"Children at their Games"**

On the way to and from work over the last while I noticed this area of rubbish developing on the side of the road. My first response was annoyance that people would just keep adding to the mess along the road. But then, on a subsequent trip, there were children amidst the rubbish and I took a closer look.

People hadn’t been dumping their rubbish there by the road. Rather, the children had been gathering the rubbish, and from the rubbish and some stones they had created a little village. With the stones they marked out their homes, and the rubbish provided furnishings. They have been playing there for the past week or so. The scene was cause for some contemplation.

The Children's Village

My first thought was of disgust, that children should have to play with garbage. However, on further reflection I had to admire the children’s creativity. Yes, they do not have much, really they have nothing, yet they find ways to be creative and have fun together. They were not at home alone with a room full of toys, their I-pod, television, and computer. They were together, interacting, in creative play.

Poverty here is not pretty, nor is it something that I could in any way commend, yet …. Yet, amidst their poverty these children are building creative, social and interpersonal skills. I guess it speaks to the resiliency of children. And, if I look carefully around me, I also see such resiliency in the lives of many adults. Despite their poverty and the grind to get by, they still find time for friends, time to laugh, time to enjoy what few blessings that life offers. It is remarkable and yet sad. Remarkable in what the human spirit can rise above and still embrace life. Sad, that there is so much disparity in the world.

Children at their games - a celebration of the resiliency of the human spirit; a challenge to not just turn away.

For Wendy and me our prayer is that we might continue to know the lives we are to step into. The lives God is calling us to engage with, to rejoice with in their resiliency, and to also encourage, support, or share with. (James 2:15, 16).

~ Benno ~

** "Children at their games",
Gordon Lightfoot
from "Home from the Forest"