Congratulations

I can’t believe it but it has already been a month. Insanity.

Over the last 4 weeks I have gotten to know some of the students well and some of them have shared their story with me. Time and time again, with each conversation, each class and each experience I have had my perspective and worldview shattered only to be rebuilt more humbly than before. More and more I am realizing that we have all won the lottery. We live lives and have opportunities available to so so few. I have lived a life of enormous privilege, rich blessings and the gift to be able pursue my own dreams.

It is a gift.

I have taken for granted the fact that as soon as highschool was done the obvious next steps are more education: whether university, college or training in the trades. These are the choices we get to make.

Our choices are not limited.

Our future is not limited.

We live in a country where parents can tell their children that “they can be anything if they work hard” and, for the majority, it is true. This is not true of all countries and all people. In fact, I inputed the average income for an “unattached individual” Canadian (which is $28,500) on http://www.globalrichlist.com/, and found that if you have that income you are in the top 9.7% of the entire world.

The world.

Everyone.

The more insane stat is that if you have a family income of $74,600 you are in the top 0.87% of the world. That means that 99.13% of the world has less.

The students I teach do not have choices I take for granted. They can work harder, longer and with more tenacity and never see the opportunities and options I have come to expect. Other than the school and the dorm there is virtually nowhere they can go safely. To travel to a football match we had to take the backroads to avoid suspicion. These kids, most of them my peers, have so few options. Some can’t go home, others don’t have a home anymore.

The part that blows my mind is that the students continue to hold on and hope.

Hope for a free Burma.

Hope for the small chance of a university education.

Hope for a future where they can travel freely.

I don’t write this to elicit feelings of guilt for the abundance we have, but rather to spark a fire in all of us to act. To give to those around us in our world who have less.

On Saturday night I had a movie night with some of the students and we watched one of my favourite movies of all time: Kingdom of Heaven. The movie starts and ends with the quote:

"What man is a man who does not make the world better?"

Although there is no snow, or shopping mall Santa’s or consumer culture telling me what to buy to make me and my family "happy", I strangely feel more blessed than I have ever felt during any other Christmas.

I won the lottery. I was born in Canada. I am healthy, have a family and friends I love and who love me and I have the privilege to dream big dreams.