Friday, December 05, 2003
I had to work late tonight. I helped supervise a Christmas dance for foster children. There was approximately 150 kids there. I found something interesting about the dance.
See, I remember my high school dances, and only the cool/accepted kids got to dance. While all the unaccepted kids stood next to the wall longing to belong.
Tonight I saw these kids accept each other for who they each were.
I saw the pregnant teen dancing with other kids. I saw the goofy white kid with no rhythm dance with the black kids who knew how to dance very well. I observed boys dancing with a girl who had to use a walker because of her scoliosis. I saw kids who were in special education dance with kids in main stream education. I saw the southern gang members get along with northern gang members. Not one kid stood on the wall tonight.
What I saw was kids being kids. These kids who have been taken away from their parents and placed in foster homes and who have had, up to this point in life, a crummy childhood. Tonight these kids were celebrating life with one another.
It was a neat experience to be apart of. All this brings to me Tim’s thought on hope. What do these kids hope for? What hope do they have? Maybe that’s why they all got along so well together. They share the same hope of having a better life. The hope of being accepted. The hope of just making it in life or maybe the hope that their parents will get off drugs or get out of prison and be reunified with them. They hope to have the life that so many of us take for granted.
And most of all, they hope to be loved.
See, I remember my high school dances, and only the cool/accepted kids got to dance. While all the unaccepted kids stood next to the wall longing to belong.
Tonight I saw these kids accept each other for who they each were.
I saw the pregnant teen dancing with other kids. I saw the goofy white kid with no rhythm dance with the black kids who knew how to dance very well. I observed boys dancing with a girl who had to use a walker because of her scoliosis. I saw kids who were in special education dance with kids in main stream education. I saw the southern gang members get along with northern gang members. Not one kid stood on the wall tonight.
What I saw was kids being kids. These kids who have been taken away from their parents and placed in foster homes and who have had, up to this point in life, a crummy childhood. Tonight these kids were celebrating life with one another.
It was a neat experience to be apart of. All this brings to me Tim’s thought on hope. What do these kids hope for? What hope do they have? Maybe that’s why they all got along so well together. They share the same hope of having a better life. The hope of being accepted. The hope of just making it in life or maybe the hope that their parents will get off drugs or get out of prison and be reunified with them. They hope to have the life that so many of us take for granted.
And most of all, they hope to be loved.
