Closed doors

About one and a half year ago I read the story below. It made a big impact on me and is one of many things that influenced me towards wanting to work with streetchildren.

Maybe I can help open some doors even if this means I have to step outside the gate myself…

Some people have every door open to them, thousands of doors wide open for the choosing, their future molded by whatever path they decide for themselves. Other people knock and pound on a thousand doors, waiting and hoping that any door will open so they may have at least one option, rather than being stuck helpless forever in the hallway. Others, having given up, make a home in the hallway. The difference between these people often falls as a difference between the poor and the rich.

I, for one, have been given many of the things I have ever wanted or needed. Any educational opportunity, expensive or cheap, was there to take as soon as I chose it. I am sheltered by a comfortable house with my own room. I never suffered a day of hunger, never had to skip even a meal. I have a family who has stayed together- a mother, a father, and one younger brother. I am well provided for, monetarily. My world is full of wide open doors. For the vast majority of each of you, your lives are similar – you have option, opportunity – there are doors open for you. Some of us, of course, have more doors open than others, but for many in the United States, the clear fact is that our hallways are open futures compared to the vast majority of the world, who live with much less than we have.

One day in Lima, I stood at the gate of my house, ready, with my key, to enter. A child approached me selling candy. “Comprame…no sea mala” “Buy from me, don’t be mean.” He said to me. I barely looked at him and said, “I don’t have any money.” The truth was, I had a lot of money in my pocket. Then, I shoved the key in the gate, opened it wide enough so that just I could pass, and slammed it shut behind me. I ran up to the door to my house and fumbled with the next key to enter that door. As I did so, I looked behind me to see if the child was still there. He stood staring at me through the gate, still, open-mouthed, holding his box of candies, his face a little bit startled – probably because I had slammed the gate so loudly and forcefully behind me. I opened the door to my house, went inside, and shut the little face outside. I shut out a little boy who was probably hungry, who needed that money before he could go home – I knew that many of those children would have to work into the night if they didn’t earn an established amount of money, and many times they returned home and were beaten for not having worked as hard as they should have. I had lied to him. I went up the stairs to my room and put down my things. I sat on my bed for a few moments, not able to forget his face. Why didn’t I give anything to him? I jumped from my place and ran downstairs, out of the house door. I unlocked the gate and looked right and left. In my hand I had coins to give to him. But he had already left. Until this day, I will never forget his face looking at me through the barred gate that separated me from him. It was the gate that said, “I have a key and you do not. This place is open to me and not to you. I have money that I don’t have to give to you unless I want to. Stay on your side of the gate.”

- Noting but a Thief by Danielle Speakman -

Link to video: "God of Justice by Tim Hughes"