qoshasha

Dirty: soiled with dirt; foul; unclean; very unfortunate or regrettable

When I asked Balata where he lived he said the village, but when I asked him where he slept he said qoshasha. Dirty.

I knew the word only because I had heard it earlier that day as I stood in the shadow of the mountains of trash, and the government official gestured disgustingly over. They just call it "dirty" he said. I had been to the trash dump twice, and I had seen the children there, but until that moment there was a part of my brain that still just did not really believe that these children actually live there.

Denial was no longer an option.

Yedenekachew, Yonas, and Balata

Balata was one of the two boys that Corey and I were sponsoring to go to boarding school. I knew he had no parents, I was also an orphan at his age. But in that one word he said to me...I am 12 years old and not only do I have not parents but losing them meant that I live in the trash dump. I sleep there at night with the bugs and the smell and the wild animals. I get my food by digging through the trash. And that is a life I cannot imagine.

And the boarding school is a life he could not have imagined until a few weeks ago. But now he has the opportunity to hope. To hope for a better life here on this earth. And to understand that hope will lead to the understanding of the only true Hope any of us has, that this dirty world is not our home and we are only passing through on our way to an eternity with a Father who has promised to never leave us as orphans.

Yonas and Balata getting a taste of their new life.

We have over 50 sponsors so far, and we need over 60 more. Please come to sponsorship night at Thompson Station Church at 7 pm to learn more about sponsoring one of the qoshasha kids. If you do not live close or cannot come just email me sumjyates@hotmail.com and we will get you all the information.