Since meeting here last, I picked up a book, Children in Danger and decided to use it for this week’s article. James Garbarino, again the author, is joined by: Nancy Dubrow, Kathleen Kostelny, and Carole Pardo.

Drawing on their extensive fieldwork in war zones around the world, the authors explore the link between a child’s response to growing up in an atmosphere of violence and danger, and the social context established for that child by community and caregivers.

The authors tell us that countless children by age five have witnessed shootings. Many, also, witness domestic violence of stabbings.

Robert Coles (1986) observed Cambodian children and wrote:

I am thinking that I have never seen a group of children, who are more resilient and perceptive, industrious, and as caring as any I’ve seen anywhere in the world.

He tells us of one young boy who made a special impression upon the staff in a hospital. He had fallen on a land mine and lost both legs at the knees. After the accident, the parents separated, leaving the child in the orphanage. With no prosthesis nor wheelchair, using his arms, he scooted around on the sandy ground. He smiled often and played with the other children, who welcomed him in the games and allowed extra time for him to reach the finish line in the races. When the writers asked the child to draw a picture, he drew the man who had rescued him.

For the children of Cambodia who have reached Heaven in the United States, who have some direct line to their families, the dominant feeling among them is deliverance. However, children who left with no ties to family, are often unable to take hold in their new land. By contrast those with some contact, follow the example of family members, determined to succeed.

He found no such ambition in the children of our inner-cities war zones, and offered this explanation: “The Cambodian children were past their crisis, while the American children are still mired in the violence of their undeclared war zones.”

The author says this may be the secret of the teachers’ success with the children in Cambodia: “ I told them –‘ think of what you would have wanted from a mother when you were a child, and give it to this child now.’”

These are the individuals who have been hurt, but they are also individuals who have healed themselves through caring. deeply for the most vulnerable of God’ s children. It’‘s called “love.”

Lord, You were right, all along. Amen.

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