to not lose them.

And reminded him to please call her on Monday.

*****

I believe every life is full of divine appointments. 

Some are just more obvious to our dimmed sight than others.

Sucess is simply walking in faithfulness.

I can sleep in peace tonight not haunted by another beautiful face.

If Monday comes it will be his choice if he gives the call for help to come.

I’m praying this young boy will allow the Spirit of God to keep moving him towards restoration.

The results are in God's hands.

God just asks me to see His image in everyone I meet.

“And God said, Let us make man in our image,after our likeness…” Gen. 1:26

Imago dei.

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