Stop Calling Me Stupid! The struggles behind illiteracy....

Greetings Friends, today I am joining the blogging team with Help One Now. 
Please stay with me as we try and experience what it's like when the hope for an education is lost... 

Children who cannot read because their school was destroyed in the Earthquake of 2010 and the government has still yet to re-build.  

Please take some time and click on the following links as you read this.

May God Bless you all,

-Heather


What does this say? 

Can you figure it out? 

Maybe you just need more time. 

Try again.

What if I told you 90% of the population could figure out what this says? 

Well then... Why can't you? I mean seriously!? 
Are you stupid or something? 

Why can't you figure this out when most everyone seems to know what this says? 

Whats wrong with you? Are you an idiot?  

People have figured this out in only a few seconds...

Why is this taking you so long!?!

I hope you catch this...

I am not trying to be a jerk, but this is what it feels like when you cannot read.

People may call you stupid, but here is the rub...

You are not stupid. 

Deep down you know you are not stupid. You know why this is a struggle to read and it has nothing to do with being lazy or dropping out of school...

You were not afforded the luxury of attending a school. 

Your one hope of education, your school, was destroyed in a horrific earthquake in 2010. 

This photo of the 2010 earthquakes damage in Haiti is courtesy of Dan King at Bibledude.net 

You did not have this opportunity to learn, and because you cannot read you find yourself struggling with communication. 

You wrestle with interpreting signs, and finding locations. 

You do not know which signs lead to safety and which ones warn of danger.

You are an easy target for those that would trick and traffic you out to satisfy the sick and degrading pleasures of horrid people for nothing more than their own financial gain.

I pray my friends...

With all my heart, I pray today that you have glimpsed a small taste of the frustration that so many face today.

I pray that these few moments spent here move you past sympathy...
to compassion.

compassion 

a feeling of distress and pity for the suffering or misfortune of another, often including the desire to alleviate it. 

Do you feel it? 

Do you feel that deep distress? 

Do you feel God's heart calling you to alleviate it? 

We can friends... We can do something about this together. 

Meet Naiderson... his dreams will come true soon because people...

Blessed ordinary people, just like you and me, decided kids like Naiderson, should have a school again. 

Naiderson will have the opportunity to learn again. 

To no longer look at his world through only poverty's eyes, but through eyes filled with knowledge and hope that will help him to advance beyond poverty's trap door.

Will you join me friends? 

Will you join Help One Now? 

It's as simple as throwing a garage sale for these precious orphans and donating the proceeds.

Click here  to read how one child provided a play ground for orphaned children in Haiti by simply having a garage sale. 

If He can do it, so can we, right friends?

Or perhaps you would like to sponsor a child. You could be the one that brings hope to a little ones eyes by bringing them food, health, education and protection. 

This photo is courtesy of Dan King at Bibledude.net

I ask you friends to meditate on these things...

James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.





With every breath I breathe
With every song I sing
I want to shout it out, 
Lord I am listening!
To every word you speak,
I'll go where you will lead
To love the least of these 
Is my greatest offering!

-All Sons and Daughters

P.S. Are you still wondering, what the first picture said? You know, the one I asked you to read in the beginning of this post.

It reads,

"Being Illiterate is like being blind, dumb, or paralyzed."

So yes, some of my readers can read it, but many of us cannot because we did not learn Japanese. 

I used this as an illustration because the letters we see on a page that so easily form words and sentences look like foreign characters we cannot decipher without first being taught what they stand for. 

This is what it is like for those who cannot read.
To read more on the statistics for education in Haiti from Unicef click here.

Will you join me friends?