A while back I learned how elephants are trained in rural Thailand. A small young elephant is attached with a chain to a stake pounded deep into the ground. The youngster will pull for several days until it finally gives up. With this experience deep in mind, the adult elephant (weighing up to 10,000 pounds) will remain in place when chained to a small stake that it could easily pull out with a single tug.
Parents recently brought their precocious pre-teen to me for some mathematical guidance. They recounted another interesting natural phenomena. When the University of Arizona designed and built the enclosed, self-contained biosphere in 1990, they planted palm trees within it. Without any environmental strains to hamper the growth, these trees quickly grew straight and tall. But then, to everyone’s surprise, they snapped in two. Upon investigation, it was discovered that in natural conditions, stress from wind causes the wood fiber of palm trees to form strong, knurly, interconnected fibers. Without that stress, the fibers grew in isolated parallel strands that proved unable to support the tree.
These two examples from the natural world share a lesson – one that is also contained in the ancient wisdom of Buddhism. This philosophy of life uses the notion of karma to describe how the quality of one’s life is the combination of one’s own choices and the advantages or disadvantages of birth. True enough.
Experiences from early life are crucially important in determining the quality of the future life of the adult.
I learned that lesson yearly as I taught a senior seminar class at Hope College for a couple of decades. Towards the end of the course, students would write life-view papers that described their values and beliefs. These papers were often deeply personal – reaching back into their childhood. I regularly left those classes amazed and even shaken that students who sat next to each other all semester had such different life stories – some filled with trauma, others with kindness, love and opportunity. I was shaken because I realized a truth: No matter how good life might be in the future, no matter how much love, kindness and opportunity, lives that are malnourished during childhood will forever bear the marks.
That’s my motivation for being a mentor for Kids Hope USA, an organization conceived by Virgil Gulker of Holland, Michigan 25 years ago and now spread throughout the nation. Forming partnerships between churches and schools, the goal is to provide academic and relational mentoring to at-risk children in the first through the fifth grades. With more than 1400 church-school partnerships reaching over 25,000 children, the leadership remains in West Michigan with the recent appointment of Karen Pearson of Holland as president.
Over the past twenty years I have mentored six children. One memorable moment was in 2014 when I met with a newly assigned first grader. At our very first meeting he immediately had two questions for me: “Am I your only child? Will you be with me next year?” The first time we met! This was not then a testimony of my ability to build relationships. Instead it was a testament to his deep, urgent need for a special relationship. For the next four years, I’d come every Tuesday to find him with one eye watching the door, and leaping out of his seat when he saw me.
My present child is not so effusive, but I can see the fruits of our relationship as well. Last week the fifth grader pouted and crossed his arms as he is prone to do when I don’t give him the answers for his worksheet. Judging that our relationship had adequately deepened, I told him sternly, “Either stop that behavior, or I’m going home and you’re going back to class. I’m coming here to help you and spend time with you – it’s up to you.” His attitude changed instantly. I raised the bar for his behavior, and he rose to it. Our relationship and his life will be the better for it.
Having taught for almost forty years, I am convinced that the three crucial personal qualities needed for successful living are: i) grit (perseverance), ii) imagination (creative thinking), and iii) people skills (ability to relate to, empathize with, and understand people). Significantly, I can work on and see progress in all of these areas with my Kids Hope children.
Today while loading my groceries from the cart into my car at Meijer, it occurred to me that there are three kinds of people: i) those who don’t return their cart to the cart corral, ii) those who bring back their cart, and iii) those who bring back another cart as well. The world desperately needs more of this third type of person – those who are not satisfied with doing just what is required of them, but who go the extra mile to leave the world a better place. The world needs them, and, more importantly, a child needs them.
~Tim Pennings, Kids Hope Mentor
I asked Tim to write the Kids Hope article for this summer issue and I enjoyed reading it and hope you did too. If you feel inspired to make a child’s life better as Tim has done I sure could use some new mentors starting this Fall. Please pray about it and if the spirit leads sign up on the Kids Hope Bulletin Board. Your life and the life of a child will be forever changed because you step forward to help. Thanks,
~Vicki Rumpsa, Kids Hope USA Director