A Well in Uganda

Reprinted with permission from Guideposts.

My six-year old, Ryan, was the sensitive one. The middle-child-between two brothers Keegan, three, and Jordan, eight --Ryan never would leave anyone out of a game. He was always thinking of other people before himself, praying for them, even. Still, my husband, Mark, and I were surprised when we walked in the front door after work one day four years ago and Ryan immediately announced, "Mom, Dad, I need seventy dollars!"

"What for?" I asked.

"For people in Africa." Africa? "They don't have clean water to drink. We heard about them in school today. My teacher said it would cost seventy dollars to dig them a well. So can I have it?"

"Honey, we'll have to talk about this over dinner," I said.

Ryan was even more excited at the table. "Today our teacher told us poor people in Africa drink bad water from swamps and streams and get sick and die. If I can get seventy dollars, they can make a well in the ground to drink from."

I didn't know what to say. I was proud of my son's generosity, but the world just doesn't work that way. It's not made of sweet innocent people like Ryan. He didn't understand that no one in Africa goes around digging wells for a first grader in Canada. He's only six, I thought. Maybe he'll forget about it.

As usual Ryan kneeled at his bed that night and prayed, "Please, God, bless Mom and Dad and my brothers." Then he added, "And let there be clean water for everybody in Africa." Okay, maybe he won't forget so easily. But I don't want him to get hurt or disillusioned.

Mark and I discussed what we should do. "He wouldn't learn anything if we just gave him the money," Mark said. "But we could encourage him to earn it."

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