Children's Corner: The Village of Light

By Jane Hankin

Kwami arrived at the Village of Light-a school for the blind in Togo, West Africa-when he was 16. Not only was he blind, his foot was swollen and painful from a snakebite. Then Kwami got very sick with a disease called malaria and had to be taken to the hospital. At the mission hospital, the doctors and nurses treated both the malaria and the snakebite. But nothing could be done to make Kwami able to see again.

What is life like for a blind child in Togo? Most children live in a small home with only one or two rooms. There are no separate bedrooms, so the brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, and parents all sleep in one room. Cooking is done outside over a fire. Water is brought to the house from a river. The children learn to carry heavy buckets of water on their heads when they are only five or six years old.

Most homes don't have electricity, so there is no television or video. A favorite game for Togolese children is balancing an old tire between two sticks as they run down the road. The students at the Blind Center love to ride down the hill in a wheelbarrow, pushed by one of the other blind students. They don't think it's dangerous, only scary. I have told them not to do this because someone could get hurt. But like children all over the world, blind boys and girls like to get away with whatever they can.

What do students learn at the Blind Center? They learn:

1. how to speak French, the national language of Togo
2. the Braille alphabet and numbers
3. how to use a white cane
4. how find wood and cook
5. a trade or a craft so they can work and support themselves when they grow up.

But most important, the students learn that God loves them so much He sent His son Jesus to die on the cross so they can have their sins forgiven. They learn that whoever receives the Lord Jesus as Savior will live with God forever. Most villages in Togo don't have a church where boys and girls can learn about Jesus. The only time they hear is when a missionary or a local evangelist comes to preach in their village. Many more evangelists are needed to tell the people of Togo about God's love. The boys and girls at the Blind Center learn how to tell their friends about Jesus when they go home for vacation.

Like the other students, Kwami looked forward to going home for the summer months. But two weeks after he left the Blind Center, he returned, asking for work. Kwami refused to talk for a while, but eventually he explained what happened. His father had told Kwami, "Either you bow down in front of the family idol, or you leave home." Kwami was a believer in Jesus Christ. He knew he could not worship idols, so he had to make a choice: continue to believe in Jesus and leave home, or follow his family's religion and give up his faith in Jesus. Kwami stayed true to Jesus, was baptized and joined the church, even though his father told him he can never return home again.

It is not easy to be a Christian in a country where most people are not Christians. Maybe it is not easy for YOU to live for Jesus in your school or in your family. Ask God to give you the strength to stay true to Jesus all the time, and pray for other young people who must make a hard decision such as Kwami did.

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