Heartfelt
Dear God,
Please watch over adolescents. Save them from themselves.
It's clear nobody else has a chance. So much love and fear and frustration and hope goes into watching them struggle, but there is so little that can actually be done against their (often painfully misguided) certainty and determination. Everyone who is outside that sphere can only watch in impotence, hampered by the inability to act, to fix, to impart any sort of useful information or knowledge. And they're miserable too, angry or distant or misunderstood or blaming or feeling out of control or all of it at once. Isn't there a better way to make children into adults than this?
I'm not saying some don't make it through on a relatively even keel. Some do, though I think they're probably few and far between; I know my mother was saying to me just the other day that she never thought I would have a typical adolescence, since I was such an odd kid, but I went textbook right around age thirteen. My Grammy always said, "Bury them when they're twelve and dig them up when they're twenty," and I thought for years she meant because they're so annoying, but now I think maybe it's just to keep them out of harm's way. I want to wrap all teenagers in bubble wrap to cushion them from the world.
There are too many angry violent lost young boys and angry defiant lost young girls. The injury and casualty rates for adolescence are appalling. So, God, keep them out of cars with drunk drivers, make them use condoms, and let them survive their poor choices when they make them and move on to make better ones. Recent brain studies show that decision-making faculties are not fully developed until the early twenties; I'm not sure mine kicked in until my mid-twenties, not fully. There's a sense of the future, of the long run, that is so crucial to deciding what to do in the now, and I'm not sure that that comes to us, really, until later in life.
I mean, I give credit to divine intervention/sheer dumb luck/happy random chance that I survived adolescence, myself.
I've been sitting on this post for several days, refining and poking at it, trying to make it say what I've been thinking. Some of you may know the situation with my brother, and how scared and frustrated and helpless my family is feeling in the face of his anger and unhappiness. Some of you may know my friend J, who lost her son Patrick several years ago to depression-related suicide in his senior year of high school. And some of you may know another online friend of mine, whose son committed suicide on the 27th of December, 2005, after struggles of various kinds. There is and was no lack of love or caring or attempts to help these sweet boys, but conversely, it sometimes seems there is and was no way to get through to them with messages of support, or love, or possibility, or hope. My prayers are with all teenagers and their families, because there but for the grace of God are/were we all. And God, we could use a little more grace down here.
From my friend's son's obituary:
[Her son] died Tuesday, December 27, 2005, in Seattle.
In lieu of flowers, his family requests that donations be made for a memorial well to be drilled at Kisa School in Nansana, Uganda. Donations may be sent to the nonprofit foundation L’una-cef, PO Box 595, Bothell, WA 98041-0595. For more information, go to http://www.lwa-kisa.org/.
Although he was only 18, [her son] had a great concern for social justice and for other people. He would enjoy the knowledge that loved ones celebrated his life with something that significantly improved the lives of others.
About the Need for a Well
Kisa School, Nansana, stands on two acres of land and has grown to include 500 students ages 3 to 14, mostly orphans, 20 teachers, 10 assistants as well as 6 other adults who help on a daily basis.
From day one water has been problematic. Initially two men hauled water in pails by bicycle to the school. As the school grew, a water pipe was installed to bring water from a distance. However, no water flowed for 9 months. When water does flow, a nearby chieftain claims payment. At the moment, water is being hauled over one mile from a nearby river. Water is also collected from the roof drains during the rainy season.
To ensure a consistent, secure water supply for the children, Kisa need to drill a well within the school compound. It is estimated that drilling equipment and pump will cost a minimum of $10,000. The villagers will supply labor.
Please watch over adolescents. Save them from themselves.
It's clear nobody else has a chance. So much love and fear and frustration and hope goes into watching them struggle, but there is so little that can actually be done against their (often painfully misguided) certainty and determination. Everyone who is outside that sphere can only watch in impotence, hampered by the inability to act, to fix, to impart any sort of useful information or knowledge. And they're miserable too, angry or distant or misunderstood or blaming or feeling out of control or all of it at once. Isn't there a better way to make children into adults than this?
I'm not saying some don't make it through on a relatively even keel. Some do, though I think they're probably few and far between; I know my mother was saying to me just the other day that she never thought I would have a typical adolescence, since I was such an odd kid, but I went textbook right around age thirteen. My Grammy always said, "Bury them when they're twelve and dig them up when they're twenty," and I thought for years she meant because they're so annoying, but now I think maybe it's just to keep them out of harm's way. I want to wrap all teenagers in bubble wrap to cushion them from the world.
There are too many angry violent lost young boys and angry defiant lost young girls. The injury and casualty rates for adolescence are appalling. So, God, keep them out of cars with drunk drivers, make them use condoms, and let them survive their poor choices when they make them and move on to make better ones. Recent brain studies show that decision-making faculties are not fully developed until the early twenties; I'm not sure mine kicked in until my mid-twenties, not fully. There's a sense of the future, of the long run, that is so crucial to deciding what to do in the now, and I'm not sure that that comes to us, really, until later in life.
I mean, I give credit to divine intervention/sheer dumb luck/happy random chance that I survived adolescence, myself.
I've been sitting on this post for several days, refining and poking at it, trying to make it say what I've been thinking. Some of you may know the situation with my brother, and how scared and frustrated and helpless my family is feeling in the face of his anger and unhappiness. Some of you may know my friend J, who lost her son Patrick several years ago to depression-related suicide in his senior year of high school. And some of you may know another online friend of mine, whose son committed suicide on the 27th of December, 2005, after struggles of various kinds. There is and was no lack of love or caring or attempts to help these sweet boys, but conversely, it sometimes seems there is and was no way to get through to them with messages of support, or love, or possibility, or hope. My prayers are with all teenagers and their families, because there but for the grace of God are/were we all. And God, we could use a little more grace down here.
From my friend's son's obituary:
[Her son] died Tuesday, December 27, 2005, in Seattle.
In lieu of flowers, his family requests that donations be made for a memorial well to be drilled at Kisa School in Nansana, Uganda. Donations may be sent to the nonprofit foundation L’una-cef, PO Box 595, Bothell, WA 98041-0595. For more information, go to http://www.lwa-kisa.org/.
Although he was only 18, [her son] had a great concern for social justice and for other people. He would enjoy the knowledge that loved ones celebrated his life with something that significantly improved the lives of others.
About the Need for a Well
Kisa School, Nansana, stands on two acres of land and has grown to include 500 students ages 3 to 14, mostly orphans, 20 teachers, 10 assistants as well as 6 other adults who help on a daily basis.
From day one water has been problematic. Initially two men hauled water in pails by bicycle to the school. As the school grew, a water pipe was installed to bring water from a distance. However, no water flowed for 9 months. When water does flow, a nearby chieftain claims payment. At the moment, water is being hauled over one mile from a nearby river. Water is also collected from the roof drains during the rainy season.
To ensure a consistent, secure water supply for the children, Kisa need to drill a well within the school compound. It is estimated that drilling equipment and pump will cost a minimum of $10,000. The villagers will supply labor.
posted by The Stute Fish at 13:40
1 Comments:
Just thought you would like the update on this project: The well was a no-go due to ground water contamination. We decided to have water tanks built ot catch rain water during the Ugandan rainy season.
Photos of the completed tanks:
http://www.lwa-kisa.org/sub8.htm
Thank you.
Ben's mom
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