How we first met them

This is how we first met the street children, in spring 2008. On our visit to Kasese with missionary friends, one day we were taken round about eight schools. We were greeted with smiling faces, singing and dancing, meeting the teachers, signing the Visitors' Book, etc.
Then our guide, Rev. Nelson Isebagheen, said, "There's just one more place I want to take you."
By then we were hot, very tired, and longing to go home for a cup of tea. "Oh, no!" we grumbled. "Now what?"
And that was when we met this group of street children, with Enos Kyibibi who befriended them. No cheerful smiling faces here, no singing and dancing. These faces were etched with bitterness; these youngsters had experienced suffering.
One of them read a statement, describing their lives, and why they were on the streets. Orphaned, or badly abused so that they ran away; now living in a gang for mutual support. Finding scraps of food on the rubbish dumps. On the edge of petty crime, often rounded up by the police and jailed.
But sometimes, he said, a lady gives them a job, like sweeping a shop front, and pays them with food. "That lady is our mother for that day!" he said.
We were deeply moved. "I want to be their mother every day!" said Mary - mother of four children - afterwards.
And when we heard of Enos's vision for a hostel, for shelter and decent food, for education and skill training, we decided to come on board!
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