HOME

I think we've always heard stories about entire families having to live in a single room. Not sure where, probably all the campaigns that I've paid about 10% attention and 2% of caring to.
Guts for them...

But now I've just seen it for real.
And man, it's hard to stomach.

On the last Saturday programme I helped on the bus run picking up kids, and we would go inside the buildings where the kids lived and tell them The Jungle is on. And that's when I saw behind the walls of those buildings...

You want to tell yourself they are just hanging out for a short time in these rooms together, playing a game of sardines maybe, or just catching up. But a frame which had been proudly hung up on the corrugated wall meant I couldn't escape the fact that this is the place they call "home".

It's dark, it smells, it's dirty, but it's home. I have no idea how to take that in.

And thinking of home, I remember those teenage years when we were all so desperate to disown our families for some reason... meanwhile there's families here who are disowning their own children.

Where is home? What is home? I want to say its more than the four walls and roof over our heads. "A house doesn't make a home." Maybe it's more a feeling of peace or belonging. Maybe it's supposed to be about safety, about the company of people you'd call "family", or just about love.

I know those things are what this ministry is all about, and it's all put a whole lot more purpose behind the latest project I'm helping with. We're finishing off a house up in the Andes above the city. It's a big house with a beautiful view of the mountains, but most importantly it's going to provide a place with all those things for more kids who need it.

I dunno what makes you feel 'at home' but whatever it is, I'd treasure it. It's got me thinking, cos I'm halfway round the world and still feeling at home here right now.

I hope maybe it gets you thinking and appreciating too.