It Takes a Village to Solve a Puzzle by Jim Wood

October 20 is Kenyatta Day, sort of the equivalent of the 4^th of July for Americans. Named after Kenya’s first President, Jomo Kenyatta, a revered Freedom Fighter, today the current President will make a grand speech in the capital of Nairobi, flags will furl, soldiers will parade in towns large and small, businesses will be closed, those who can afford it will return to their homelands and share a barbequed goat or two with extended family.

For those who populate my front porch this morning, it is a bit different. Granted, their parents, mostly tea pickers who work for less than  $2 a day, will not be plucking tea but neither will they be paid.  So rather than the smell of charred meat, their families will have a few fewer beans in their pots tonight. In a way, it seems that true independence is yet to arrive, at least in this part of my world.

So my porch kids arrive almost as early as the morning rains; schools are closed and they have nowhere else to go, nothing much to celebrate, other than a “free” day. And this is my commitment to them, in some small way, to help them feel the fresh breeze of freedom. James can sit in a grown-up chair, cross his legs like he sees the old men do, and read the morning newspaper. Alice can sit on my wood box, bundle herself with a tattered wrap and watch the younger kids run. Zecharias can leisurely twist the wire he pulled from the heap this morning, as the artist within creates a beautiful metallic bird.  Then every hour or so they will collect themselves, boys and girls, the young and the younger, as a community of freedom and submit their solitary wills to the communal project of a 100 piece puzzle.  As I watch, I’m reminded of how Psalm 133 opens, “ How good and pleasant it is when God’s children live together in unity!”  

So this Kenyatta Day. Though I don’t smell flame-broiled goat, I breath in something so much sweeter, the aroma of hope - hope in and for a new generation, one which perhaps just might be able to work together more cooperatively than mine, even if only once in an hour or so, so that, in unity, they may solve some of the puzzles we have left to them.

This rainy glorious holiday, I thank Jesus for the joy of witnessing a little hope unfurl amidst a dozen young puzzle solvers.  Happy Independence Day.