Into Africa - For Children in Crisis
By Wendy Saiki

Audrey McAninch is known to go out looking for one lost street boy, only to return home with several boys.

One day, she and Joahanes, a young Kenyan man working with Audrey and her husband, Rick, drove down to the lake in Kisumu, a large city in western Kenya, They knew where the street boys gathered, hoping to find leftover scraps of food in the kiosks. The boys they searched for were not there, but so many others begged to come with them. Audrey knew she couldn’t take them all, so decided to choose first those with no mother (mama) or father (baba).

“With five in my back seat, I was trying to hurry away to keep from taking more, when a desperate-sounding boy came running alongside my car yelling ‘Auntie, Auntie, take me!’ I thought, ‘Dear God, there are so many. How can I take more?’”

Audrey stopped the car and asked the boy if he had a mama or baba. He had none, so she opened the door for him to get in. These boys are but a few of the estimated 250,000 street boys living in Kenya.

People turn away and pass them by, considering these children outcasts and untouchables. The death of parents to AIDS and the breakdown of the family have turned children to the streets for what little food and shelter they can find. Many become addicted to sniffing glue, a way to numb feelings of fear and hopelessness as well as to curb physical pain and hunger.

Rick and Audrey refuse to look the other way as most do, remembering that Jesus walked among the suffering and needy. They are responding to God’s call to care for the orphans (James 4:27) and have become shepherds to boys who would surely remain lost on their own.

When they first encounter street boys, heavily soiled clothing with living bugs hidden within the seams cover the boys’ crusty, dirty skin. The bugs refuse to die easily so the clothing must be burned. Sores spread over the boys’ legs and fungus grows on their heads, which causes patches of hair to fall out.

To survive, the boys find food in rubbish piles, beg on the streets and suffer the blows of beatings from other street boys, guards and the police who use baton-like sticks to chase them away. They sleep at places like petrol stations, in storefronts and on sidewalks, but police often do night sweeps to rid the streets of these kids, forcing them to duck down into storm drains for safety and shelter.

Rick and Audrey became aware of the plight of children living on the streets of Kenya soon after arriving in 1995. They became involved with the work of Darla Calhoun, who established Agape Children’s Ministry in Kisumu, a safe haven and home for street boys. In addition to rescuing children heading to the streets for survival, Rick and Audrey became part of the effort to educate them and started New Generation Academy. When Rick, a teacher and contractor, drew up plans for a school building with faith that God would supply the funds, Mission of Mercy stepped forward to pay for its construction. The ministry also found sponsors for every child in the school. Now, a Kenyan staff is in place, nurturing a house full of 90 boys who live at Agape and attend school at New Generation Academy.

Recently, God has given Rick and Audrey a vision to help even more of these children. Rather than institutionalizing them in the city they ran to for survival, caring for and housing them where space and quality of life is limited, they saw the necessity of getting the kids back to the rural land they came from. That’s why they established Into Africa.

They could see that the number of smaller rural homes would be limitless. Living in a village means that children can develop deep roots in village life where the communities can include them in their homes, schools, and church activities. In addition, as they train the children in biblical principles, the children can have a great impact on the villagers.

This vision is now coming to life. On a single day this past July, Rick and Audrey found 14 boys waiting at the gate of their house in Kisumu.

Looking back to that day, Audrey said, “I knew we weren’t really ready to take in that many boys, but somewhere I had just read, ‘With any step of faith, there is a certain amount of fear.’ I sensed it. Since we had been working with street boys for three years, I knew that once we accepted one into our compound, it meant we were responsible for his welfare. I felt the fear of taking that step of faith.

“But it was the look on their faces that told me I had no choice, really, but to let them all in! I knew it was God speaking to me. Never before had boys actually come to our gate. Always before, we went looking for them. But in taking steps into the vision God had given us, it seemed that one of the ways He assured us that this vision was His vision was by sending boys to us. In fact, all 30 boys we have now have come in this way.”

One of the 14 boys who came through the gate that day was Stephen, a boy eleven years of age. And it was later that same month, on July 14th, when Stephen accepted Christ and his life was made new.

Chapter 2 - Stephen tries to find his family

Stephen said he had parents, so it was Rick and Audrey’s hope that they could return him to them and that they would welcome home their lost son. After three years on the street, Stephen hoped that he could even remember how to find his shamba (rural home/farm) since he left when he was only eight years old.

After a difficult, long-distance trek, Joahanes and Stephen arrived at his home, finding a woman there. But Stephen’s joy was short lived when he soon realized that the woman was not his mother, but his elderly, sick grandmother. She explained to Stephen that he was born out of wedlock and that his mother had left him at a very young age for her to raise. The grandmother had managed to send him to school until he reached Standard 2 (second grade).

Some older neighbor boys had talked Stephen into running to the city streets where they said life would be better. Seeing that his grandmother was no longer able to feed and care for his basic needs, or those of his younger brother also left with her, he believed the boys’ story and left home.

After three years of surviving on the streets, Stephen found his way to the gate of Rick and Audrey’s house. For Stephen, this narrow gate opened to him a new life – the experience of finding God’s love through people who love him.

“So that day, when 14 came, I realized that I was meant for this – for caring for the boys that this society throws away,” Audrey noted. “It brings such joy to bring in a boy and see how his hopeless face brightens in such a short time when he realizes that there is someone who loves him. And what brings great joy to Rick is the morning devotional time with the boys and staff as well as training and discipling them to take his place.”

Sometimes the deep hurts from their street experiences surface, says Audrey, recalling the story of ten-year-olds, Daniel and Dennis, who lived in the halfway house at Rick and Audrey’s home. The boys can count on Rick for fun and laughter, play-wrestling and tickling. They have rarely received attention from men, even their fathers, so the rough-housing any boy loves serves as a light-hearted and non-intimidating way for Rick to begin interacting with these boys.

Dennis happily entered into the teasing and tickling, but Daniel held back. When Audrey explained that Rick wouldn’t hurt him but was having fun, she realized that Daniel had been sexually molested on the streets. Many boys who have spent time on the streets become victims of older street boys and men who trade sex for the addictive glue that so many of the street boys sniff.

“Daniel began to understand that we loved him, so within a short time he joined in the ‘tickle game’ with Dennis and Rick, having realized that Rick’s touches were touches of love, not evil,” said Audrey. Innocence cannot be regained, but patient love and encouragement can build trust and foster God’s healing.

Daniel is now doing well, has developed a pastor’s heart and, at his young age, already desires to serve in ministry. Sadly, just a few months after coming from the streets into Rick and Audrey’s home, Daniel’s friend, Dennis, stepped on a stick and, although he received a tetanus shot, the serum apparently was not properly refrigerated and he died within that week. With tears in his eyes, Daniel shared at Dennis’ memorial service that he had encouraged Dennis to accept Christ and Dennis had assured him that he had.

Chapter 3 - Robbery in Nairobi

Serving in Kenya has included moments of peril matched with the power of God’s protection. On their first day back in the country, staying in a missions guest house in Nairobi, Rick, Audrey and two guests who had come to help for two months, found themselves looking down the barrels of four 45-caliber semi-automatic pistols.

The eight thieves appeared to be either off-duty police or military men. They ransacked the front desk, went into the sitting room where they took money and jewelry from the four of them, and made them get down on the floor. God hid Rick’s car keys from the robbers, even though they searched his pockets. Had the robbers found the keys, they would not only have been able to take the truck, but also the $4,000 Rick at the last minute had decided to leave inside it, thinking it might be safer than in the room. It was the plane ticket money owed to the travel agent.

In addition to taking charge of the keys, God kept the gunmen from shooting them. One did cock a gun when pointing it at Rick. Shortly after the encounter, “The gun went off, probably accidentally, when they were searching upstairs in a guest’s room,” Audrey recalls. “It landed two feet from the woman’s head!”

Serving in Kenya also has more than simply little inconveniences. In what seemed to them the middle of nowhere, as they were dashing and darting around potholes, a clear clang rang out, indicating that the main leaf spring on their Pajero had just broken. There they were, stranded in the hot desert sun. There is no cell phone service there on the farside of Narok, or wayside garages, only cows and Masai herdsmen. The desert barely had any rocks on which to rest the jacked-up frame, with the axle now shoved back, exposing layers of displaced springs.

Plugging a typical tire puncture would be an easy fix for Rick, but he doesn’t carry around an extra leaf spring. He was, however, able to rig a come-along (a small, hand-operated wench) to temporarily hold the axle in place as they crept ever so slowly for the next four hours, working together to keep the right rear tire from slipping into a pothole. Finally arriving at a town that had a phone and a hotel where they could spend the night, they contacted a mechanic who was willing to risk driving in the dark to deliver and install the new part to get them going again by the next day.

“We know that Rick’s tricks are really blessings sent right to us from our Father in heaven who watches over us on the far side,” said Audrey.

Surely, “He is not far from each of us.” (Acts 17:27)


Chapter 4 - Who will care for these boys?

Look into the hard eyes of these boys when they arrive. They are hard and suspicious, as if to dare you.

“I imagine that this is the result of their street experiences,” says Vincent, the office manager who God has drawn into caring for these boys. “This softens with time in the halfway house, and the smiles take over as the outer shell breaks down and the child is revealed.”

Vincent recognizes the look when he encounters boys on the street, but knows that it can change when the child receives a home with love and care. “It is also a source of agony to see them on the streets, knowing the Lord has already made a provision for them somewhere (God can place the lonely in families, Psalm 68:6).”

Vincent’s heart’s desire to help these children began to form when he participated in an outreach to children on the streets of Nairobi, bringing them food, clothing and medicine. After a successful operation, Vincent found that instead of being able to celebrate the success of the project with the others, he was painfully aware that he would return to a home, family and loved ones, while these children would all go back to the streets. For several weeks, his heart ached and cried out to do more.

Through Into Africa, small homes for boys are being established. George, Simon and his brother, Jackson, are raising 20 boys in the first home. When Rick and Audrey moved to Kenya in 1995, they met Simon who they employed as a yard worker. He soon came to accept Christ and learned to read English as he attended Bible school.

Through the years, he has won many to Christ, helped start two primary schools, and has become known to his neighbors as Pastor Simon. Furthermore, because Simon is highly respected in his village, he has been influential in gaining acceptance for the boys within the community. When Rick and Audrey shared their vision to start self-supporting rural homes, Simon already had a site picked out.

This first home in the village area of Chevogere, with storefronts along the main road and living quarters in the back, sells hardware, bicycles and spare parts, building materials, food and household supplies and items like soda pop and candy. The boys and staff also recharge car batteries and give haircuts. From the profit, all 20 boys are supported.

In addition to enabling the boys to get back to the village, the creation of this home has also reunited husbands, Simon and Jackson, with their wives and children. It has become a typical situation for husbands to work in the city while their wives remain in the village to raise the kids and run the shamba.

When the kids are taken in from the streets, though Audrey and Rick hope to find and reunite them with their parents, it rarely happens, for most of their parents have died. As often as possible, they get a written statement from the local chief indicating that the boy has rights to his family’s land when he turns 18.

Rick and Audrey hope to help create many more self-supporting homes in village settings for these children who have no place to go but to the streets. The children and staff become like a family to each other.

Rick and Audrey have the vision to educate, disciple, train, and equip the children, enabling them to return to their own land. Living in their villages, they can be productive, godly citizens and leaders in their communities, planting and harvesting their own gardens, and perhaps running a small business.

Creating these homes means these children will not only experience African family life within the community, but they’ll also receive biblical training from the house parents and staff and build lasting friendships while attending the village schools and churches.

“They are not street children,” Vincent points out. “They are just children on the street.”

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