I (Davis Rhodes, an Our Father’s House volunteer) was walking down one of the streets of Tarime in March of 2018 when I ran across Mathayo* sitting above a drainage ditch wearing filthy clothes and eating sugarcane. I was walking with Mwita, an Our Father’s House volunteer, and we stopped to talk to Mathayo for a few minutes. We didn’t learn much, but Mwita could tell that Mathayo was homeless. Not long after, Mwita introduced him to Moses, the Our Father’s House director. Moses followed up and learned that he was sleeping on the streets, or washing dishes in exchange for a place to sleep for the night. As Moses got to know Mathayo, he learned that Mathayo’s life had been pretty good until his parents split up. Mathayo and his mother had moved to Tarime (over 50 miles from Mathayo’s father), and that arrangement had worked until his mother remarried. The stepfather did not want Mathayo living with them, and Mathayo had found himself with nowhere to live and no way to get back to his father.
Once Moses got to know Mathayo well enough, he asked if they could visit his father. Mathayo agreed. The visit went well; the father did want him back and was able to care for him. Not long after, Moses reunited Mathayo with his father permanently, and helped navigate the bureaucracy to get Mathayo into a school in the area. Since then, he has followed up with them twice to make sure that the situation is strong. After visiting Mathayo on this last Thursday (12/20), Moses said,
“Today I was with Mathayo at their place and we talked about many things. Here in the picture (below) he is with his friends. He has much happiness and he is doing well with his studies. They did exams and he was place 19 out of 97 students and I am happy to hear and to see how he has put much effort. This young man has returned to school and even though he missed a lot he has done very well.”
Thank you, friends, for doing so much to help Mathayo. Let’s keep this up in 2019. You can give at: https://secure3.convio.net/gbgm/site/SPageNavigator/gbgm_donate.html?eeetype=1001&project=3022420
Thank you,
Davis Rhodes
Our Father’s House Volunteer
*all child names have been changed
Our Father's House 