Ears and Brains

(Late in posting....but still good) 

Last night, I body slammed a child.

Ears wasn’t the one with the knife, but he is much bigger than Brains. So Brains’ attempts to slash and stab were now being overwhelmed by Ears’ attack. What had started as Ears’ self-defense was now a full blown attack on Brains. 

It was one of the moments that you react before your brain has really caught up to what’s happening…

One child body slammed and locked in a head lock, 

A snatch of the knife that was being feebly swung through the air, 

A knife in one hand and that arm fending off Brains as he tried to attack, Ears head-locked in the other arm trying with all of his might to break free of my hold. 

About ten visitors had just walked in for our weekly Saturday night worship night, wanting to help but not really sure what is really going on. A big brother who runs in and grabs Brains, another big brother who steps in and grabs Ears, and an uncle who takes the knife from my shaking hand. 

Two big brothers, Ears, Brains, and myself walk into a classroom as Ears and Brains are still screaming at each other. We all sit down and I watch as the Big Brothers just totally handle it. 

They let them tell their stories. 

“He wouldn’t share his food with me, so I attacked him.” - Brains’ simple answer, no regret on his face. 

Ears is sobbing. Both are relatively new to our family. Brains came in about two months ago, and Ears had only been with us for one week. 

Big brothers talk it out with Ears and Brains (whom both are now crying), they ask them to apologize, they give Brains a punishment, they pray over them, and send Brains out to go and join worship….I didn’t say a word. I didn’t need to. I was frantically trying to hide my tears as I was having vivid flashbacks to how many meetings I’ve had with these Big Brothers where they were the ones getting talked to, and in simple awe of the men that they are.

And all this is happening with about 30 people piled in our living room worshipping. 

Ears begins to walk out, and I grabbed his hand and asked if he was okay. He collapses in my lap, weeping. 

One week since being in our home…one week of food, clothes, a bed, a family… 

I just held him because I don’t know if anybody had ever held him before while he cried. 

The rest of the night was perfectly normal. Ears is laughing, playing, worshipping, and quite happy. The next morning, Ears is gone. 

Another argument with Brains, and he flees. 

Brains is not an evil child. He is broken just like the rest of us. Brains has a story. A story that he hasn’t shared. A story that has been lied about, to the point where we as a staff, aren’t even sure what his real name is. Ears knew Brains’ story. 

Ears had heard what had happened to Brains a few months back, but didn’t know the name of the street child that he was telling stories about. We saw the recognition in Brains’ face as he knew - that we knew - that Ears was talking about Brains, even if Ears didn’t know it was Brains he was talking about. 

Brains was threatened, and a child that hasn’t had any problem making friends, quickly made an enemy. Ears had a story that Brains didn’t want told. 

Ears’ only question coming home with us was “Will the other boys beat me?” 

So many questions have torn threw my brain in the past 24 hours - of punishment, of forgiveness, of second chances, of God’s will, of bringing darkness into the light - as we struggle with the feeling that we failed a child and how to respond to Brains.

Unfortunately, I have seen kids run away. I have seen them expelled. I have seen drug addictions grab their hands and drag them from home and back to the streets. I’ve never seen a child run away because he was bullied. I’ve never seen a child flee from our home because he didn’t feel safe. 

The nitty-gritty doesn’t get written about often enough. I was going to wait until I had a pretty ending to this story to write about it. But that’s not really depicting life correctly. Life is messy. Life comes at us with hurt and pain. So I’m not going to bring you a pretty ending, at least not now, just ask you guys to pray for both Brains and Ears. As well as our staff, that we would act justly and love with mercy and walk humbly and that questions never stop our praise. 

****** I did wait until I had a pretty ending to this story to post it. Tonight I was sitting on our front porch and I heard a faint whisper of "Aunt Mallory?" coming from our bushes. Ears came back, repentant of leaving, asking for a second chance, and was welcomed back with many hugs, cheers, and laughs. #Redeemer .

NEWS

I have so much to say, yet I have no words.  There are no words that can adequately describe what has happened in the past few months. Change and movement we have been praying for for the past three years has begun.

However, I haven’t done a good job in using my words to keep people informed. Soo here we go….

The DOORS home has moved , however not everybody has moved with it.  Our caretakers (2 uncles, 2 aunts) and our nine youngest boys have a new home on top of a hill that overlooks all of Ggaba. It’s really not pretty at all….. kidding. It came with three HUGE bedrooms for the boys, a full garden, a blooming jackfruit tree, perfect living quarters for uncles and aunts, a playground!, a landlord who happens to be the local governing authority and now calls us his sons and daughters (favooooooor), and more peace than you can ever imagine. In many ways, it is our Canaan. 

The only problem is our fence has some holes in it, and our dogs can escape out of the compound. 

But Roofus is adjusting well to the transition. 

We added two new faces this past week - and we are looking on adding definitely one more before school starts. It always amazes me how Jesus speaks.He is Sovereign. 

Oh yeah - we have new beds. THANK YOU GUYS!!!!!!

The one more is a boy that we have been working with on the streets for three years. He has a very bad drug addiction, but in spite of that, we have decided that God is leading us to bring him on home and that he needs a change of environment to have a change of lifestyle. 

We have hired a new house mom for the DOORS home - who is an absolute rock star. She is everything we ever prayed for and more. As well as, our two uncles are men who are after God’s own heart - and we see that leadership reflected in our boys. The first night we moved into our new home, our now oldest boy in the home stayed awake until midnight cleaning the kitchen, and then woke up at 6 am to finish, because “We couldn’t cook our first meals in a dirty kitchen.” 

One half of the FORMER doors home is transitioning into DOORS mission school. We are expanding our homeschool classroom into a school. All of our DOORS boys will be schooling from this school, as well as a few kids from the community who also need a rehabilitative education. 

Our former bedrooms are now classrooms. We have hired new teachers, a new headmistress, and are putting beautiful systems in place that have been lacking in our homeschool classroom. 

The other half of the former DOORS home, is now the JOSHUA home. We believe that a word that is specifically spoken over our oldest boys is that they will be the leaders within DOORS ministries one day - and we have lots of praise for that! The Joshua home is a home that is teaching independence, leadership, and more opportunities for service. This was CLEARLY exemplified last week, as we had a team from TEAMeffort missions serving with us, and our Joshua boys led their time of service on the streets. 

As they have all reached the legal age of 18, and nothing can be given to them and they aren’t allowed to live in a children’s home…..our four oldest boys now becoming our “Joshua’s.”  The Joshua Home works off of a point system where the young men serve as ministry interns and receive points each week by completing ministry related tasks that help build their budget for the home. The more points they earn, the more their weekly budget can increase. 

The idea is to create independence by teaching the boys how to work for what they need in life, fight as sense of entitlement that often grows in children’s homes as kids go from having nothing to having everything given to them, give the boys much experience in ministry and job training as we can, and empower leaders. The Joshua home is facilitated by two younger men who have jobs and are living out the Christian life in a way that is an example to the young men within the home. The boys are no longer being babysat, but still have strong discipleship and leadership over their lives.

These pictures are from three years ago.... it's crazy how fast they grow up. The mom-in-me wants to be sad, but my heart is swamped with so much love and I am so proud of them that I really don't have any room for anything else. 

I personally haven’t felt as excited through this transition as I thought I would. When you see everything you have been dreaming about coming to fruition you think there would be some words to go with that? My only words have been sweet words to Jesus. Not praise because He has been faithful to His promise, but PRAISE because He has taught me that He is faithful whether we see fruit in His promises or we are still waiting.  

I just desire every ounce of my love for Him to be FOR Him, and not in what He says He is going to do for me. Promises come and reach completion and go.  His character is rich. It is an abundant place for us to fall. It is deep. It is wild. It is steadfast.