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

     Gati* and Chacha’s father has a hard time providing for his family, since half of his body is paralyzed. After a few years, his wife left, leaving the family in even worse shape. Gati and Chacha kept eating small meals, skipping meals, and finally dropped out of school because they couldn’t afford the uniforms. After several months of this, they decided to try their luck on the streets.

     Things turned out to be worse on the streets. They didn’t get much more food, but lost the shelter that they had had at home, and had to steal scrap metal in exchange for the little food they got. Forming a habit of stealing at this young age would have set them on this path for their whole lives, which would have led to routine imprisonment.

     They knew that if they returned home their father would beat them badly, as punishment for running away from home. They were stuck.

     Good news; you donated enough in 2018 to enable us to hire Moses Nyamhanga full-time as the Our Father’s House coordinator. He has been devoting more and more time to his job as a result, and met Gati and Chacha after they had been on the streets for only a few weeks. He earned their trust and got to know their story. Finally, they agreed to let Moses take them back to their father. Moses held a family counseling meeting with the whole family, and explained to their father that he should not beat them for running to the streets. He learned about the challenges that had driven the children to the streets in the first place, and talked with the family about how Our Father’s House could help the family to overcome these challenges and stay together. One concrete action they decided on was that Our Father’s House would provide school uniforms to help Gati and Chacha return to school this coming January.

Thank you, friends, for doing so much to help Gati and Chacha. 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

     We’ve had a hard time helping 15-year-old Gotifrey*. The habit of stealing scrap metal, by which so many homeless youth survive, seemed almost impossible for him to break. The Our Father’s House brick business hired him, but he worked only one day before going back to scrap metal. Returning him to his own family wasn’t an option, as his father had left and his mother had died. Uniting him with a foster family hadn’t worked; no one would accept a boy with a habit of stealing.

     Gotifrey did have an older brother, Rafael. When their mother had died, Rafael had gotten a job burning music. It paid almost nothing, but it kept him off the streets. Things changed one day when Rafael started working for the Our Father’s House brick business. He made a little more money and rented a larger place, so Gotifrey could stay with him. Gotifrey no longer needed to steal as much scrap metal. This gave him a chance to break the habit (photo credit: Shelby Cook).

      Around this time (September 2018), Our Father’s House hired Moses Nyamhanga full-time as the new Director. Since Moses could put more time into his work, he got to know Gotifrey better. He could tell Gotifrey wanted to stop stealing, and he knew a family in town who owned a small restaurant. Moses asked Gotifrey if he would like to wash dishes at this restaurant instead of stealing. Gotifrey jumped at the opportunity, and he has been working there ever since. Here he is, hanging out with a couple other homeless youth.

      A year ago, an Our Father’s House volunteer took me (Davis Rhodes, OFH volunteer) around town, after dark, to see the children sleeping on the streets. One of the children we saw was Gotifrey, sleeping under an overhanging roof on a slab of concrete. I remember feeling so frustrated that we couldn’t help him. A year later, he has a place to sleep and has broken his habit of stealing. Thank you, friends, for making this happen.

Hello friends!
A quick update on one of the Our Father’s House youth. He has been reunited with a family for awhile now, but we are continuing to follow up with him, ensuring that he does not return to the streets.
An Our Father’s House volunteer, named Mwita, went to visit him, and things seem to be going well. He is living with a new foster family. This started with him hanging out at their house, even sleeping there sometimes. Eventually, they asked him if he wanted to live there. They asked the foster mother who he was with, and she agreed.
Mwita said that this is a better situation for him, partially because the new family is wealthier, but more importantly, because they are home more often. His previous foster mother had to work all day selling vegetables in the market, which meant he was left on his own a lot. At this house, the mother stays home, takes care of the children, and runs the store. It’s better for him not be alone so much- sometimes that can lead these youth to return to the streets.

A snippet from their conversation:
Mwita: “Have you had any challenges with him?”
New Foster Mom: “Just the normal challenges of a child. He is not a bad child”
(later)
Mwita: “You know, many children on the streets aren’t orphans. They have many relatives nearby. Even this one, his relatives are here in Tarime.”
New Foster Mom: “Yeah, I even know some of them. I’ve talked to them, they are surprised. ‘That child?’, they say, ‘That child has defects, he is a thief.’ Ever since I’ve been living with him, I haven’t seen any of that. He has the behavior of a normal child. Do you think I would let him help manage my store if he was a thief?”

He did ask Mwita if we could move him to a different school.
It should be possible, and we will get to work on it.