Reality check: "Girls just want to go to school"

Also read in the weekend papers: "Girls just want to go to school," by Nicholas D. Kristof, in the New York Times opinion and commentary section.  Kristof writes more about this in a blog post.

From the column:

"Yet if Phung is achingly fragile, she’s also breathtakingly strong. You appreciate the challenges that America faces in global competitiveness when you learn that Phung is so obsessed with schoolwork that she sets her alarm for 3 a.m. each day.

"She rises quietly so as not to wake her younger brother and sister, who both share her bed, and she then cooks rice for breakfast while reviewing her books.

"The children’s mother died of cancer a year ago, leaving the family with $1,500 in debts. Their father, a carpenter named Dao Van Hiep, loves his children and is desperate for them to get an education, but he has taken city jobs so that he can pay down the debt. Therefore, during the week, Phung is like a single mother who happens to be in the ninth grade."

 Like the other children (and parents) that Ann wrote about over the past weeks--we admire their courage, are inspired by their ability to survive--but are grieved as well that the world can be such a hard, hard place.

WONDERFUL

Now the emptiness of ages proclaims the promised birth.
Hope to help unhappy hearts.
Love to light the earth.
And He shall be called Wonderful!
He shall be called Peace.
For to us a Son has been given,
to us the Lord is born.
He will govern with justice and joy, consoling those who mourn,
And He shall be called Comforter,
He shall be called Peace.


(Copyright 1971 by Medical Mission Sisters from the collection "19 Scripture Songs." All Rights Reserved.)