The second leg of my African field trip with Anglican Aid took me to Ethiopia.

Here we partner with an organization called Retrak, a Christian NGO committed to reaching out to homeless kids on the streets of Addis Ababa.

Retrak seeks to provide them with a safe place, medical intervention, hunger relief, emergency accommodation, clothing, family reunification, foster care, educational opportunities, life skills and vocational training.

If first impressions count, my introduction to Addis was a little less than impressive. Retrak had organised a room at a dodgy old government hotel in the middle of town. I arrived there late at night from the airport by a taxi that seemed to be held together by chewing gum and rubber bands.

This hardly two star hotel looked retro in every respect, except it wasn’t trying to be retro. It was just being its rustic original self that hadn’t seen new carpet, paint or plumbing in what looked like fifty or sixty years.

The next shock came when I asked for a non-smoking room. The concierge gave me such a look of disbelief that you would have thought I had asked for a room exclusively designated for left handed, six fingered, synchronised swimming decaf drinkers. I knew that Ethiopians loved their caffeine. I just didn’t realise how much they loved their nicotine.

Wireless Internet could only be accessed in the hotel lobby and café bar. No designated smoking/non-smoking areas there either. Stinging eyes, rasping throat and smelling clothes were the order of the nights. It was back to the bad old days of passive smoking – how Australia has wrapped me up in cotton wool.

It is estimated that there are 150,000 homeless children in Ethiopia, the second most populated nation in Africa. At least 11,000 of these children live on the streets of Addis. They sleep by day, on median strips and other very visible places. It is too dangerous to sleep in any public place by night.

More than 80% of these street kids are boys. Girls are recruited into prostitution within hours of stumbling into the city.

Retrak, our Anglican Aid partner, is reaching out to these orphans and vulnerable children. Many have come from rural areas where HIV/AIDS, alcoholism, domestic violence and grinding poverty has decimated family and community life.

The catastrophic Horn of Africa famine has also catapulted many more from the east of Ethiopia into the cities.

Maggie Crewes, an Australian CMS missionary from Adelaide, leads the work in Addis. Maggie took me to the bus station where many children are spewed onto the streets. From there we went to their drop in centre, then their school, skills and training centre and medical clinic.

Our last stop was the ‘new’ accommodation centre for boys waiting for a foster care family.

The ultimate goal of Retrak is for family reunification. Painstaking efforts are made for children to be reunited to their loved ones.

I was told scintillating stories of success. One boy was reunited with his mother, who had hoped against hope that her boy would return, but had finally given him up for dead. It sounded like prodigal son stuff.

But there were many heartbreaking stories of failure.

The fall back position to family reunification is finding suitable foster care arrangements among Christian families in Addis. This, too, is a painstaking procedure. Anglican Aid’s specific relationship with Retrak is to enable this foster care dimension of their integrated work to be facilitated.

Donors from different parts of the world, including Anglican Aid’s Overseas Development Fund (ODF) keep Retrak’s work going. The ODF provides tax deductibility for its donors. It is community development work in the truest sense of that principle. It builds capacity and seeks sustainable outcomes for its beneficiaries with absolute integrity.

The offer of an optional ‘extra-curricular’ activity each Friday afternoon to come to a Bible Discovery group to learn about Jesus is gladly taken up by some, and declined by others. All the children are treated with equality, dignity and respect.

And what music it is to Maggie’s tuneful ears when she occasionally hears one of the children say:

I wish we could have Bible discovery more than once a week.

Once again, it is late in the evening, and I am due to leave Addis for Durban at the crack of dawn.

The hot tub is running back at the smoky old government hotel. As I prepare for this daily western ritual, I sense a mixture of guilt and pleasure.

Why is it that I can slip my sweaty body into a self-indulgent body of extravagant soapy water, when most of the country, in which I am a guest, would kill to drink or cook with the water that I will shortly drain down the pungent plughole?

Towelling off, my thoughts drift to my frail and ailing mother. Mum’s still in hospital, her fragile life hanging by a thread, but at last report with signs of improvement.

What I would give to be with her, right now, (family reunification isn’t just for street kids) sipping tea and sharing stories about my short sojourn with the all but forgotten runaways of Ethiopia.