Saying Thank You

“Our mum was Gran’s little girl,” I read to the five- to seven-year-olds in Sunday school at Solid Word Bible Church (Indianapolis, Indiana). “She was very sick, and one day she died.”

“She died?” asked one little boy incredulously.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s why the children live with their gran.” I was reading Susan Binion and Kathy Haasdyk’s lovely book, Our Gran . “Many of the mommies and daddies in Africa have died,” I said. “Some children live with their grandparents like the ones in the story. Some live with aunties and uncles. And some live alone with their big brothers or sisters and no grown ups at all.”

“I have a big sister,” the little girl at my side said. “She’s fifteen.”

“How do you think it would be if your big sister were the one who had to find food and clothes for you?”

She looked at me with large brown eyes.

“He’s mean,” said a girl with fluffy pigtails, pointing to a picture in Bully, part of the Key Reader series from Shuter and Shooter Publishers. “Read this one.” So we read about Bennie who pushed Lulu because he was scared he might catch AIDS from her. But all the other children were Lulu’s friends, and it was Bennie who was all alone on the playground until he said sorry to Lulu.

The African-American children at Solid Word don’t understand the causes of AIDS or the devastation it has brought to so many African families. They don’t know anything about the economics of programs for orphans and vulnerable children or arguments about condoms. They brought their nickels and quarters (and their parents wrote checks) to provide the books that I left in Tembisa. They raised over $600 in Vacation Bible School and were rewarded for reaching their goal by getting to slime the pastor with apple sauce dyed green.

After I had thanked the little children I went to the third, fourth and fifth grade class. I passed out the thank-you notes some of the children in Tembisa had written.

“Teke for the books. We salud you. God wit yoy,” one child had written.

An older boy wrote, “I would like to say thank you for everything you have brought to us even the books so that we can read and gain something from that books… I wanna say thank you very much, if we have a word in a dictionary I would thank you with it.”

English reading practice is important if these children are going to succeed at school and later in jobs in their economically challenged community. Some put addresses on their thank you notes. The American students were eager to send post cards. Who knows? Those postcards may be a little more motivation to read English for African children orphaned by AIDS. And writing them may make American children a little more aware of a world in need of God's love.