Last year, my husband and I were blessed to travel to Africa, where we worked for a week with African Vision of Hope, a wonderful ministry bringing hope and God’s love to help lift children in Zambia out of extreme poverty.
As I worked with grade school children one day in a “Vacation Bible School” type setting, I was struck by how excited they were when we handed out crayons and pages for them to color.
Understand, these are children from the poorest of the poor–many have only one parent, and some are double orphans (having lost both parents).
It’s not like they have never seen crayons, but they do not have crayons at home. Most don’t even have paper to draw on in the home! If they want to draw, I suppose they would do so with a stick in the dirt in their yards.
So we passed out bags of crayons (used and broken ones, not new like in the photo) and each child took a few. At the end of the time, we collected all the crayons, and the children willingly handed them over. I guess they know if they don’t, there won’t be any the next time they have a coloring project.
Do children you know argue over a certain color crayon? Not these kids! If one child had a red crayon and another one wanted to use red, he or she gladly shared. Some children took great care to make sure that others got to use the colors they wanted, and they were eager to share their pictures when they finished.
How often do we take the time to appreciate simple things like crayons, rather than complaining about what we don’t have?
Always thank God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20, GWT
