In Africa, famous people are known by the number of people who attended their funeral. If you are an influential person, then more people will attend your burial, but I was surprised during Samuel Iruris’ burial. The young and the old; females and male gathered in the chilly morning to say goodbye to him.
For the last 6 yrs that I had known him, he used to call me Sam, I tried on different occasions to remind him that my name was Moses, but he always said that it doesn’t matter. Little did we know that his real name was not Samuel Iruri but George Mwaura. We only found about his real name when during the burial day. When he was 11 yrs old, both his parents passed away, he looked for anyone within their family to take care of him but none did. He decided to run away and changed his name, not only to make it difficult for his family to locate him, but also to erase the lineage of their family within him.
As the boys were singing and mourning, deep within me I was asking myself how many among them are concealing their identity. How many are so insecure that they can not reveal their real identity?
Some of the FIKISHA boys following keenly
Everything was conducted in a somber mood, it was so nice to see both the current and the former street boys gathering together to give Samuel or George his last respect. Since none of them is ready to die like Samuel/George, we had the best time speaking with them about alternatives ways of living a better and drug free life.
Lst gifts that they could give
After Samuel had been laid to rest, the boys offered their gifts including necklaces and a bottle of glue.
Prayer request:
1. For the boys who are in the streets, may the Lord provide opportunity for them either to go back to school or have some income generating programs.
2. For FIKISHA mentors, we are working so much to stop the killings by the police. Please ask God to give us wisdom on how we can handle this situations.
3. Pray for the mentors to be guided towards a spiritual identity so they can be able to share joyfully about Christ to the boys.
Here’s a video of the day’s event:
Fikisha Kenya 