By Mark, Founder of Hope Hearts Ministries.
Hope Hearts (HH) is a street outreach program based in the area of Katwe, Kampala. The ministry runs five days per week out of a church. Children arrive around midday. They receive soap to wash themselves and their clothes with - HH looks after a set of clothes for every child with regular attendance, so that they can put on a clean set of clothes, whilst their others dry in the sun. They will then receive some schooling, or Bible study, followed by a meal of posho (maize flour and water, a staple food across Africa) and beans. They can also receive some basic medical treatment such as cleaning and bandaging of wounds, painkillers and treatment for malaria.
Through this article Mark wanted to show a positive side to work in street ministry - children can be and are repatriated back home. Here is the story of Abu:
Friends Meet Abu Mark.
The lord has been so faithful in answering our prayers and changing the lives of our boys through the resettlement program! Abu Mark is one of those boys who has been attending the street outreach program for the last 7-month, battling with addictions to petrol, marijuana and tobacco.
Abu is 13 years old now but according to him, he started taking drugs a year ago when he was 12. He says he got into using them through the friends he made when he first came to the streets.
For the whole 7 months of his attendance at HH, Abu has always appeared high on drugs, speaking things which don't make sense.
It was 3 weeks back that Abu came to us and told us that he wanted to go back home. We really wanted to make sure that he was committed to the idea of returning to live with his family, so we decided to monitor him for a few days. After that, our team decided to put him into counselling immediately for a period of 2 weeks - that is, he came to stay with us as a resident at Freedom Hope Home, our children's home. This short stay has been so effective in changing this young boys life. During the first 2-3 days he would demand to leave the house, but soon he settled and began demanding to help with a variety of chores, praise the Lord!
We want to let you know that next week Mark is finally going to be resettled/reunited with his family after living on the street for 2 years and 4 months. He has been someone who we have had to handle with such care, but are now glad that the Lord has healed him from the street struggles and drug addictions.
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