Thirty-Hour Famine Letter Writing Exchange
When we arrived at the middle-years school in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the students were in the eighth hour of a World Vision 30-hour Famine.
I had written a script detailing life in Northern Uganda that would be read aloud by the students, instead of me lecturing them for 20 minutes on the country.
The script called for 19 of the 25 students to read while the others listened. When asked during the debriefing how they felt, the male student who was the rebel leader, immediately responded with power! That led to asking the girls whom he had abducted how they felt. One response was "like I had a choice. I just had to go with him."
Some of these young teenagers will ponder what they experienced much beyond the actual event.
We displayed the letters on the tables. Many had beautiful artwork on them, and several told the story of the war with hand-drawn pictures.
The students milled around the letters, commenting on them in smaller groups before selecting one to respond to. I could feel the anxiety of some in their questions: "What am I supposed to write?" "What does netball mean?" "Does this mean her father is dead?"
It provided an opportunity for more teaching and to emphasize what they were doing was important and would make a difference.
The responses to the letters were meaningful. One boy in describing Winnipeg, asked if his pen pal had ever seen snow and then described it as follows: "It is water that is frozen and hard. It falls out of the sky in winter in flakes."
Another girl attempted to find common ground: "I would also like to have a friend abroad. I have a friend who lives in Winnipeg and he is from Uganda. He told me a lot about the country."
She added at the end: "If you write back, you should tell me one of your stories you like telling. I would like that. I hope we keep writing to each other."
The sincerity of the letters was heart-warming.
Marc Schaeffer, president of RESPECT International, had said to the students in his introduction that he founded RESPECT and had not expected that it would grow to be what it is today.
He stressed the importance of dreaming and how sometimes those dreams come true in ways we would never have imagined.
It is true with this event. I will never know how many students may have had their hearts touched and will respond at some point in their lives with their own dream.