It was a hot Cape Town summer day. I had just taken the train into town and I got off and walked through the station. When I came out I immediately heard a little voice shout “RYAN!!”
I turned and a little eight year old kid was running up to me with a huge smile on his face. When he reached me, he greeted me, gave me a hug and asked me where I was going.
I told him I was just going to walk around a bit so he said he would join me. Then, before we started to walk, he stood in front of me, looked up, and held his hands up in the air, reaching towards me, and said, “Abba me!!”
Well, at that point, I hadn’t been in Cape Town too long and my Afrikaans wasn’t so good and I actually wasn’t even sure if he was speaking Afrikaans or English. But I thought I heard him right. I asked him to repeat it again so I could figure it out and again he said, “Abba me!!!”
Well, the only time I had ever heard the word Abba, up to that point, was the Greek word Abba, which is the intimate form of the word ‘Father’. I knew in the Bible it said, in Galatians 4:6,
‘Because you are sons, God sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out “Abba, Father.” ’
I translated it as him saying, “Father me!!”
It took me off guard a little and it was actually very touching. I stood there for a few seconds just looking at him in bewilderment. I think my eyes kind of started to fill up with tears.
I always knew the kids really needed a father figure, but I had never experienced a kid just come right out and ask me to “father” him! He tried saying it one more time when he realized that I wasn’t getting the point and then finally, probably a bit frustrated, he just sighed and walked around behind me and started trying to climb up on my back.
He finally explained to me that to “abba” someone is to let them ride on your back. I laughed at my mistake but at the same time I learned something out of it. There is definitely a generation of fatherless kids out there and the cry of their hearts is “Abba me!!!” And what better a picture than picking someone up and carrying them on your back?!
That is our job! To father the fatherless, to pick them up and carry them on our backs, and to lead them to their heavenly Father who won’t disappoint them like their earthly fathers all have.
Well, I know what it means now, but to this very day, every time a kid asks me to “abba” him I think of it on a much deeper level.
About Me
- Brown
- I was born and raised in Cookeville, Tennessee. In 1999 I traveled to Cape Town, South Africa with Youth With a Mission and met the children living on the streets of downtown Cape Town. I was moved by their enthusiasm, potential, hope, and love, yet troubled by the fact that little was being done to harness those wonderful qualities. In 2000 I moved back to South Africa to begin fulltime work with the children living on the streets of downtown Cape Town. I have been here since then. A lot has happened! In 2003 I began social work studies at the University of Cape Town and graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Social Work and an Honours in Social Development. I also discovered music, specifically hiphop, to be a powerful tool to get the message out of what is going on, on the streets and in the communities. In 2006 I released my first album “Hanging In and Hanging On”. My second album “Fly to the Moon” was just recently released in October 2008.
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