The picture that won’t go away

I’ve been back from Rwanda for a couple of days now and I’ve been processing all I saw and did while I was there.  It was an incredible trip in so many ways!  (I feel like I’ve used ‘incredible’ way too many times to describe the trip.)  

There is one visual that just won’t get out of my head, though.  When we were at the street boys ministry; called the Dream Center, I noticed that quite a few of the street boys didn’t have a full set of clothes.  Many, many of them had only a t-shirt.  They would wear this t-shirt the best way they could to cover themselves properly.  These were, in a lot of cases, teen-aged boys who knew they wanted to be covered properly.

They would wear their t-shirt in an unusual way.  They would pull the neck part of the t-shirt up their legs and over their waist so that the neck would be at their belt line and the t-shirt would hang down to their knees.  How sad.

Again, though, these boys were full of smiles.  They loved seeing us and they loved interacting, hugging, and letting us love on them.  Truly amazing.

 

Street boys

We took a lot of things to give away to the street boys; flip flops, candy, clothes, etc.  But, as Paul Brasley put it later that night, I think those boys would have been just as happy to see us if we came empty handed but with hearts full of love.  Yes, they needed many of these physical items, but they craved loves, hugs, and smiles and the love of Jesus.