Prayer Request From Abby...

[Steve Wright]

Dear friends and family,

It is with a heavy heart that I ask you to pray for my dear Mondae and Sharrif.

Mondae is an amazing boy and someone that has always been heavy on my
heart, he is a street child of about... 9 years old or so. Yesterday
we were walking around downtown when he and a couple of other street
kids saw us and came running up to tag along. Mondae of course was
hanging on me when I noticed that his one fingernail was painted
bright red. In Kampala, not always but often pimps paint the nails of
young boys to let older men know that they can pay to have sex with
them. When I asked who painted his nail he acted weird and embarrassed
and hid his finger. When Jessica asked him later (with the same
concerns) he said that I painted it. Mondae ALWAYS wears the same
clothing; the entire time I've known him Jess and I have been the only
ones to give him new clothing, and that morning he had on new jeans and
a new shirt. When I asked him where he got them he said that Jess gave
them to him (I asked her and she said when she asked him where he got
his new clothing he said that I gave them to him). All day that I was
with him I was fighting back tears. Not Mondae. I know child
prostitution happens, but it just hurts so badly to think that at
night Mondae may be going out to sell himself. I have just found out
that literally, most of the street children that we work with are
sexually abused on the streets. Mondae lives in the worst and most
violent slum in Uganda without protection, walls, anything. Please
please please pray for Mondae and that God will protect him and pull
him out of prostitution if that is in fact what he has been pulled
into (which it seems he has). We want to place Mondae in a home but
he has run away from other homes saying he will only go home with me
and Jess to Ssenge and at the moment we cannot take in more boys.
Please pray for wisdom and guidance on this as well

Also please pray for a boy named Sharrif. He is very young around 6 or
7 and a street kid. HE told me yesterday that he would like for me to
take him home. When I asked him why he ran away he said that his
mother died, his family is poor (he wasn't going to school) and his
father beat him so much. Sharrif has scars all over him, especially
his head as much as I hate him living on the streets I also hate the
thought of being the one to personally take him back to a home where
he is abused and unwanted (no his father never came looking for him).
When he was telling me that he was beaten too much I was just looking
at how small and adorable he is and thinking, "How can anyone be so
cruel as to hit you?!!!" Please pray for this situation as I truly
don't know what to do but Sharrif has asked me to make the decision. At
least on the streets we can try and find him a home where he can be
loved (he is so young if any of our street kids were put in a home it
would definitely be him) but he is still living on the streets. We
just have so many kids who ask to go back to abusive homes, they go
home to be further mistreated and abused and then go back to the
streets even more messed up. If he wants to go home though, I think we
have to take him.... Anyways, please pray

I love you all

Abby