One day, a few years ago, my friend and I decided to take a
walk in the picturesque city of Antigua, Guatemala. We strolled out of the
house we were staying at and walked down to the city square, eager to see more
of the mountaintop town. Enjoying all of the foreign sights and smells, I
noticed a small girl selling beaded necklaces to anyone who looked interested.
Anyone who has spent time in third-world countries is familiar with people
selling all sorts of random objects anywhere they set up; a few days later on
the same trip, I bought a carved wooden flute out of a bus window during a
traffic jam caused by a cow laying the road. However, there was something about
this little girl that caught my eye.
She was tiny, this girl. She barely came to my hip. More
than her small stature, there was such desperation in her face as she called
out to the passer-bys, “Necklaces! Beaded necklaces!” That was all she said,
and small as she was, most of the people ignored her for the louder, more
professional sellers in the same square. She kept shouting, even though her
voice was hoarse. Of the few people who noticed her, one or two took pity and
bought necklaces. She hoarded the coins they gave her eagerly, stuffing them in
her pockets before glancing around to see if anyone was watching her.
Maybe because she seemed so desperate, maybe because she was
alone, I decided to talk to her. When she sat down, I took a seat beside her,
my friend obediently following me. And when I asked her why she seemed so
desperate, her answer was simple.
“If I don’t sell, I don’t eat. I’m hungry.”
Her name was Rosa. During the day she sold the necklaces
that her mother made at night. What little money they gain was spent on buying
more materials and feeding their small family. Since her father had left a few
years ago, making and selling necklaces had become her family’s main source of
income, and with a sick baby and an aging father to care for, Rosa knew her mother
was barely to make ends meet.
Rosa was the first child to tell me her story on that trip, but
she wasn’t the last. During my time in Guatemala, I was inundated with children
and the tales they had to tell me. It was through their eyes that I was forced
to look at myself, and I didn’t like what I saw.
I was rich, selfish, and worst of all, ignorant. My worldview
had never been challenged before coming to Guatemala. I was secure in the
knowledge that everything would be all right, that God would take care of ‘poor
people,’ who for me had never really been anything more than an abstract
thought, anyways. You see, I had adopted that attitude that so many of us have:
I knew but I didn’t know.
I knew there were children starving in the world, but I didn’t
know what it was like to talk to a hungry child.
I knew there was violence in the world, but I didn’t know
the death-grip of a child’s hand as they explained to me how they had been
tormented.
I knew there was rape in the world, but I didn’t know the
feeling of holding a thirteen-year-old rape victim’s tiny, perfect baby in my
arms.
And what I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me.
Caring is a hard thing to do. Apathy demands nothing of us,
and willful ignorance even less. But to care; to see a need in the world and be
challenged to do something about it, to play a part in its resolution, however
small-that’s so difficult. But it’s time for individuals, churches, and nations
to take a stand for a world that’s hurtling off the edge of a cliff. It’s time
for us to care.
In this series, I will be talking about some of the global
issues facing children in this day and age. I’m sure I’ll be a wreck through
most of it, because children mess me up. I will be trying to paint a picture
for you of what it’s like for those children who are trapped in lives that they
can’t escape, be it hunger, slavery, abuse, or that ever-present beast,
poverty, as well as giving information on organizations that are doing their
part to help. I’m not going to make you do anything; I’m not going to guilt trip
you into sponsoring a child or sending money to Africa. All I’m trying to do is
make you care.
Because I know that you will do the rest.
What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Before I talked to that
little girl, I was happy in my ignorance. I had no reason to find out more
about what was happening to children in the world, and no intention of working
with them full-time, either. My ignorance wasn’t hurting me.
What you don’t know can’t hurt you.
But it will certainly hurt them.
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