Cool second grade stories

During orientation at the beginning of the school year, my Mom put out pictures of her two new grandchildren. Since that first week, Mom’s second grade class has been very excited about our adoption, and they regularly ask for updates. All of her kids can find Kenya on a world map, which is more than a lot of adults in America can say! They even had “Kenya Day” at school, where they experienced some of the tastes of East Africa…including hot chai!

When my parents got back from visiting us in December, they were not able to buy souvenirs for the kids because of the post-election tension. So, we improvised and gathered all of the coins we had in the house. We had enough for each kid to get a 1, 5, or 10 Kenya shilling coin. And they couldn’t have been more thrilled if we brought back carved animals! If you were hanging out with us in January, you’ll remember that one of the young man asked my Dad if he could give his coin back, so it could be used to feed children at Sundi and Damon’s orphanage. The other kids were stunned. Another young girl proclaimed that when she grew up, she wanted to adopt an orphan too. Yeah, those stories pretty much made our eyes tear up.

Here is another cool story, hot off the press. A few weeks ago, one of the little girls in Mom’s class decided that she wanted a Kenyan sibling, so she insisted that her parents adopt a baby from Kenya. She was very persistent, asking every day. Although the parents aren’t able to adopt , they did some research and decided to sponsor a child through Compassion International (CI), in the Kenya program.

CI is an organization that helps lower-income families around the world (including the US). Among other things, CI enables kids to go to school rather than working outside the home to help make ends meet. It helps give a small but extremely helpful boost to hard-working families. Furthermore, letters are exchanged between both families, which enriches everyone involved through mutual sharing of one another’s cultures. This little second-grader will never be the same; and neither will her new “cousin” in Kenya!

It got me thinking about what the world would be like if we did not learn ourselves out of the compassion and idealism that we often possess as young children-- and “un-learn” as we go along and experience more of the “real world”.

Although we won’t get home in time for Sundi and Damon to visit the class before the end of second grade, the third grade teacher has already given my Mom permission to schedule a visit during the first week of school in the fall. Mama Sundi and the kids will have a good time, and Bibi will be so proud to introduce her new grandkids. And I have a feeling that the “graduating” second graders will look forward to it all summer!