A Boy With a Gift

Sunday we went to Kasoa to worship. The keyboard was played by this boy who could not have been older than 12. He was amazing. There was one song we sang that he had never played before. He opened the hymnal to the page and the breeze blowing through the windows kept blowing his page but he would continually push the page back to see. Once he played it once he never worried about the pages again. He just knew it and played it over and over for each verse, barely looking at the music and not caring when the page blew over. All through the meeting his feet were tapping to music. While people gave talks he was fingering on the keyboard playing something. Music was in his soul. I could not help but wonder what type of a musician he could become if he had some formal training. I am sure he learned to play from a missionary serving who taught keyboard lessons. Many of the sister missionaries who play the piano teach keyboarding to the members. They are usually overwhelmed with requests to learn. There is a non profit organization in Utah that sends keyboards to missionaries to give to students who have some competency. This young man had his own keyboard.

Sometimes in Africa I feel like it is the 1800's in America. No indoor plumbing for most people: they haul their water from streams, wells, lakes, rivers or from the local water truck. They pee outdoors and think nothing of it - to them it is normal. Formal education has been established but is just becoming available in the last year to all children. People live off the land for the most part. Few Ghanaians can afford to buy food in a grocery store. They sew their own clothes. And many find their living by selling whatever they can on the streets by hawking, or in a makeshift open air store. Recreation is rare: most have to work everyday - even the children - to pay for food, transportaion, and schooling. And yet like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and many other early Americans, there is brilliance.