Monday, November 4, 2013

Village School

How easily do we take things for granted?  What do we take for granted? 

I don't think I realized just how much I take for granted until I started traveling.  Now the realization of it overwhelms me.  The list keeps growing.  Shoes.  Health. A soft bed.  Ice cubes.  Shampoo.  Water.  Just the fact that I can turn on a water faucet anywhere in the United States and safely drink the water that it gives is now a strange thought. 

What about a good education?  Even if I hadn't gone to college, I would have been equipped with the tools to educate myself in the ways of the world, just because my educational foundation was good and strong.  But we were walking from one village to another last weekend and stumbled upon a village school strikingly different from the schools that educated me.  The students were outside working.  Some of them were tilling in a garden, some were pumping water from a water pump a few hundred yards from the small school house.  There were nearly 90 students and just one teacher, who rotated between classrooms.  We had some candy with us, so we lined the kids up and passed out suckers.  They were quiet and giggly, and stood politely in line while we handed out their treat.

Most of them were barefoot.  Many of them were wearing only a pair of shorts, no shirt.  Some had walked as far as twenty-five kilometers to get to school that day. They spoke little French.  I speak little Moree.  A lot of them, especially the older ones, had tribal scaring on their faces.  The Peace Corps has had little impact here.

Likewise the church.

Somewhere, surely, Jesus has a pastor for this village.  A pastor who speaks Moree and has a heart for children.  Please, Jesus - raise up that pastor.  Please.  Educate these children in the Name that is above every name. 

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