Tony told us, "After my parents died, I didn't have any gardeners."
We smile at this ten-year-old's mixing up of English words. Surely he meant to say, "guardians," but in front of a handful of western visitors, as he tells how he came to TOUCH, "gardener" escapes his lips more readily.
He's searching for the words. How can he tell us what it was like when his parents died? Will we grasp all that is entailed when a child travels to Kampala from the village and lives on the streets? What was it like to be "picked" from the trenches?
Then we realized how right he is.
Uprooted, unprotected, exposed. With no one to nurture him, no one to feed him, no one to show him which way to grow. Without a "gardener," Tony lived in the filth that ran off from the streets near the soccer stadium - a mixture of plastic bags, sewage, and trash. He took his dinner from trash bins. For safety, he tried to go unnoticed - but then he was "picked."
In Uganda, people say "picked" when they mean "picked up" more than "chosen," as we would use the term. But again, Tony is right. He was "picked," like a flower from the refuse, and given a new life.
He was transplanted from the treacherous streets and day-to-day survival, to a community of children with hope for the future - a beautiful bouquet of potential.
A guardian is “a defender, a protector, or a keeper; in particular, someone who looks after and is legally responsible for another person who cannot manage his own affairs.”
Yes, Tony needs a guardian, but he also needs a gardener. A gardener, “tends or cultivates, promoting or improving growth by labor and attention.” A gardener nurtures, supports and encourages development.
Man was created in a garden, created to live in a garden, and nurtured by the Master Gardener Himself. Then, man fell in the garden, and was separated from his Protection, his Defender, the One who sustained growth.
Jesus taught His disciples in the garden. He prayed in a garden, and He was betrayed in a garden. Jesus was buried in a garden - and He rose in the garden.
For Christ on the cross, separation from the Gardener was heart-rending and excruciating. "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" He knows how an orphan feels.
Tony, and children like him, are finding hope at TOUCH (The Outreach to Unfortunate Children’s Hurts). With contributions made through Friends of TOUCH, "Mama Sara" pays their school fees and provides at least one meal a day.
Teachers take nurturing roles in the children's lives, seeking them out when they are absent from class, taking children to a local clinic when they fall ill, and tending to their overall development.
This is a community garden, where we all play a part.
Please pray and ask the Lord what He would have you do to nurture these young lives. Whether it is through giving, prayers, or encouragement - know that you are making a difference.
Tony, who once lived in the shadows by the soccer stadium, now plays on the TOUCH soccer team. He hopes to play professionally when he is grown, and if not, says he will be a bank manager.
Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden, and they shall sorrow no more at all.
- Jeremiah 31:12b
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