-^-for posterity-^-

“my name is derek. i’m in 3rd grade. i’m nine years old. i go to penn view christian school. i have lots of pets; five chickens, one cat, two iguanas, two rabbits, three frogs and alots of fish. i have a brother that’s in 9th grade, and one mom and dad. i enjoy playing soccer. i live in a town named Souderton. in the winder it snows at least once. in the summer it’s usually very humid or/and hot. we have mountains, rivers, lakes, creeks, brooks and trees. three things we grow here are grain, corn and carrots. some factories in our community are asher’s chocolate, pilgrim’s, they make chicken meats, byers choice, they make dolls. some special activities in my community are foot ball, and summer bible school. some historical places are valley forge national park, peter wentz, lenape part, pearl buck’s house.”

a package of mail came for me today and it was wonderful. it’s like opening a wonderful present when it’s not even your birthday.

one of the letters was from penn view christian school. it contained a small, manila journal with the words, “my community journal”, at the top. i am to write about my community and send it on to someone in another community who will continue the process. sounds fascinating.

here is what i will write: “my name is jonathan moyer and i am living in vietnam. i am 22 years old and am studying vietnamese. i am a volunteer with mennonite central committee. i have very many books here and spend my time reading and writing. learning another language is difficult! this one is tonal which means that words that sound the same mean different things depending on how you say them. one word can mean six different things! i have a brother that’s a sophomore at college and i have a mom and a dad. they are sad that i am so far away and i miss them a lot. the weather here is very hot. it never gets cold and there are only two seasons: rainy and dry. here we have a jungle with lots of trees and a big river. it’s called the mekong. they grow a lot of rice here and eat it with almost every meal. the city i’m staying in is ho chi minh city. it is very historical. you can go and learn about vietnam’s history as a colony or about different wars that took place here.”

isn’t human development fascinating? i mean, i remember being in the third grade at penn view. vividly. it was in the basement and some of the boys got in trouble for peeing on the floor of the bathroom. i was terrified because i didn’t do it but was lumped in with those who had. now, 13 short years later, i’m on the receiving end of such beautiful innocence.