A little over a year ago, Landon and I found out about Mercy Project and it was something that I think God really put on both of our hearts to be a part of in some way. We've done a number of different things with them over the last year or so, but this year, after hearing about Chris speaking at some other schools in the area about it, decided to see if my school would be up for inviting him to speak to our students.
So, I did and a couple of weeks ago he came over to our neck of the woods and spoke to about half of our school body, all throughout the day. Every year the 8th graders at my school do inquiry clubs and come up with a social action project--basically they come up with a question dealing with a social issue in our world today, read and discuss all they can about the issue and then create a project using their reading, writing and speaking skills that brings the issue out into the world--either by fundraising, teaching, handing out brochures etc. So what was cool about Chris coming right at the beginning of this unit was that they got to hear his story of basically how he did this in real life, by starting Mercy Project.
He talked to them about life in Ghana, and what life was like for the kids in slavery. He talked to them about why their society lent itself to the kids being sold into slavery and what they were trying to do to stop it. He showed them a map of Ghana and how HUGE Lake Volta is and talked to them about their government and why it wasn't/couldn't stop the slavery. I even learned some things about it that I didn't know, which was cool.
And, the kids (for the most part--you know middle schoolers :)) were in to it. They were paying attention and asking questions and looking at the map and the pictures he was showing them. And he not only talked to them about Mercy Project and about Ghana, but he also talked to them about doing good in our world and how ordinary people like him and like all of them can do something to change people's lives. And my prayer is that they heard that--and that they can believe it--even if they don't right away. I pray that they don't forget the faces of the kids they saw, and that they remember that there are people in much worse situations than they are. I pray that his words of affirmation, that they can do something great with their lives, even with all the pressure around them to do bad, resonates with them and sticks with them.
In the last session we went to, where I took my "challenging" class, they didn't seem to be quite an in to it as the previous classes, though I've learned that looks can be deceiving with middle school kids. So, while some of them were a little silly and not quite as focused on him as the other classes, it was a group of kids from this presentation, seven of them, who came to him at the end of the presentation, and then have been talking to me about it every day since, about what they can do to help those kids.
So cool. So, on the first day of our inquiry clubs, they named themselves the Slavery Stoppers. I love it. The group is comprised of one boy, two teenage moms and four girls who get in trouble in a regular basis in my class, and tend not to do much work. But, they're in to this. They even set up a meeting with our principal to see if they could do a fundraiser and are planning to have a school dance around the end of the year to raise money for Mercy Project. I love it. I want them to hang on to that feeling of being a part of something good, something not about you, something bigger than you.
So, as I work with them, I have to keep reminding myself that the inquiries the other kids in my classes are pursing are worthwhile too, because that may be what they're passionate about and how they can do something positive, something good.
Looking at the effects of violence on people, looking at the effects of technology on people's lives, asking why no one does anything to stop the slavery...I love it. I could spend all day reading, writing and talking with my kids about these kinds of things.
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