My family doesn’t have manners.
7 out of 8 of our kids fell asleep in church yesterday.
They walk around covered in dirt, not changing their clothes.
Most of the time they don’t wear shoes when walking around Kampala.
They throw trash everywhere on the street or in someone’s yard.
They will take my cell phone and waste all my airtime calling random people.
They address most people as GWE! (YOU!) not by name.
They are SO loud, all the time.
Our kids love any and all things metal. They will chew on them. Poke you with them. Hide them. Sell them. Collect them - no matter how dirty that metal is.
They will stop in the middle of the street and just start dancing.
A few of them just learned how to say please and thank you today.
All these things are ‘bad manners’ here.
But here’s the thing...
Our homeless kids LOVE to go to church, they love to sit with us in church, and they love to WORSHIP. (falling asleep in church is inevitable if you sleep on the streets)
Our homeless kids put money in the offering.
They may not say thank you when a waitress brings them food, but it’s because nobody ever taught them how to say thank you. However, they do say THANK YOU to Yesu all the time.
They may ask for Jungle boots instead of school shoes, or insist on Timberlands...but eventually they are grateful for what they get.
We argued about who is going to bless the food at dinner tonight, because too many of them wanted to pray.
None of them have slept in a bed in years, but when we were one bed short today, everyone was willing to share.
Our homeless kids want to help other street kids.
Our homeless kids haven't been homeless for awhile. They've been in the Kingdom, and there's not a better place to be. But tonight, they also have a roof over their heads. Five of them are sleeping at their new school where they are now boarding students. The other three are gearing up for homeschooling to start Thursday. Tonight we did gymnastics in the yard, followed by yoga, followed by an abdominal workout, followed up by a Bible study on the front steps of our house. Our kids are living, not just living to survive, and all praise to the Father for every bit of that.
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