I was lucky enough to receive some gifts this Christmas. Some very thoughtful gifts, in fact. My favourite though was from one of my brothers. He donated, on behalf of our family, to a unicef project entitled K.I.N.D (Kids In Need of Desks).

I don’t know about you but I take our desks for granted each day. I’m sure most of our students do as well. Our desks have never been a cause for celebration or driven our students to burst into song. Besides the odd time I’ve ordered them, I have never really given them much thought. Never considered not being able to afford desks for our school. Never really thought about the alternative: sitting on a cement floor all day, every day. And then I watched the video and read the article at the following link:

http://www.unicefusa.org/news/news-from-the-field/kids-in-need-of-desks-malawi.html

Brother, thank you for reminding me how fortunate we are to live in Canada… how fortunate we are to have the resources we need in school each day… how fortunate we are to be able to meet not only our spiritual and academic needs but our basic physical needs as well.

According to the article, “four out of five students in Malawi are still without desks, and in all of sub-Saharan Africa there are 45 million children who are unable to go to school.”

Ultimately, my brother’s gift was a reminder: yes, I’d say we have it pretty good here.