Monthly Archives: October 2014

CHILDREN ARE A GIFT FROM GOD

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Every person has their own personal childhood stories. Sometimes one can relate with them and most often, their story is unique and should be treated as such. My past is mine to remember and change certain things for my own children and other children, but I won’t change the good things that happened to me. I will appreciate them and commend them to any child anywhere.

God has placed a love for children over my heart so much that I can explode with love for them. Hmmmm. Not sure what kind of statement I just made. I began babysitting when I was five years old. At that age today, some children don’t even know how to hold their own sibling or even share with one another. I remembered being a very obedient girl, which was the case for most children who grew up in homes where they were to be seen and not heard. so I dedicated myself to taking care of children. With them, I was free to be me. This love grew even deeper as I got older and became a Christian.

When I asked Jesus into my heart at sixteen years, I thought superb, now everything in my life will be a smooth ride. Boy! Was I down for some major disappointment. I felt the same way and constantly had nightmares of demons trying to kill me for a consecutive two years. I almost gave up on God in those two years. My attitude became stronger than before. My grandmother cried many tears in those two years, for she could not understand me. I couldn’t understand myself and wanted her to help me understand me. We both didn’t know how to help each other, thus we concluded that the other was a terrible person. Things were going on inside of me that I didn’t know how to deal with them.

In the summer of 2006, I went for training as a Child Evangelism Fellowship Bible Club teacher. I understood Jesus love for children and wanted to share it with them. In all honesty, I found myself struggling very much. I myself was new to grasping this love, and wasn’t sure how to show it to the children. I would get frustrated when they would not listen. In the summer of 2007, when I was turning eighteen years, I went for the second training, and this time, I was more aware of God’s love and care for me. I could see a change in who I was, and what I was becoming. This time i was crying out for people to realize the change in me. After the training and returning from the mission work, I decided to start a Bible Club for Children in French, with the help of my best friend and her family. I barely knew how to speak French, but was determined. I was still struggling with anger issues and forgiveness, and still didn’t know how to react to children who were not listening and only came to disturb. I couldn’t beat them. It would make no difference between me and their parents at home. My only cry was for them to understand how much God loved and cared for them. I wanted them to have dreams for their future and visions.

It would break my heart so much when young boys of thirteen would be whistling at teenage girls or little girls and asking them to go to bed together. I would look up to heaven and cry.  I knew that their parents had no restrictions to the kind of movies and shows these children watched. Now that I look back, I thank God for my grandmother’s role in my life. She was firm and strict, but she protected me from becoming what most children became around me. Many girls my age had children before they were sixteen and I could not understand why. I wanted so bad to do something for the future generation, and that was God’s calling for me. I knew I had to work with Children around the world, especially those on the streets and vulnerable homes.

Sometimes we have dreams and visions and they come with lots of roses like in Mary Poppins. Everything in your head seems so beautiful and wonderful, and everyone is understanding and happy. That’s the beauty of imagination, which makes everything so simple. Now if we live in that little world of imagination without a strong heart for the reality, then when reality does hit, it will knock us out. I want to start an Organization for Street Children in Cameroon and from there see where God wants me to start another one. So I want to learn how to walk at home before I can fly in the sky. In the past few months of hanging out with some children in my neighbourhood, I have been able to recap myself with the reason for wanting to work with children in the first place.

These children have been a challenge to me emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. The words that come out of their mouths leave me breathless. The attitudes they have, and the way they treat their elders just resonates certain rhythms in me that I thought I had dealt with.

Today was one of those days. I had been helping our Youth and Children’s Worker at church arranging for these children to attend a Mega Holiday Club at church, for the past three weeks. These children were excited and ready to go to the club. I was excited and  looked forward to organizing transport for them and taking them there. However, when I went to collect the forms from their parents two families signed and the third family said they would sign it. On Thursday when I went to collect the forms, the last family said they cannot because they are afraid of social workers and the Police. Then one of the families that had signed also said she was not comfortable to let her children go. She had the largest number. So the ten children who had signed up were down to two.

When the two learnt that their friends were not coming, they said goodbye to their mom, and once outside of their house, they took off leaving me there. “If the others are not going, then we are not also going”. They ran off and I had to chase them down. When I did find them, they were playing with the other boys. All four boys ganged up on me, beating me, insulting me and saying as many hurtful things and curse words as they could. They couldn’t understand that I could not take the other boys without their parents’ consent. I just sat on a bench and cried. I was physically, emotionally and spiritually drained.

How was I to show God’s love to these children, if I reported them to their parents? They would never trust me again or listen to anything I say. How was I to help them understand their parents were just looking out for their interest? It was not my place to drag the other two to a Holiday Club, hence I sat down, wanting to beat them up. They were really hurting me physically, and I just prayed for them. I cried not because of the pain, but because I knew they were so ignorant and didn’t understand how to love. They have not been shown that love and thought everything they wanted could be gotten through a fist.

As I sat on the bench and prayed for them, I remembered that Jesus loves all the little children of the world. If loving them means I have to take the bitter lemon and swallow it just so I can earn their trust and show them love, then I would do it for the sake of my savior. Beating a child for some of us who grew up through that method as a sign of discipline and love would sound ideal and effective. How different would we be from their parents who never say any encouraging words to these kids? As they stood there watching me cry, some began to feel guilty. God bless one child who was not taking part and he tried to explain to them how unfair they have been to me, when all I have ever done was to be nice to them. He made me cry even more, because he often thinks before he acts. I love them all and will take all the bullets if necessary, and I know Jesus’ heart was breaking for them. I will not stop being their friend. If this is what I shall face in the future, then let all the obstacles fall. I shall not be broken. Thanks to Group 1 Crew for reminding me that God said ‘I won’t give you more, more than you can take, I might let you bend, but I won’t let you break’. That was a song I listened too while in tears and got so much courage when the next song was Courageous by Casting Crowns.

These children are a gift from God and I shall love them the same way he loves me and will break down for them. Now I have seen a glimpse of my journey and I know my source of strength is not in how much I love these kids, but in how much God loves them and wants me to help them see him. With these words, I shall trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding. In all my ways, I shall acknowledge his will and power in my life, for I know he alone can make my path straight.

OK: Still drain and with a massive migraine slowly creeping in.

IS CULTURE BAD?

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One of the most amazing things about culture is the way of life. It amazes me every time  I travel to a different country find many different ways that people live and interact. One can be amazed at the reception they get from individual families and at the same time be shocked by the community, and thus from the different encounters, they make conclusions. This however, depends on individuals and their perspectives on life. Our different experiences may determine how we react to other cultures. Culture in itself is a people’s way of life. Below are a number of definitions just copied off the internet.

  • Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.
  • Culture is communication, communication is culture.
  • A culture is a way of life of a group of people–the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next
  • Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action.
  • Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.
  • Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another

These definitions all tie into the collection of ideas and behaviors of a society, transmitted over time to each new generation. The way of life of a people identifies them uniquely from another group. One of the things that anthropologists scholars emphasize on, is for us to appreciate the uniqueness of every culture. From experience, in as much as a culture looks similar to another, how they practice it may be different. The media has portrayed the beauty of many different cultures and anthropologist have dug up hidden cultures that have not yet been explored, making them fascinating. Based on the definitions, we need to ask ourselves if culture is a bad.

There are in every culture beautiful aspects that makes life look like paradise. When you take a look at this image below, it shows so much grace and beauty in how the women dance and smile in Korea.

  Taking it home to Africa, I will find children presenting during school events or the beautiful women of Rwanda gracefully dancing. They all give us glimpses of beauty and music in our cultures and these aspects of culture should by all means be appreciated and valued. They should be promoted and encouraged so as to pass on to the next generation.       Even people from outside have come to appreciate other cultures and their outfits. As I tried to look for artifacts of cutlure that represented Cameroon, I came across a photo that surprised me. I realized I knew a number of the people within the photo, and it gave me so much pride and joy. I would like to share with you the following photo of a friend.  Watching people like these beautiful ones on this photo appreciate another’s culture, gives us pride and joy, because culture invites others to be apart of its people.

However, culture becomes questionable, when valued aspects of it becomes a threat to individuals within it. What happens when culture become a threat to human security? Should we hold unto it and claim it as ‘part of our culture’ or should we revised those long held traditions? Let me get personal here. We live in the 21st century and my generation and the new generation are embracing different cultures and practices that are both good and bad. However, when our children and our young women pressured into doing something they do not want to be a part of, where then do we define beauty? Culture should be beautiful and inviting, such that others would like to be a part of it.

When did watching volleyball become a crime? Ghoncheh Ghavami, a British-Iranian woman has gone on hunger strike after being held in a Tehran prison for more than three months for attending a men’s volleyball match. What crime did she commit in the 21st century for watching a game of sport? As a government, what part of your culture are you selling to people? I know some people out there will tell me that she should have asked inquired. That will not be wrong. Was this only done to her or to other foreign women who had gone to watch the game? It really pains and hurts me when a country treats their own like dirt and treat outsiders like people. If you are going to enforce a law then let everyone be governed by the law. By enforcing such a law, a government might lose allies and create enemies and from within the country, nobody would want to be a part of it.

If you do not agree with me on the volleyball scenario, then help me understand the beauty in giving your 8-year-old daughter into marriage to pay off your debts to a man three times her age. In Nepal and especially Yemen, there’s no age limit at which a child can be given into marriage. Stories of children around the world have been told, and World Vision is an organization specifically tackling some of these issues. A report online on September 9th last year revealed that an 8-year-old girl died on her wedding night at the hands of yer 40-year-old husband. It is reported that she died from the trauma and physical practice of sex. Weddings are meant to be beautiful, celebrated by all and loved by all. In cultures were weddings are celebrated at the interest of one party, it deprives the bride the beauty and joy of being a wife. Children are decorated and given into marriage without their consent and they have a party thrown for them, and yet they are unaware. Child marriage was band in Yemen, but some people refused to have it legalized. Saying that their religion does not define the age at which a person should not be married. In the same country, an 8 year old was given into marriage to pay her father’s debt and two years later, she took her case to the court. How can a child be married at 8 and divorced at 10? She will never want to marry again. Read the full story by Cynthia Gorney ” Divorced at Age 10″.

Don’t get me talking about our cultures which basically take away the voices from children, such that they grow up believing that their opinions do not matter. By the time someone wants them to have a say, they will not know where to begin. I don’t need to go looking for an example far away. I grew up in a culture where I barely spoke, looked a grown up in the eye and questioned anything done by the grown ups. I went to school where I was basically told to do things a certain way and accept what the teacher told me as right. I did my best not to upset anyone and always tried to please people, not knowing I was doing harm to myself. When I tried expressing myself in the University, I didn’t know how to logically express my thoughts, such that my professors thought I was immature. I lost confidence in my abilities and skills and always thought myself inadequate. It is in my year as a master student that I started fighting back in my writing, my blogs and my daily life. I want to do everything and anything to speak out.

I wanted to share these stories because in my dissertation on child soldiers, I came across many references to culture, as being one of the reasons why International legal instruments are not functioning well. Basically, the argument is that International laws didn’t consider culture when designing the legal instruments for protecting child soldiers. Let’s go back to the earlier statement of how we live in the 21st century. Children nowadays want education, a good future and they have big dreams. Their parents encourage them to go to school and make a better future for themselves and the family, and they know very little about their parents and grandparent’s past. They are oblivious to the cultural practices, and if we continue to uplift cultural practices that bring harm to individuals, then we not only promote oppression, but also murder.

In Sri Lanka, child soldiering was prone because of the cultural aspects such as adult domination. Children were not allowed to complain when they got less food and were to accept what the adult said as right. Due to this practice within the culture, the different armed groups found children cheaper to use than adults, because they would give the children less food. This qualifies as starving a child and they also beat them up when they refused to do what they were told. Using the culture as a means to harm children is utterly unacceptable in the 21st century. It really kills and pains the heart when people who can make a difference sit around and pass judgment over laws that should protect children from such practices.

The Bible says in Matthew 5:30 “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell”. In our daily lives, we have friends and things that we love and care for. But if what we love and care for brings harm to us, then we should let go. If you have friends that do not add value to your life, especially if they always get you in trouble, then you should probably reconsider hanging out with those friends. In the same way, culture should build us and mould us and enrich us. However, if it start bringing harm to us, shouldn’t we re-evaluate it, so as to create harmony?

Maybe I have just babbled my way up till this point. If you have not understood anything I have said, then look into your culture and ask yourself if you accept every little thing that is happening. If not, what can you as an individual do to contribute to making a difference? Is Culture BAD?