Love and Charity

Having lived in Sunnyside for most of my adult life, it was impossible not to become involved with street children, prostitutes and young drug addicts. Fifteen years ago it was a quiet retirement suburb, even my Grandmother lived there, things soon changed and turned this sunny town into a black hole. Sunnyside became Pretoia's 24 hour Red Light district, a second Hillbrow. For a period of time we lived like missionaries amongst these kids, shared our home whilst making a study of their behavior. Today we still care for, and about them as we are unable to put this valuable experience behind us, knowing these children and youths to the core of their being, it has become a vision to shelter them, to provide a place called 'home', where they can find joy, peace and happiness.

Some people only shook their heads, but other shook us by the hand, told us, we were doing a wonderful job, they asked in amazement where does the kids come from. The truth is, a man on the streets, the kids called him ‘Pastor’, lived like a beggar among the many children on the pavements. He drove them around in his battered car to shelter them from the cold one Winter and asked the public, churches and businesses to help. He had the children singing for money instead of begging. Social Workers and NGO's slammed his 'work' as unethical and abusive, they argued that he was unemployed and used the children to his own advantage. Some of the children came to me through him. Other children heard about us on the streets, some as young as eight years old, the children also brought friends home to visit, they ended up staying and eventually they’d become part of the family. No doubt we longed for some kind of escape to something simpler, our family life was so complicated back then. There always seemed to be someone expecting something from us. There were times when the responsibility and pressure of our chosen path rested heavily on us and all joy was darkened by their endless arguing and complaints.

They would drive me to the edge, tested my patients, begged me, urked me for the impossible. I'd lock myself in the bedroom for a little rest and quiet and wished for some freedom. And as always when I withdrew, they broke windows, threw stones, mugged people, sniffed glue and used drugs.

Very soon I realised, if their emotional security is threatened in any way they would immediately resort back to destructive habits. It is the only way they learned to deal with emotion. We constantly had to replace what the kids stole for dope and glue and we had to carry basic necessities with us; razors, blades, any pills also vitamins, even batteries and the TV's remote control. Make-up and socks were never returned, our clothes often found in the wash, torn or with cigarette burn marks. Bed linen stained with dirty feet, reeked of urine.

Hardly anything the house wasn't plastic, broken, chipped, cracked, glued, nailed down or simply growing in the garden. There were times when I silently observed my house, taken apart during outbreaks of extreme anger and frustration, sparked by a single word or action, fueled by the craving for some drug. Despondent I’d stand by and make sure that they don’t kill each other with the kitchen knifes they hide under their pillows at night. That being the only attention I'd give the situation, knowing that if I act upon this with outrage or sympathy, they would do it

more often, they thrive on any attention, and will do anything to get it. Afterwards I’d assess the damage. I’d be grateful that, this time, it was only a broken pot plant and a trashed hallway. Previous occasions it was the shower rail torn down, the bathroom cupboard kicked to pieces, the toilet seat broken in half, and coffee cups smashed on the kitchen floor, windows, mirrors and doors smashed and cracked. Times like these we swore we are going to give it up.

Dirty dishes and burned toast would clutter my head and sit in my throat, I am sure everyone else in the house felt the same way, but no one said anything. Discolored tinned food and stale bread made me sick to my stomach and I refused to eat, but that's all there was to give the children. We all became so tired of black coffee, soup and bread, margarine and milk was considered a luxury. Even toothpaste was a luxury, we brushed our teeth with salt for many months. Survival had become an effort.

When people came around to see the kids for the first time and bring donations, I always felt like hiding, knowing that very few people understood. Most came once and never again. One caring lady sat in her car for a hour and cried, overhelmed by the hordes of children. A pretencious man suggested a once off cleaning team, "the house is filthy" he said, straight forward. Our faces burned with shame. We did not tell him that we have a daily team of hired help. We wonder, if he had to take in 34 street children for only 1 day, what would his clean Eastern Suburbs, house look like?

We gave our entire income, dedicated our life’s to the street children, we shared our house, car, money, even given away our underwear. We had no privacy, no intimacy, nothing that was just ours - not even time. He was my only source of inspiration and comfort, and the person who had a supportive hand in all my activities.

Too many nights I worked late, aiming to increase the knowledge of the realities of Streetkids in South Africa to as many families as possible. Months spend preparing proposals and working out service plans to present to the Government to help the children. He'd come home after an eight hour working day and make dinner, bath our own kids, put them to bed and read them a story. He'd patiently rub my aching shoulders and kiss my headache away and then he'd go to bed - alone. Beginning to feel tired all the time, a ragdoll falling asleep anywhere, I was becoming more and more unavailable to him, while caring for the children with all the energy I could muster every waking moment.

Understandably, he felt left out. He is a gentle person, kind at heart - polite in every way. I never sensed his resentment of having to support not only our kids but also those of others. He withdrew from me and the children, one blue morning he argued that he saw no meaning in our togetherness anymore. I never expected this. Was I too busy pleasing everyone?

A country song: "It's a fine time to leave me…" kept coming into my head. I felt he was moving on to higher ground and I was left behind, stuck in an unpleasant place. Deserted and deeply distressed, I found myself boken to the ground, on my knees, flat on my face, drenched with tears, at the feet of God. His presence was awesome as He listened attentively. Gracious as He is, He gave me something to hold on to - the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit to comfort my tormented soul. Today I realise that all that had happened was in His planning. Would I have sought a relationship with Him If I was not completely alone?

"Put no more confidence in mortals. What are they worth?" Isaiah 2:22. There was nothing left, other than to believe in an unseen God. His power was within me, I felt the rush and I just knew I could trust Him, a spiritual journey began. To this day, to me, the book of ISAIAH, is the most beautiful. I found hope and peace in almost every single chapter and made it my own. Isaiah 54:5 "Your Creator will be like a husband to you- The Lord Allmighty is His name. The Holy God of Isreal will save you- He is the ruler of all the world."

Although I never imagined my life without the man I thought to be my soul mate, it was time to restructure my dreams, and to continue the mission - alone if I must. Isaiah 58:7 "Share your food with the hungry and open your homes to the homeless and poor."Watching 34 children sleep the night I made a firm commitment to continue with this important task.

Even if it didn't seem logical, I accepted his decision to end the relationship, thinking that I have come too far, suffered too much, for these children. The kids evoked such immense dearness within me, even when they have done something so very wrong, I'd hold them and tell them - "It's allright, everything is going to be allright" I can't give up now! I have too hold on. To What? Many times in my dark lonely room I wondered; "what am I holding on to?"

Later, as I was beginning to miss his dedication that powered me to fight every day, I realised that my life was better with him than without him. For moments only, to save my relationship, I'd consider giving up the kids. I wanted a chance to have a normal life, this could be it! But how could I ever consider my happiness above theirs? Sending them back to where they came from, the streets, hotels, drugs, abuse, neglect, fear…. So sure they would suffer a miserable fate, I gave up some of my own personal dreams, believing it was the right thing to do. Yet I felt trapped and miserable.

The kids filled my mind and empty spaces in many ways, amid the endless toil, there was also joy, a feeling of great abundance. Eventhough I felt weary and needed to recharge, I always thought I could do more, be more patient, more compassionate, more… always more. When one of them crept in under my arm, hugged me and told me that he/she loves me, and I knew, they have longed to tell that to some one for probably so very long.

Their fears and insecurities and the reason for them being there made me want to break down and cry with them, my heart swelled to the size of Gauteng, and I wished I could help them all. Putting their own problems aside they also had concern for us. All the children made a combined effort and urged my husband and I to sort out the problem between us. They did not even realise they were the problem! "Please think clearly before you make the biggest mistake of your life."Antonie wrote: "You are like a mother and father to us. We love you both and have seen how it is when parents break up and we don't want it for you."

In the end we convinced the man I love with all my heart. I had to promise to make more time for him and considered it a small price to pay. After careful calculations, weighing the pro's and con's, and as a means to have time for ourselves and mend our relationship, he suggested we buy the kids a house to live in apart from our own.

November 2004: The longer children are exposed to street life, the more difficult it is to rehabilitate them. Eventhough they think and feel and have needs, like any other child, they have become accustomed to the 'freedom' of coming and going, falling asleep late, getting up when the sun is high, and contineously smoking dope and sniffing glue. These things are natural to them, they can not imagine their lives otherwise. Allthough they all want a place to stay, I am not sure that they are willing to let go of these behaviors or to work, take responsibility and earn the right to a place they can call home.

People said the house is a “drug hole”. .On more than one occasion the house was searched, dogs and police men every where. They never found anything. Some of the men in uniform actually got to know us and things went better. Other Police officers searched the children on the streets, take them to the police cells where they are held for hours and interrogated with questions such as: “what do you have to do for Sue to live there”. Often they cause confusion and fear convincing the children of an arrest at some point, as they have “a thick file of evidence”. Even rumors of “a Syndicate trafficking with children” are followed up by the Welfare Department and the Scorpions. With these kinds of accusations few were willing to sponsor us.

Once we had enough furniture and cutlery to fill 3 houses, these days we hardly had anything that wasn’t broken or plastic, chipped, cracked, full of glue, or growing in the garden. The welfare came around, and suggested that the environment was not ideal for babies to grow up in. What should I have done? What would they have done? Have they a solution to the streetkids problem? Isn’t my problem actually theirs?

We moved them to Roseville, Pretoria. But things weren't getting easier. The Department of Education tried to find a school that would accept these children, to no avial. Almost all the children have not been in school most of the year, it was October 2001, the search was hopeless. Home schooling was the only option we had. More people came on board wanting to help and teach the children. With our minds and hearts set on the idea of teaching the kids things and thus, eventually restore their sense of human dignity as valuable, fully-fledged,self-supportive members of society one day, classes started.

But we experienced it as a terrible time. Educating them was exhausting, actually, virtually impossible. The two sisters could not let the HIV lessons continue fluently without some explicit language of sex and drugs and ending their contribution with a song they thought was very funny, such as " Hey you, don't be silly, put a condom on your willy and f*<# for your country"

The youngest of the girls burned her life's skills book after an argument with her sister and the other ripped hers to shreds. The third girl sat quietly in her corner, reluctant to participate, fuming and staring at the others from underneath her fringe. Most of the boys took to the road as soon as they see books appear. Group discussions turned to fits of anger, tears and destruction, eventually we gave up.

The following year the Department took special care and placed 7 of the children in a high school. One by one they left school, not knowing how to persevere. Only one boy completeted Grade 10 that year. He was also re-united with his family, that motivation enough to stay.

Although I agree, education is important, I also know this to be true - to be encouraged to learn, you have to see some kind of future for yourself, because loveless, who could dare to belief in oneself? They saw no future, felt no love. They have been treated badly all their lives by many people, they were use to it, but true to their nature as soon as they felt the sting of deep rejection, they would continue with old habits.

For Love and Charity

The kids were impossible the newspapers were told. They play chicken with on coming cars in the road, they jumped from the roof into the swimming pool, they begged at houses and sniffed glue on street corners, they dressed like hookers and swore worse than jail birds – and that is where they belong – in jail – it was said. They are rubbish. News papers reported that they are a bunch of evil doers and that there are complaints of prostitution.

Bad publicity dried up the sponsors we had, things were getting worse. Did people want me to leave them in the streets like rubbish? Remembering a poem: "Born yesterday, to be cast away tomorrow. Nobody loves them" People love fairy tales, this became a horror story no one would support. What ever happened to 'love they neighbor'?

While we were at work one day, disaster struck by the flame of a match. The younger ones had no money to buy glue, the neighborhood ignored their begging hands. They got hold of petrol and sniffed that. Tired of the petrol smell the older kids apparently wanted to teach the younger ones a lesson.

All happened so fast, the care giver intervened minutes too late. One child fell to the ground as he was set alight, the other two got away. The police came around, ambulance, paramedics, cops, neighbors. I got there last. People stood outside the gate, staring, whispering, even screaming accusations of neglect, the kids lack attention and authority, they said. So why were they not volunteering their time, I wondered.

Consumed with the responsibility of so many kids and the efforts I had to put in to provide for them I hardly had the energy to give these people any of my already divided attention. When attacked from all corners, hold on to the Word of God. "Listen to me, you that know what is right, who have my teachings fixed in your hearts. Do not be afraid when people taunt and insult you" Isa 51:7

On the pavement I saw him, shivering with shock, pain in his blue eyes but no tears, his face and upper body covered in huge watery blisters. Unable to hold him, I faced the heaven’s above: "Dear God, where would I find help?"

Not able to ignore one angry man's comment, I managed to spare a moment when he insisted that the kids should be removed from his neighborhood. Where too? "A rubbish dumb" he executed judgement, his breath in his nostrels, away from him and his family. "So", I said carefully, "Take them away, pretend they don't exist." Does he not realise that, if not helped now, these kids will infiltrate their precious suburb in less than 10 years, brake into their homes and cars, stand on their street corners?

Arguing with God that evening as to where my responsibilities starts and stops, I reminded Him that I have four children of my own. We took upon us the responsibility of caring for the streetkids because no one else wanted to. "How long can we continue this, dear Lord? We need your help!"

In December the pressure was on. The police, Welfare Department, Media, Neighbors and everyone else that had something to say, tried to grind us, pointed fingers, name calling, insinuations, accusations and questions. "Did you ask the neighborhood if you could start a Children's home here?" a man from the City Council asked looking stern, while making notes on his writing pad. Dear Sir, in the beginning of this year I did not set my mind on running a Children's home, I wished for peace and prosperity!

Stress was taking it's toll, for weeks I had flu. Weary and ill I made the suggestion to the kids to find other accommodation. The neighbors didn't want them there.The kids started looking around and had places in mind, but they didn't want to move. In the end darkness chased the children away. Over the Christmas period the power supply to the house was cut by an unknown person, and we were told the Electricity Department would only be able to attend to the problem after the long weekend.

An empty Government Building in Sunnyside, Pretoria, became their 'Haven' for a while. When the kids moved in their was only one man caring for the building. It had been empty for many years. More people moved in, as the children befriended them. Initially there were lights but no running water, accept in the fire extinguisher hoses. Management of The Technicon next door, arrogant and cruel, soon decided to close the power box to prevent anyone from connecting power, they did not want the children to live there, claiming that they had better plans with the buiding.

We continued the feeding program. Other organisations and caring individuals helped, others withdrew when more propoganda was spread and more serious allegations were made. Along with the food we took them candles every day, and buckets of water, untill the kids got clever and maneuvered the fire hoses to the bathrooms in the area of the building where they were sleeping. All this time we had no idea that we were watched night and day by camera men from Carte Blanch and Investigated by The Scorpions for alledged child trafficing and prostitution. The media soon refered to the children as 'squalor kids'. With all the media coverage the Government was forced to do something. When Welfare lost the battle after trying to negotiate a deal with the children a Provincial officer for Social Development finally threatened to have the kids and anyone "harbouring or allowing children to live" in the abandoned buidling arrested.

One night police clamped down the building with several police cars and trucks, the drug squad, dogs and armed police men stormed the building, kicking down doors. Terrified of being arrested, (that is still one thing that scares them) they took to the streets again, leaving behind the little they owned. Four boys were taken into custody. A member of the Child Abuse Action Group tried to help the kids. We were out of town, but when she phoned I suggested she take the little ones and girls back to the Roseville house. Neighbours heard the commotion and threatened to phone the police, one man chased them down the street with a car. They slept in the park that night, while we rushed home in the middle of the night.

Overnight the old De Villiers Hof hostel became home to atleast 250 vagrants, wide publicity advertised free accommodation. The children lost all they had, clothing furniture, food, even the expensive games and gifts a generous sponsor gave them for Christmas. It does not matter if children sleep under the stars, where no one sees them, as long as they don't sleep in a place where people become aware of them. Out of sight, out of mind, it seems.

The kids moved back to our home in Walker Street, Muckleneuk, one by one. Within months the number swelled to 34. Once again neighbours complained about noise and disturbance. An investigating visit from the shocked Estate Agent earned us a 24 hour eviction notice. We had no choice but to be out, most of the kids decided to go back to the streets, only one girl accepted a children's home placement by a Social Worker.

The kids taught me about a different life, and I’m not ungrateful for the lessons. Gratitude though, came in momental floods, there were no good days, and on bad days I felt completely overwhelmed. Some days were diamonds, most days were stone. No gold. In His own time, The Lord answered my prayers: Isaiah 52:22"The LORD your God defends you and says, "I am taking away the cup that I gave you in my anger. You will no longer have to drink the wine that makes you stagger. I will give it to those who oppressed you, to those who made you lie down in the streets and trampled on you as if you were dirt."

Although we have said never to take in street kids again, we did, one or two at a time, once we had four. We let them visit for a a short period of time. The kids are older now, but nothing else changed, they have grown accustomed to a certain way of life on the streets, and it is doubtful that we will be able to change any of those behaviors. The only difference we can make is introducing them to living for Christ, go to church, read the Bible, say a prayer at dinner table, play gospel music. We were never meant to make the changes, Jesus will, all we have to do is to plant the seed of hope.

ANSWERED PRAYERS 2006. In His own time, The Lord answered my prayers: Isaiah 52:22 "The LORD your God defends you and says, "I am taking away the cup that I gave you in my anger. You will no longer have to drink the wine that makes you stagger. I will give it to those who oppressed you, to those who made you lie down in the streets and trampled on you as if you were dirt." The righteous will be happy, and things will go well for them. They will be able to enjoy what they have worked for." Isaiah 3:11-12

The righteous will be happy, and things will go well for them. They will be able to enjoy what they have worked for." Isaiah 3:11-12 Our lives became easier, and slowly we started accumulating pretty things for our home again, the grass has grown, green and beautiful and flowers are blooming everywhere. Every year we see steady progress.

Sometimes when I see the kids, I get that old feeling of despondecy, and the Lord reminds me, that we are examples to them, "just be there for them." Encouraged and grateful I hold on to Isaiah 50:10 "...the path you may walk may be dark indeed, but trust in the Lord, rely on your God". I believe Isaiah 4:6: "His glory will shade the city from the heat of the day and make it a place of safety, sheltered from the rain and storm" for the street children.