Voices of the Transformed

"As Frank, now 16 years old, tells his story, his eyes remain half-closed, as though he might avoid seeing what he is reviewing. He speaks with no emotional inflection, and only once, toward the end of the story, does a tear show in his eye. He was born in 1995 somewhere near Kanombe in Kigali (he doesn’t know where) to a woman who entertained so many men in her squalid home that Frank has no idea who is father could be. His mother would often send him and his 5 siblings out to the neighbors, or just outside, when she wanted them out of the way.

At age 6, Frank began hanging out at the nearby military camp. The soldiers there knew his mother, having been visitors to her home themselves. Sometimes Frank ate the soldier’s food, but more often, he had to scrounge in the trash for food. For several years, his life was tied to the soldiers’—if soldiers were punished, Frank would also be punished—beaten and given electric shocks. One time, Frank was loaded into a truck with many prisoners to be taken to another prison. When they reached the prison, Frank managed to escape, and returned to his mother’s village which was nearby. However, his mother refused to receive him, saying she wouldn’t have in her home, “a boy like you.”

For several years, Frank’s life was a desperate cycle of hanging out at the soldiers’ camp, revisiting his mother with the hope she might receive and help him, and just being on the street- drinking, using drugs, stealing, and being put in prison. During this time there was one three-month bright spot in Frank’s life when a soldier brought him into his home and put him in school. This soon ended when the soldier’s wife made him choose between Frank and herself.

Eventually,Frank ended up in a prison near Kanombe. This is where he heard about a man named Theoneste, and began to inquire about him. After getting out, Frank lived in an area with other street boys that was so bad, even the police avoided it. Still yet, Theoneste came often, and the boys accepted him. He would preach the word of God, and give them a little money to buy food. One day, Theoneste inivted Frank to come with him. Frank accepted and was given a house to sleep in, which amazed him, and an opportunity to study. Frank is no longer “confused” and knows that he has “parents” and is at peace.

There is one memory Frank will never forget. When he was just 12, Frank returned to his mother’s house. There she left him with his young sister alone in the house for several days with no food or water. He was holding his young sister in his arms when he saw that she had died. He wailed until neighbors came to see what had happened, and they were appalled at the state of the house, and almost couldn’t bring themselves to enter. After they took the dead child from Frank, he grabbed a knife and shouted that he would kill his mother, or himself. They managed to get the knife from him, and took him to a hospital. As he wept silently, and I with him, I asked him if he still has anger in his heart. He said no, he has forgiven his mother, and I believe that is true. This moved me very much, as a work of God in his life.”

“Enoch was born in 1992 and when he was only 6 years old, his mother died. His father had also died sometime earlier, though he doesn’t know exactly when. After the death of his mother, Enoch and his older sister were taken in by their grandmother who loved and took care of them. However, things began to change when Enoch’s aunt came to live with them and their lives became miserable. She beat Enoch and his sister and treated them like her slaves, requiring them to serve her own children. One day she came home to find that one of her children had been somehow injured in the eye, and she became furious. Enoch’s home life from then on was intolerable. Thus he left his home and lived outside, occasionally receiving help by a neighbor.

When Enoch was 7, he and an older boy he had been living in the bush with, decided to travel to Kigali. It was a 5 day journey by foot. When they reached the city, they completely failed to find anywhere to sleep or anything to eat, and were almost taken to prison. After the older boy found work as a shepherd, Enoch was alone, and decided to join a group of street boys, who treated him badly as the newcomer- beating him, and forcing him to go out and get money to bring back to them. He spent several years in this life, being sent to prison many times. Enoch began using drugs help quiet his persistent hunger pangs.

One day, Theoneste came to where Enoch and some other boys were living. He took them to a restaurant to get something to eat. Soon Enoch began to recognize Theoneste as someone he could trust, and would sometimes call him if he was sick and ask for help—Theoneste would always come. During that period, Theoneste told him, “There will come a time when you will come out of this life.” One day when Enoch had again been taken to prison again, he asked the police to call Theoneste. They did so, and Theoneste came and took him out of prison. That day, Enoch accepted Theoneste’s invitation to come to his Catch-up School and leave the street life behind. This was also the moment of his salvation as well.

Enoch believed what Theoneste had been telling him about Jesus, and he decided to put his faith in God. He says he will be thankful to God for Theoneste until his dying day. It took time, he says, to really change from the style and mindset of the street. He would for some time still walk in the slouching, hip way of street boys, and would be mostly silent when with adults. Most people never believed he could change. People in the community see thestreet boys as animals. But now, Enoch has truly changed and everyone can see it. He is at peace and has good relationships with his neighbors, and they receive him as just a boy like any other.”

“Samuel was born in 1990 in Kibuye (Northwest Rwanda). He was only four when his mother died during the genocide. In the chaos of the genocide, Samuel became separated from the other members of the family (2 sisters, an older brother, and father), and lived for a time with neighbors. He later learned that his father had remarried and had other children. At seven years old, Samuel was sent away from the where he was staying. The people he stayed with didn’t allow him to study or to have the basic things he needed. All Samuel desired to do was study, but there was no way.

Eventually Samuel found work as cow herder. But even though he worked very hard, he wasn’t paid. He later met an older girl who invited him to come to Kigali where he could find work. After arriving there with her, he found the worst sort of life he had so far seen—the girl was a prostitute who brought men to the house, and Samuel was the one who washed their clothes. All he wanted to do was study, so he left there to see if he could find work (at 8 years old!). By 10, he was a full-blown street boy. His life was full of beatings (him being beaten, and beating others), living off of rotten food found in the dump heaps, chasing big trucks laden with green bananas, doing all kinds of drugs and alcohol, and generally learning the ways of the street.

One example of how Samuel got money was by staging a fight. When some adult would try to intervene, one of the boys would grab his wallet and run, meeting up later with the others to divide the spoils. After some years of this life, Theoneste came to the mango tree where Samuel and some other boys lived under. As Samuel began to listen to Theoneste talk about God’s love and a different way of life, Samuel couldn’t imagine such things could be true. But he was soon won over by the love Theoneste showed him and the others—it was the first time in his life anyone had loved him like a parent, and when Theoneste invited Samuel to come study at his Catch-up School, and to stay in a house, Samuel could not believe how this could really happen! It took some time for him to be convinced, but after some of the members of his gang had been shot running away from some soldiers, and others had been killed falling from, or under, the trucks they had been chasing—he decided to make the move and go with Theoneste to school and a start a new life. He is now in level 2 (equivalent of Primary 3 and 4, combined), and his goal is to finish his basic education and then go out and preach the gospel to others like himself, and to share what God has done for him.”