Would you let your four-year-old run the house?

If you’ve been following the World Race, you may be starting to get confused. We have two teams out in the field, on two different continents, and we’re about to throw a third into the mix. Next year, it’ll be four. Earlier this summer, I spent a month in Africa, met up with both of the groups, bade them farewell after some times of impartation, and recently, they split, too: one team staying in Africa, while the other went to finish their trip in Asia.

Here’s a blog from World Racer Brady Denger in Swaziland, Africa from earlier this month:

As we walk up to the carepoint, the children come over and gather around us. I greet them. “Sanibonani.” A girl scoots closer to me and wraps her little hand around my pinky. I look down, she looks up, and as our eyes meet we both smile.

Meet Temamvulane, a beautiful four year old girl and her little brother Sitsembiso.
Temamvulane has been at the Mbutfu carepoint every day that we’ve visited.

The kids gather around us to sing our fun and crazy songs and we play games. Temamvulane’s eyes light up when we start and she runs over to join the group. Moments later, her brother erupts into tears. He stands firmly where he is and wails his little heart out.

Temamvulane hears him, runs over, and picks him up to calm him down. This is no small feat for her. You can see that she isn’t much taller than he is and even when she stoops down first, she only gets him a couple inches off the ground. It works though, and he stops crying.

She then takes his hand and leads him over to the group. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but she can’t even play duck duck goose with us or her brother will cry. She can’t come over to sing and dance unless she leads her brother over with her.


It’s normal in America for a younger sibling to follow the older one around. It’s normal for the older child to have to drag their sibling behind them.

But here, there is no parent. She’s the only one looking out for him. The children stay with their grandparents but they walk by themselves to the carepoint each morning and home again in the afternoons.

For the better part of the day, she has sole responsibility for her brother and she’s only four. A parent could be arrested in the United States for allowing a four-year-old and her little brother (he’s probably 2 ½) to wander around alone.


Four-year-olds can’t even take care of themselves, let alone a younger sibling. In Africa, though, it’s completely normal.

This is the story of many of the children we see each day. Some children stay with relatives but they walk themselves to the carepoints for a meal each day.

Some of the orphans don’t even have family to stay with so they stay in their houses alone.

They’ve been taught their whole lives, often by their parents as they die of AIDS, that if they leave their homestead, they will lose it. So they stay alone.

You can imagine what happens to these defenseless, innocent children when immoral men in the community know they live alone.

When we play with them at the carepoints, they seem like normal children. Despite their serious expressions in most pictures, they smile and laugh a lot. They jump around and run in circles.

Their toys look a little different, often simpler than ours, but they don’t know any different. Once they leave the carepoints, however, I don’t know what they go home to. I’m not sure I want to know; it would break my heart.

I love these kids. I wish I could give them the world but all I have to offer them is my love. So I give it.

Is God calling you to take a leap of faith – to experience his brokenheartedness for widows and orphans – what James calls “true religion”? Take a risk and fill out a quick app at www.theworldrace.org. These missionaries aren’t just learning about it; they’re living it.