what is a street kid?

Our last post was Rodgers' experience that led him to want to work with street kids. Here is mine:

I spent a year traveling around southern and eastern Asia and the Pacific with a missions organization. I was exposed to poverty in a more real way than ever before.

In the Philippines, there were countless street kids. I had never really thought about what a street kid is before then, though I was familiar with the term. Suddenly, I had a living, breathing definition of street kids everywhere I went for 3 months.

Some of these children have living parents, but they either can’t or don’t take care of them. They have been separated by one way or another. Some of the children are true orphans. They have nowhere to live, so they live in the streets. Often, they live in garbage heaps. All of the children are starving and exposed to much illness. They are uneducated and have no hope for a better life than what they have. They will probably have children one day, and with those children, they will be a street family.

I visited an orphanage in the Philippines. This place has taken in so many children. The first few generations are now educated adults; most have jobs. They were raised in a Christian environment, and many have become true disciples of Jesus. What testimony of God’s goodness! I want to be a part of that!

When Rodgers shared with me his dream for starting a home for street kids, I told him that this was my dream as well.