Helicopters

I took a walk the other day. I suppose it was for no other reason than being outside on a beautiful California day. I walked in the general direction of a shopping center near our house, a small Christian bookstore I’d never been in before was where I was headed. After crossing the intersections and waiting for a police officer to pass I quickly jaywalked and stepped into the store.

I realized pretty quick that I wasn’t going to find the book I was looking for here amongst the Catholic icons and prayer beads. So I turned, thanked the lady and headed back home. As I passed neighbors houses that I didn’t know and homes and lawns that I usually drive by without really thinking about I slowed as my eyes caught sight of something laying in the street.

Before your minds race with the thoughts of dead animals or thousand dollar bills let me tell you it wasn’t anything like that. In fact it was something much simpler. Something that for ages had been lost in the recesses of my mind. There was something on the ground that began to stir in me the remembrance of careless days. Lying there in the street were helicopters.

Two weeks ago I entered a school in Ukraine. This isn’t a normal average High School that you would probably ever encounter here in the U.S. The students here were all defined loosely as orphans in one way or another. Through either an inability of the parents to care for them or the complete absence of parents; these kids lived here and studied here. They would spend most of their lives here striving and attempting to live out semi-normal existences.

Our responsibility that day was a simple one. We went to the school to distribute the Book of Hope to the children and show the animated film we use in schools around the world. As one of the groups of students were watching the film I noticed that there were other students still in class. Later I found out that the church we were working with had already been in the school and already distributed to and shown the film to the other students. Vitalek’s story would capture our attention.

Just 13 years old he lived at the school without parents. Regardless of what happened to his parents he was there and none of us wanted to ask what had brought him to the school. The teachers began telling us more of his story. He wasn’t a very good student. He was very disrespectful, used bad language and didn’t get a long with the other students. The teachers had always had a difficult time with him. At one point he ran away from the school to Kiev. Leaving the familiarity of friends, teachers and “home” he left to go two-hours away to the capitol. After living there for a few months he returned to the school and a few days later the church team arrived to show the film and distribute the Book of Hope.

As Vitalek sat and watched the film the scenes of Jesus being crucified on the cross brought tears to his eyes. The teachers would tell us they were all confused and shocked to see this happening. Vitalek’s toughness and years of rebellion began melting away. The teachers would tell us afterward that they’ve seen a complete change in his life. His attitude and behavior has changed. He is kind and caring. He no longer uses bad language and he does something now he never used to do… he smiles. Something none of the teachers had ever seen before. When I asked Vitalek what happened in his life and why he had left the school he replied softly and simply “I’ll never do that again”.

Do you remember helicopters? That’s what we called them. People may have called them something different. But I have a feeling you probably remember them. Those little seeds that fell off some kind of tree that had that one little “wing” on them. We would throw them up into the air and they would spin in circles coming down over us. We would gather up handfuls of them and throw them up into the air. It was always so exciting looking up and seeing hundreds of little spinning helicopters floating down towards you.

As I walked passed them that day I wanted to stop and pick them up and throw them into the air and recall many times of boyhood and the simple times before life got complicated and difficult. I wanted to stop and pick up as many as I could and throw them into the sky. For some reason I started to think about what my neighbors would think if they saw me throwing my arms around as these little things floated down around me. I began to think about how silly that might look and what people would say.

Do you remember the simple times? Remember when life was easy? Remember when your biggest concern was what mom had packed in your lunch that day? You didn’t think to not stop to pick up as many helicopters as your hands could hold because you didn’t care what people thought or what people would say… you just did it.

So I stopped. I picked one up and looked at it for a moment and I thought about Vitalek, a boy who’s probably lived more difficult and harsh days in his life than I’ll ever live in mine. I thought about how in comparison to his life, mine seems easy. I looked at it again and threw it as high as I could and watched it come down… spinning in circles over me. And I thought about how compared to many people around the world, my life is easy.