Seeds Begin to Sprout

On Sunday, Laura and I packed into a Land Cruiser and headed for a church in Intaca, a small rural community about an hour outside of Maputo. The entire excursion was about six hours long, much of which was driving along abusive muddy roads and narrow thornbush-lined footpaths.

It would have taken less time had we known exactly where to go, but with roads that don't have names, in a village that doesn't have maps, in a community spotted with caniço home after caniço home, everything looks the same. And all roads seemed to lead to one particular building with peeling white paint.

From that intersection, we tried every possible direction. Straight, left, right -- every attempt led back to that familiar peeling white paint. Frustration mounted as everybody in the car had different advice on where to turn next. It didn't take long to realize that everybody was long on opinions but short on knowledge.

Once we had finally extricated ourselves from the quagmire of muddy paths, we found Intaca church. We were very late, but church hadn't yet started. In fact, nobody seemed to know what time it was supposed to start; people start walking from their homes when they hear that singing has started. Olga, the pastor's wife, gave us a tour of a sewing training centre that she and her husband operate.

Laura and I wanted to visit Intaca because Olga and her husband Ricardo are looking for ways to partner with Semente Para A Comunidade -- the Portuguese name that Mario and Samuel gave to our economic development program -- to increase the number of sewing machines that they have in order to meet demand for their training program.

These sewing machines are the old-fashioned peddle kind that don't require electricity. The women use them to learn to make school uniforms for their children and decorative linens to sell in local markets.

* * * * *

Mario and Samuel hitched a ride with us part-way. They were headed to Khongolote church to invite congregants to an inaugural village-based savings and loan program meeting next Saturday. Because they asked, I decided that we could again break the rules and give them a ride, saving them a two- or three-hour minibus ride. But I didn't want to be at the church for the meeting: it is their program. Afterwards, Mario and Samuel reported significant interest from the church.

Another opportunity for the Semente Para A Comunidade program (which literally means Seed for the Community, reflecting the potential for economic growth) started taking root when Samuel recently met with a local bakery run by a Christian woman. She is tired of employees who cheat and steal, and whose drinking the night before makes their morning work less than productive. She is looking for opportunities to partner with Semente to provide employment opportunities to church members. Samuel and Mario, through the Semente program, would be responsible for providing Biblically-based moral standards training.

These ideas are slightly divergent from what I had originally envisioned for the program, but that doesn't make them bad. They provide an avenue for the church to be a good witness to the community; they also conform with the program's vision of removing barriers to economic development for church members.

These are the exciting ideas that spring up when Mozambicans are empowered to have control over their own program rather than merely being implementing agents of a foreignly-concocted scheme.

A Corrupt Chicken And A Broken Egg

Corruption is a risk wherever there are people vying for positions of power; that is to say, it is a problem in every corner of this Earth.

According to Transparency International, a watch-dog dedicated to reporting on corrupt practices, 99 countries do a better job at fighting corruption than does Mozambique.

That's not great. It's not even good. But it's not surprising given that the organization argues that there is a strong correlation between poverty and corruption.

There is a positive spin to the story: if corruption and poverty are positively correlated, then Mozambique is less corrupt than its poverty ranking implies it ought to be. By comparison, the UN's Human Development Index ranks 168 countries ahead of Mozambique.

Many people assume that, if poverty and corruption are positively correlated, then one must cause the other: that corruption causes poverty, or perhaps poverty causes corruption.

There are consequences to either interpretation.

To suggest that corruption causes poverty implies a moral flaw in the people of poor countries. They are inherently corrupt, and because of it they suffer poverty. This is dangerously close to arguing that the poor deserve to be poor; that their poverty is their own doing.

The converse is that people in poverty feel that they have little choice but to be corrupt in order to feed themselves and their families. But this interpretation allows people to shirk responsibility for their corrupt acts. We'll stop being corrupt when we stop being poor.

The government of Mozambique opposes this latter interpretation, but to others it is compelling. Not that people ought to have their corrupt acts excused because of their poverty, but that the civil society institutions that serve to uncover corruption require some degree of social infrastructure more readily available in wealthy countries in order to be effective guardians of society. A base level of education for all citizens, for example, would empower the citizenry to realize the social and economic harm that corruption causes, and stand up against it.

* * * * *

The stereotypical image of corruption involves a government bureaucrat accepting a briefcase full of cash in exchange for some favourable act. And sometimes this is true. Mozambique has certainly experienced some lavish examples of alleged corruption and cover-up.

In reality, a lot of bribery is more subtle. It can even sneak up on the unwitting participant, and it's not always easy to stand up against.

I was recently riding in a car with a colleague when he was pulled over by a police officer standing on the road's shoulder. After having been detained at the side of the road for 30 minutes, it was becoming increasingly clear that the police officer would not let us go without paying her 500 meticais ($20) on the spot. When my colleague rightfully protested, asking instead for her to write a ticket that he could later pay at the police station, the officer delayed further.

He eventually capitulated and paid the officer the 500 meticais that she demanded, which almost certainly constituted a bribe. We can't be sure she pocketed the money, but the scenario clearly fails the sniff-test of petty corruption.

I felt badly for hours afterwards, not because the driver had complied with the demands of the officer, but because we had done so in the presence of Mario, a Mozambican colleague. We modeled complacency -- even acceptance -- of corruption in a country trying to fight itself free of the grip of this scourge.

The next day, Mario expressed feeling guilty for having participated in a corrupt act.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether poverty necessitates corruption, or corruption leads to poverty. In reality, both are probably causally linked to some broader complex system.

Whatever the cause, poverty and corruption are inextricably linked. If more people were like Mario, a poor Mozambican with a heart to improve his country, Mozambique would quickly rise up the ranks of Transparency International's scale and rid itself of corruption.

Tired

A sun is setting on a common criminal.

The gathered crowd forces an old car tire around his neck.

A spark is lit, then a blazing fire.

Hearts pound to the rhythm of drips of flaming rubber hitting the ground below.

Screams of pain echo past the crowd's silent relief.

Justice and injustice are fused together in this most awful crucible. Where guilt ends and innocence begins, no one is quite sure anymore.

This tragic scene could be cut from the Civil Rights era, or from South Africa's struggle to loosen the noose of apartheid.

Lessons have been passed on from one oppression-weary generation to another.

But this scene comes from present-day Mozambique, brought about by desperate neighbours frustrated by the height of crime. And frustrated by the inaction -- or outright complicity -- of the justice system. Police officers are accused of being paid off by criminals in exchange for front-door prison breaks.

Mozambique is tired.

* * * * *

Give me your cell phone.

As Samuel told me of his experience at the Xipamanine market this morning, he recounted being slow to understand the boy's request. I like my cell phone, he thought to himself. I want it.

I want to keep my cell phone, he said out loud to the boy's repeated request.

You don't understand, the boy said. And very quickly, Samuel did understand.

Just as quickly, there were six boys where the first had stood alone. Samuel was surrounded, then on the ground. A fist struck his jaw, and a knife cut somewhere through the confusion.

As Samuel recounted the story, he still wore a shirt with two slashes in the back and one on the left shoulder. A plastic bag held more destroyed clothing, but luckily the knife didn't penetrate deep. Samuel's skin will heal.

His fear welled up; so did his eyes. He cried for his clothing, for his cell phone. And he cried for his country. Mozambique, he said to me, shaking his head, braving a smile.

Samuel is tired.

His cell phone has been taken. It will cost a month's salary to replace, unless he goes to the black market to buy a stolen one. Those are the choices he faces: a month's salary, or reward the crime of his attackers.

A rich benefactor buys him a new cell phone to dull the pain of the loss. I don't mind. The cell phone may be a month's salary for him, but for me it's just a fraction of what I keep hidden in my sock drawer.

* * * * *

Xipamanine market is crowded with people, but nobody sees Samuel's attackers. Not a person helps. Not a person notices.

Today, the thieves slip safely into anonymity. If they attack another, they may not be so lucky. Eventually, the community will rise up with matches and an old car tire. A series of petty thefts will turn into the irony called vigilante justice.

Mozambique is tired.

Slaying Apathy

We can't help but stare need in the face. And I must admit that sometimes it is tiring. It's tiring looking like the rich man in a poor country. Tiring being the rich man in a poor country.

And sometimes that fatigue crosses the line into the deadly territory of apathy.

I briefly stumbled across that line yesterday.

A young man stopped me on the side of the road and asked for some food. "I don't need money," he said, "I'm hungry. I have AIDS, and I take free anti-retrovirals from Doctors Without Borders, but I don't have food."

He pulled out a card that documents his illness, but the proof was in his sunken, hollowed out face. He was definitely ill.

And yet that little fraud-busting voice whispered a protest in my head. The one that is well-atuned to scams in Canada. The one that has decided that every story I hear on the street is spun in an effort to rip me off.

I nearly walked away. I even told him that I hadn't anything for him.

I could have walked away. I could have gone home, emptied my pockets of my coins and stacked them on my bedroom dresser where they would sit unused. I could have spent an extra ten minutes sitting at my computer working on well-intentioned micro-enterprise something-or-other, theorizing about how I could improve the lives of those unfortunate people around me.

Or, just as likely, I could have used the time to read one more article in today's newspaper.

But then who would have helped him?

Fortunately for that young man, my apathy was washed away by a shower of better judgment. How can you sit comfortably in your office and make plans for rescuing these people if you won't even look this man in the eye and offer him the assistance he's requesting?

That was the voice of God. I could nearly feel His hand reaching down from the heavens and grabbing me by the shirt collar.

It's not like I don't do anything, I protested. Isn't that why I'm here? Earlier this week I even bought a bushel of bananas just to leave beside the garbage dumpster so that the scavengers would have a decent meal. I'm doing good, aren't I?

I didn't need to ask this man what consolation it would be to him that I had helped someone else another day. He needed my help right then, and I was able to provide it. Perhaps I had to modify my schedule a little, and perhaps there would even be a moment or two of discomfort, but it was my turn to help.

Ok, I'll help, I conceded to my better judgment.

We walked together to a supermarket to purchase some food staples. Inside, the ghost of a man gathered enough strength to pick up a large bag of flour. The kind that is made of burlap so that it doesn't split open and spill its contents all over the aisle of the store. Large enough to feed him for a month, he told me.

We agreed on a smaller bag of flour, and added a bag of beans, and a bottle of cooking oil. If the large bag of flour would have fed him for a month, our new purchases should feed him for a week, but I think that exaggerates the quantity of my help. He would make it last a week, is more likely.

Something rose up within me today to slay the apathy that I felt. It's not being too dramatic to suggest that had it not been defeated, my apathy could very possibly have slayed this young man.

And I would have had an extra $4 on my dresser, and an additional ten minutes to put my feet up in the comfort of my padlocked apartment.

Sitting On My Hands

My morning plans have been thwarted. I was planning on going with Samuel and Mario to a series of meetings with important people in Khongolote, where they are implementing the first village-based savings and loan program. Mario and Samuel have been making their rounds, going from government office to government office, trying to get approvals here and permits there.

In Mozambique, it's a bad idea to begin any project without the knowledge and support of each community's government leaders.

Samuel and Mario have been surprised by the amount of bureaucratic red tape, but the area administrators have been receiving them well. One administrator told them of some people who started "a development project" in their community a couple of months ago: in that case, the good Samaritan went from door to door collecting money ostensibly to start a loan portfolio, but trousered the money and vanished. Past experience has proven that the government is right to be cautious.

Back on the subject of these important meetings, it would have been good stroking for my ego to be able to go. Meeting with government leaders would have made me feel important, even valuable. I am, like most people, just insecure enough that I need to define myself by what I do. But yesterday, Mario suggested that he and Samuel should go to the meetings without me.

Some part of me -- that little good angel sitting over my right shoulder -- was quite pleased. I want them to risk being independent, to have the courage to work on their own. They'll need to once I'm gone, so it's great that they want to start now.

Just underneath Mario's bravery, he's timid. He's not entirely convinced that he's up to the job, and would like Glenn or I to be there for support; to be there to answer difficult questions. But he also had the insight to recognize that the belligerent response that we have received from community and church leaders at past meetings is a function of our presence. He believes that, because Westerners have come with pockets overflowing with money in the past, perpetuating the culture of dependency, that the community won't be happy with anything less than a handout this time as well -- as long as I'm sitting in the meeting as a symbol of that dependency.

"When they see Samuel and I," he said by contrast, "they don't see money, they see reality. They see that we [Mozambicans] need to work to get what we want."

For the sake of the program's success, Mario wanted to take a risk. To remove the safety net. Just like he'll be forced to in two months from now, when Glenn and I have returned home.

I want the program to be successful too, but that little red devil sitting over my left shoulder is busy pitching coal into the furnace, stoking the fire of my ego. If I'm not there, nobody will know that it's my project. Nobody will understand the valuable contribution that I made, or give me the respect that I deserve. Nobody will...

But it's their project, not mine. I have been temporarily inserted into their story to light a fire, but it's their fire to maintain. It's their story. I will soon exit, and they will continue to live it.

The challenge with my empowerment approach is that making myself dispensable means that I'm, well, dispensable. I am successful if I am not needed. The more successful Glenn and I are at mentoring and advising Mario and Samuel, the more I am forced to sit on my hands.

That's not an easy thing to do for those of us who find identity in hard work. But we must acknowledge that our Western results-orientation is, at times, bordering on idolatrous. I'm practicing idolatry when I act not in order to help, but to make myself feel important, or less guilty, or useful. In these situations, my work has become my god: that thing above which there is nothing else.

I could be sitting in another meeting, dragging it along, forcing my opinion, influencing the direction of thought. Making myself busy. In the great words of Paul, such people "are not busy; they are busybodies." (2 Thessalonians 3:11).

So today I'm sitting on my hands, not doing anything to advance this project. And if I want this project to outlive my stay in Mozambique, to build something truly lasting in only a year, sitting on my hands is exactly what I need to be doing.

Mario and Samuel will do a great job without me.

Step Up, Mollywood

I know that you've heard of Hollywood. Everyone has heard of Hollywood.

And if you're a real film aficionado, you may even have heard of Bollywood, India's answer to Hollywood.

Now, let me introduce you to the new kid on the block, which I'll dub Mollywood. Hollywood Mozambique. One of the many positive things that are happening in Mozambique. Probably the first movies that come to mind are Blood Diamond (2006, Leonardo DiCaprio) and previously, Ali (2001, Will Smith), but those aren't Mollywood. They're just the product of Hollywood looking for inexpensive and authentic-looking sets in Maputo.

This afternoon, Mario took me to the Theatro Gil Vicente on Avenida Samora Machel in search of the real Mollywood, to catch the matinee viewing of "O Jardim do outro Homem" (Another Man's Garden). Yes, Mollywood, though smaller than most movie-producing meccas, exists. Mollywood even writes, directs and produces its own films. For this eighty-minutes- plus-intermission, Mollywood was thriving.

No matter that the theatre, a cavernous and aging Portuguese monstrosity designed for stage plays not shown in decades, had all of six people in it. Perhaps the price was a deterrent, though at about $1.50 per ticket for the Monday matinee, I would have imagined that a few more people would have bitten. Maybe the after-dinner crowd is bigger, but I doubt big enough to fill the theatre's thousand or more seats.

The film that Mollywood projected on the screen was categorically not Hollywood. There were no explosions, despite the country's infamy with landmines. And I could have seen more guns standing on the theatre's steps looking out towards the street than I saw captured on film (the latter featured a grand total of zero).

Instead, the film showed a culturally-accurate portrayal of the obstacles that a teenaged Mozambican girl faces in her quest to qualify for university and become a medical doctor. The film addresses many of this country's biggest issues: HIV/AIDS, corruption and coercion, petty theft, and poverty.

Its title, reflecting persisting gender discrimination, is a derivative of the traditional sentiment in Mozambique that, "sending a girl to school is like watering another man's garden." Paying to educate a daughter is useless because her lot in life will be restricted to raising and feeding the children of someone else's son.

At several moments in the film, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. After one of the plot's critical moments, showing a male teacher advancing on a student in exchange for the promise of better grades, I thought of Captain Jack Sparrow. "This is as real as Pirates of the Caribbean," I asked with my eyes, not uttering a word. It's just a movie, right?

"It's very real," Mario assured me, understanding my silent discomfort. Mollywood punches with the strength of reality, producing socially-charged and relevant cinema that would be dismissed as drab documentary by Hollywood's red carpet crowd.

Mario felt encouraged by the film's message of strength in the face of adversity. I wasn't encouraged so much as speechless and contemplative. Sometimes reality is hard to swallow.

The Smiles are Free

A couple of months back, I encountered a power struggle between two guards offering to watch my car. The $0.20 wage that car guards stand to earn causes a surge in these freelancing entrepreneurs, particularly at Christmastime. I agreed with the first boy who offered to watch my car, but quickly a second emerged. "Come on," he urged, "that's just a child. I'm much stronger. I'll watch your car."

I'm just running into the vegetable market for a minute, I thought to myself. I proceeded to roll up a sleeve and flexed a rather thin arm, asking the older boy if he meant to imply that I didn't have plenty of my own muscle. I told him that I already had a guard for my car, too. The young boy would do just fine.

Humour -- if I can be so presumptive as to use that label to describe my little exhibition -- seems to be a great diffuser of conflict in Africa. And a great way to gently point out that you can't be taken advantage of by a vendor on the street.

"Come on," one market vendor whined in English when Laura and I expressed interest in one of his products. "I sell these things for 350."

I looked him in the eye and smiled. And then I asked him in Portuguese who actually buys those things for 350, aside from estrangeiros. Foreigners. I wasn't interested in the foreigner price, I told him.

His reply? "I'll give it to you for 250."

We eventually settled on 220 meticais, which I think still yields him a handsome profit. Our rule of thumb is that the vendors' opening price tends to be about double what a good closing price should be. And the safety valve is that street vendors seem savvy enough to not sell their wares for a loss. They're not afraid to refuse a sale.

* * * * *

Street hawkers will use what little English they know in an attempt to woo tourists. The most common sound around the market is a voice calling from behind: "Best friend, best friend! I'll give you a good price!"

I couldn't resist joking with one of these vendors. "If we're best friends," I asked in my broken Portuguese, "why do you want to sell me these things? Why won't you give them to me as a gift?"

Another vendor quietly snickered and took a step back, realizing that I'm not quite the easy target that I appeared to be.

"Ok, I'll give you these things," the first vendor responded, not wanting to be out-done in the exchange, "but only if you'll come next Saturday and help me to sell them!"

Neither of us thought the conversation was serious, which is what makes it most fun. We vigorously shook hands and included the cultural thumb-snap that only friends add, and went in our own separate directions. He understood that he wasn't making a sale, but had fun anyway.

* * * * *

"Best friend, best friend!" He wasn't gone for long. Give him credit for being tenacious.

My mistake was glancing at a batik, which he was also eager to try to sell me. "Buy it so that you'll remember Mozambique," he tried to persuade me.

"But I live right here in Maputo," I said. "What I'm really looking for is a reminder of Canada. I'll buy any souvenirs you have that are from Canada."

A laugh, a handshake and thumb-snap, and my best friend was off to make a sale to someone else. A real tourist.

Kings of the Hill

Laura and I took a day off work to have Julie show us around the orphanage where she has been living, and share with us what she has been experiencing in her weeks here.

In addition to housing some 350 orphaned children, the staff at the Iris Ministries centre in Zimpeto conduct several outreach programs, ministering to teenagers living on the street, ministering to patients in the depressing Central Hospital, and ministering to the people of all ages who -- believe it or not -- spend their days rummaging through burning and rotting piles of garbage at the city dump.

Laura and I rode with Julie, in typical Mozambique style, on the back of a flatbed truck to the dump. Once there, we encountered dozens of grown men, women and children on the top of the acres of smelly, smoking mess. Many walked bare-footed, seemingly oblivious to the shards of broken glass and smouldering wires protruding out of the heap.

Some industrious people were making piles of metal to sell to a recycling plant on the edge of town. I'm told that each worker has his or her own territory on the dump; his or her own corner of hell to sift through.

One man we stopped to talk to carried a small plastic bag. Scrap ends of bread collected from the dump were visible through the bag's translucent plastic.

I really don't understand how people can find things of value here. The garbage that is trucked onto the site comes from the dumpsters that have already been picked through while sitting on the city streets. These people find their daily bread by picking through whatever trash remains after what I had thought to be the poorest of the poor have taken their fill.

So prolific are the people making their living atop the garbage dump that certain social infrastructure has sprung up to support them. Some enterprising individuals have set up a small market selling food and cold drinks as if it were the cafeteria of a standard workplace. One person operates a cellular-based pay telephone booth under a faded orange umbrella.

Life on the garbage dump is decidedly normal for these people. They don't know anything outside of this harsh daily routine that leaves the children looking younger than their age and the wrinkle-scarred adults looking older than theirs.

The outreach program is intended to share the gospel and a small meal with those experiencing physical or spiritual hunger pangs. These people live spiritual lives, if not squarely Christian lives. Nobody would reject the offer of prayer, and nobody failed to show up for the offer of bread.

One man had initially indicated that he couldn't come to the little hillside church for bread because he couldn't leave his things in the dump for others to steal. He later reappeared, his belongings stuffed into a small flower-patterned duffel bag that had surely been discarded by at least one previous owner.

Another person, a time-worn woman who had taken time out of her scavenging to speak with us, wanted to pray for us instead. More than half of the people who we spoke with professed that they attend a nearby church, pointing in directions just over this hill here or that one there.

Julie, who had come to Mozambique with a heart for children, was taken by some small boys at work on the dump. One of these boys was Fernando, who was spending his morning collecting a few items before heading off to school. Julie watched in amazement when Fernando saw the man carrying the translucent sack of bread scraps whom we had spoken to earlier: though just a small boy wandering a garbage dump, his heart was soft enough to pull a bun from inside his shirt and offer it to the hungry man.

Bruno, a small boy not befitting of his strong name, was less talkative. Where we met him on top of the dump, he barely opened his mouth except to gently squeeze out his name as if floating on a whisper. I asked him if he knew about the small caniço church at the bottom of the hill, and invited him to return with us for some singing and some bread. I didn't expect him to come.

I had mistaken his shyness for reluctance. He braved a smile when we saw each other in front of the church later that morning. I asked him if he had ever been to this church before. "Yes," he replied simply. He offered few other words.

I told him that I had never been there before, which makes it his church, and makes me his guest. He grabbed my hand and pulled me in the front door, and we sat together on a caniço mat laid out on the church's hard floor.

He said only one other word to me the entire time. Pointing to the other side of the church, he said, "Julie." A friendly face that he had remembered from on top of the dump. Julie was over there, sitting with Fernando. Like Bruno, he had decided to come to church as well.

Laura sat in a third corner of the church, weighted down by what seemed like half a dozen young girls sitting or leaning on her lap. One of them wore Laura's sunglasses upside down on her face. All of them wore the smiles of children being loved.

The rise of international child trafficking prevents the orphanage from taking children off the garbage dump and giving them decent shelter, food and education, but God's compassion -- and that of people like Julie who travel around the world to love forgotten children -- mean that the children of the dump are valued as the children of God. That, after all, is their true identity, albeit too often hidden underneath the sooty garments of reality.

Meet Alfredo

As is typical of many large cities, Maputo has a certain magnetism that attracts homeless people in search of the too-often-empty promise of a better future. Thousands of children, orphaned or abandoned, find that they are not exempt from this cruelty. Laura's friend Sarah, an American missionary living here with her husband and young family, share the following story:

Last night, on our way home from a local art fair, we were confronted by one of the many sobering realities of life here in Maputo. A young street boy approached us and asked for money, so we gave him $0.25 and suggested that he use it to buy himself some bread.

Before long, he had returned and was asking for more money. We noticed that he had bought some chewing gum from a street vendor. A little confused, but thinking perhaps that he was going to sell the gum for a small profit, we asked him why he had bought gum instead of bread.

We continued talking to this young boy. His name is Alfredo, and lives out here on the street. We asked him where his mom and dad were. "They're both dead." He has sisters in Panda, about 7 hours north of Maputo, but no family here. His step-mother had brought him to the city, but had later abandoned him.

This 11-year old boy, smaller than my son Kaleb, was hungry, desperate, dirty, smelly and wearing oversized, ripped clothes that exposed to the world his lack of underwear. After five minutes of listening to Alfredo's story, our kids piped up from the backseat, reminding us of our family verse: Matthew 25:31-46. Kaleb said, “Dad, I just keep hearing in my head, 'Whatever you have done to the least of these brothers of mine you have done it unto me.'”

We decided to do something unconventional. We took this boy home with us and gave him soap and shampoo so that he could take a shower. Kaleb, who is 9, picked out some new clothes for him. He would wear a Twins baseball jersey and shorts, white socks and some tennis shoes.

Fifteen minutes later, the difference in this boy was amazing. His dirty, sullen face was replaced with a bright, smiling one. His slacking posture was now more upright. The clean clothes and some soap and water washed away a bit of the depressing street life and shame that he is so accustomed to wearing. He and Kaleb played basketball in the front of the house, just like regular boys. No black. No white. No rich. No poor. Just kids smiling and having fun.

We decided to go out for a chicken dinner together. The restaurant we chose is a prime target for begging in Maputo, and chances are very good that our young Alfredo has been shooed away many times by the same staff that would now be serving him dinner. You should have seen this kid. He sat at the end of the table with wide eyes and watched closely what our kids did. He tentatively ordered a grape Fanta and chicken with French fries. He tried hard to use his fork and knife to eat, then gave in to the peer pressure and used his hands like everyone else. The kids all took turns writing their names and playing tic-tac-toe on scrap paper.

On our way to the restaurant, as we were sitting at a stop-light, an elderly woman came to our car window begging for money. Young Alfredo reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his coins that we had given him earlier. Reaching his hand out, he said, “Here, I have one. Let’s give it to her.” Can you even stand it?

Sarah and her family were touched by their encounter with this young boy who could easily have remained anonymous and quickly forgotten. Instead, they have a new friend to watch for as they drive down the streets, and to pray for with their children as they put them to bed.

The seed of an idea is germinating in their minds about starting a Saturday morning ministry for the abandoned and orphaned children of Maputo, taking them out of the city to land where they can run and play, where they would prepare food for them and let them shower and get clean clothes, and where they could be reassured that they are loved beyond measure.

Others have already made reality out of similar dreams. Mozambique has several homes for these malnourished, forgotten orphans. Not enough, perhaps, but homes nonetheless.

Our friend from Canada, Julie Collins, came to Mozambique for a couple of weeks in March to spend time loving some of these fortunate few who live in an orphanage in Zimpeto, just outside of Maputo. Julie loves to share story after story about the children that she has met. She talks about their bracelets and other handicrafts, their toy cars with aluminum can wheels, and their car tire acrobatics. She tells stories of proud children who relish hearing their names spoken to them, many of them knowing their name as the only possession that is uniquely theirs.

Each of these children was, at one time, like Alfredo. And one day, Alfredo may be like one of these orphans who have found a home.