One Day, One Jar

We started Educate for Change after being touched by the lives of the children we met, and who became part of our hearts, while teaching in Uganda. Some of us have had difficulty explaining exactly what happened to us there last summer, and I have struggled to not just explain it, but try to incorporate it into my life here. I have learned this week that Educate for Change is not just about trying to level the field in terms of providing educational opportunities for children regardless of where they are born, but it has created the opportunity to change the hearts and minds of my students through education about kids just like them, living in very different circumstances.

On Wednesday, I received an email telling me that Opwonya Christopher, the little brother to one of our scholarship students, Ocaya Isaac, had passed away. Isaac has already lost both parents and is the main caretaker for his older brother who suffers from epilepsy, and his 80 year old grandmother. What can I do to help this amazing boy through another loss? How inadequate I feel so far away. So when Sister Hellen told me that when they went to bury Christopher his grandmother was living in a hut with a roof in such bad repair it threatens to fall any day, I decided to ask my students to help. A one day roofraiser- very simple…I told them that Isaac, the student they had raised money for earlier in the year, needed their help again. One day, one jar and bless their hearts they raised almost $200. One boy brought me a baggie full of coins and another girl organized a bake sale for next week with her whole class pitching in. We only have 130 kids in our middle school and today was the proudest day I have ever had as a teacher.

Most of the time I wonder if my students get it…if they will ever see the big picture, the world outside their small town world…and then there is a moment when they go beyond my expectations and open their hearts to help a boy who they will probably never meet.

I was truly blessed when I got off that boda boda at Mother Teresa’s Primary School last June and I need to remember that I am equally blessed to touch and be touched by the simple, generous hearts of my students every day.