Convictions of starting kindergarten

I am sure you didn't miss the memo because I have hung it like a banner... my son started kindergarten a couple of weeks ago. He is in love. Three recesses a day! Oh my :) Rules teaching him how to be respectful of himself, others and property. Art class, library time, and parent volunteers. Reading new stories that hes never heard before or seen and illustrating his very own book (with an amazingly drawn American Flag. Backwards but awesome effort!). Looking like a tiny boy with his over sized bag on his back but proving that he is anything but a small boy when he comes home each day and tells me about his day. Community, friends, fun, learning. This is what kids in the United States do at age 5. Nervous parents usher their children out the door to school everyday with the promise and hope that they will learn the things they need to know to be successful, informed adults.

In other parts of the world though, things are not at all like this. Parents are trying to figure out how to survive and get enough food for their family. They need their kids to stay home and help them make money or they just live too far from school and can't get their children there. Unfortunately in some areas of the world, these families are exploited because of their struggles. This is the case in the Volta Region of Ghana. Tricky masters come in and convince parents that if they sell their children to them and allow them to work for them that they will make sure their child is educated and learns job skills to help them be successful. The money isn't great by our standards... about $20/year for the service of a child. But the promise that their child will be fed and educated and the fact that they can use this money to feed their other child is, unfortunately, a pretty promising offer. And so children are sold.

Children, the same age as my sweet son, are sent to work on Lake Volta for 14+ hours a day. They are made to dive deep into the lake and face drowning, eels, crocodiles and various other dangers of life in the fishing industry. These 5 year olds are the size of 3 year olds from malnutrition. They are beaten for making mistakes. And often the very young boys do not know how to swim but are forced to learn or never again rise to the surface of the lake. Refusal to do these things yield boat oar beatings or sometimes beatings entangled in embarrassment at the hands of other trafficked children. There is no hope. Their families don't have the money or resources to get them back or visit them. And they genuinely think that they are helping their child by giving them an opportunity for schooling. It is a lie and manipulation but desperate times make parents choose what they think is best for their kids using the resources they have.

And then the days start blurring together. Children on the lake don't remember what village they come from after a while or their birthdays. Little sleep, little food, work that adults find excruciating and difficult, no time for being a child. My heart breaks.

No, I can't change the world alone. But I believe that God calls each of us to use our lives and experiences to serve Him wherever we are and however we can. I am being led to Africa this November and my heart has already fallen in love with the children on the lake and with the kids at The Village of Life. I keep telling their story so more people fall in love with them. So that ignorance is no longer an excuse. The burden is now on all of our shoulders. We KNOW the horror of child trafficking and we all have to figure out what to do with that. I would ask for your prayers both for the trip and for how you can be involved in loving on OUR children.

The truth is, that since my son has been riding up on kindergarten and then beginning, the more I have thought about and mourned the fact that there are so many children who do not have access to the same things our children have. That has rocked my world. Absolutely to the core. And I can't just leave it at thinking because that feels so wrong. And that is the conviction of kindergarten for me.

Slavery

I was reading a book with my son on Saturday. He just turned 5 in February but he is unreasonably good at reading and comprehension. So my husband took him to the library on Saturday while me and the toddler napped and they came home with a book that The Hubs said might be over his head but would be good comprehension practice for him. It is called The Transcontinental Railroad and is a book about how the Transcontinental Railroad was made from Sacramento California to Nebraska in the US. There are LOTS of big topics in this book. The manual labor involved, taking land from Native Americans via force and where to build the railroad (to either enhance or inhibit the slave trade as we made our way westward). Since the Civil War is one of the topics in the book, we got to discuss slavery in a pretty big way.

Let me just say, explaining slavery to a 5 year old is complicated! He is a very bright boy but to kids I think slavery is just so out in left field for their little minds. Especially if they grow up in loving and caring families. Plus the definition of slavery,

• bondage: the state of being under the control of another person

sounds a lot like being a child. Being under control of someone else. Well, isn't that JUST like being a kid? So I had to really think about it. There are other definitions like working for little or no pay or working under inhumane situations. BUT none of them quite fit for me. 

So I had to figure out a way to explain to my son what slavery was. In a real sense, who are these children we are working with will  be? Why do we need to go if his understanding of slavery is pretty simple and by all accounts accurate according to the dictionary?

I kind of narrowed it down in my mind now I think. Slavery is not just simply being under the control of someone. Like I said, my children, are under my control. But they are under my loving control and direction. They have FREEDOMS:

1. The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

Both my own morals (obviously influenced by my background and sheer wealth when compared to the rest of the world) and my country indicate that I can not sell my children into an abusive workforce. So to me the lack of Freedom is what defines a slave. These children do not have the freedom my children have. They do not get to be in a safe home or have a safe place to sleep. Their parents can't make sure of it like I can for my kids nor can the government (especially as the area gets more remote) come in and force child slaves to be released. They do not have the freedom to choose their interest, no freedom of education, no freedom of sleep or even the freedom to eat as frequently as they need to eat (many eating a small meal once a day). No freedom to have the health care and medications they need if they get sick. No freedom to refuse diving down deep into Lake Volta to untangle nets because there is danger in the water and danger above the water when you decide you don't want to do it. There is just no choice or freedom in any of it. 

My children have the absolute freedom to pursue their dreams! They have parents who are educated and who can protect them and keep them safe. And while they may not necessarily have "freedom" in some ways in childhood, they are under caring and loving direction. And as they get older, they are more released to freedom. These children will never have the same opportunities if they remain enslaved. They will likely never get off the lake, never learn English or go to school, never have money to make a better way of life and will learn that enslaving child workers is okay because we LEARN behaviors we grow up around And THAT is why it is important.

God wants ALL children to have that freedom. Every last one of them no matter where they happen live or how much money they happen to make. No matter which parents they get or if they are orphans. And I am asking and will continue to ask that you find a way to help in achieving this! A new school will be paramount in getting children out of slaver and creating even more advocates for the children on Lake Volta. MORE educated children who are loved and nurtured and who can grow up and make an impact on their communities. This is important because they deserve the same things out kids deserve. And WE can help that happen. Please keep praying, please donate, please help me collect items for the Auction in June, please have your kids collect pennies or collect school supplies.

Just don't... figure there is no way for you to help. If you want to help Tia, JD and I will find a way that you can help.

Much love.