What about this one?

See that green gate straight ahead.

That’s ours.

(Yeah, the one that when you look closely, it kind of looks like a murder scene, with the smeared red paint all over it. For once - it wasn’t the children painting on something they shouldn’t – it was the landlord! And I’m not really sure what he was planning for that one, but I’m hoping the reason we have doodles on our gate is simply because the paint ran out).

Behind that gate is a large compound, twenty beds, piles of stinky shoes, a charcoal stove that almost always has a pot of beans boiling on it, and 13 boys who proudly put on Doors t-shirts every day as they go to school, eat 3 meals a day, play football, dance their hearts out, worship endlessly, and sleep each night under a roof.

Now I’d like you to direct your eyes to that big, rusty, red box on the right side of the picture. In Uganda, we call this a container. Containers usually make a home in Uganda after they’ve brought some sort of imported goods or shipments of donations. This one lives at the end of our driveway. This particular container is empty, but here you can find people living in containers, having workshops in containers, or even making restaurants out of these containers (they get creative!).

This rusty red container usually serves no great purpose. But in the past few months, it has become significant in my eyes. It started when I was on my way home one night and it was around 11pm. Most of Ggaba was already asleep. As the car’s lights hit the container, I saw the feet underneath the container.

Three pairs of dirty, beat up, cut, calloused, and fat feet.

Street kids.

They’re feet are easy to distinguish them by – not many people walk the amount that these kids do, in the places they do, without shoes.

The three children had wedged themselves between the container and the ground and were fast asleep.

I froze.

Mallory wants to pick them up, take them to that gate that’s 10 yards away, clean em up, feed them, and let them sleep.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. And I had to drive by reluctantly. I began asking around, very discreetly too. I wasn’t ready to find every boy in Ggaba dressed up like a street kid sleeping outside of our gate the next night.

They are young. The oldest one is 8. They’ve never been to the city, which is good, because that means they are sober. And it’s now been a month or two since I’ve started asking my questions, trying to get the truth of their stories.

I watch the man who sells scrap at the end of our street, who occasionally lets them sleep among the piles of scrap metal.

I hear from the bar tender at the corner a daily update of where they slept the night before, as she lets them come in in the morning and pick up the bottles to go and sell.

There’s a woman who sells vegetables outside of our house. She’s at work at 7am with her baby, leaving every night at 11pm. She struggles. Today I watched her split what little food she and her son had, with Joab, one of the boys. 

I’m watching them, and they are all looking at me.

And I do nothing.

Because behind that gate- there are no empty stomachs, and people are busting out of our home. There is no empty bed, and there are thirteen boys who used to sleep on the sidewalks of Kampala in rice sacks.

It’s kind of ironic. Nobody has told them that the boys that pass them and bring them food everyday used to be in their situation.

Because they’ve seen me do nothing, and they don’t want to get their hopes up.

I’ve searched my mind. I’ve prayed. But I’m not sure that I’m ready to turn our living room into another bedroom.

I feel like I should be able to do something, and as I watch my neighbors give what little they have to the boys, I feel them all looking at me. “Don’t you have a home that helps these children?” It’s the unspoken question.

I don’t know what to do. And I think that’s ok.

This is when people start saying, “You can’t help every child” as they try to comfort me. 

But I'm a big believer that ministry is simply loving the people that God puts right in front of you. 

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." -Matthew 25

"The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." -Mark 12:31

I don't know what God wants us to do. It seems pretty simple in the passages above. But it would be crazy right?! 

What about the finances? The beds? The space? The food? The 29 children who could camp outside of our gate the next night? 

But I think God is asking, "What about this one?" 

And so I'm asking back, "What about this one?"