Children at the Gates
More than a million orphans in Kenya go without food, shelter, and safe water every day. Orphans as young as six and seven are taking care of their younger brothers and sisters.
They are either alone in the bush or abused on the streets. A few are blessed to be in an orphanage, but most are not that lucky.
Our Hope for Children home in Kenya provides food, clothing, shelter, and education for about 250 orphans, but in this city alone there are 4,000 more children who live on the streets.
Every day they come and wait, just outside our gates, looking with envy at the orphans who are inside the orphanage and longing to join them. They stand and wait in groups holding the fence, wanting to get in. They wait for a meal, or something to take home, or even just to have their photo taken and their name put on a waiting list with a hope that we will one day have room for them in the center.
We have supplies for the children in the orphanage, but we don’t have enough left to feed the children waiting at the gates. However, the children in the orphanage have not forgotten the pain of where they came from. They have come up with a solution which shows an example of caring and sypmathy which we have never seen before.
They decided that they wanted to help the children that were not as fortunate as themselves. They have decided to skip one of their own meals every day and take it out to the children who are standing near the gates.
The orphans share their food, and also carry their water to give to these starving children on the streets.
They are so moved to compassion when they hear of these young children dying of starvation because they know that it could be them standing behind the fences.
One little girl from the orphanage named Mary decided to carry one of the smaller children she had fed back with her into the orphanage. The child was so small she had likely gone for weeks without food or even a place to sleep.
We have no more room for another child, but how could we tell Mary to carry her back outside the gate and leave her there? We do not even have an extra bed, BUT Mary is sharing her bed with the child so she can stay with us in hopes that she recovers.
As long as there is a single child starving outside the gates, we can never stop our efforts.
OPEN THE GATES! LET THEM IN!
