Gone astray

This morning, while taking breakfast with my hubby in the coffee shop, I saw a group of secondary students in their school uniforms at the other table, one holding a stack of playing cards and shuffling them, a few talking loudly to each other. There was a stack of comic books and soon a few students joined the group.

Sad to say I believe this is a group of boys who had lost the interest in their studies and we usually labeled them as “the wrong crowd or gone astray kids”. I have a church member teaching in a renown primary school, she shared that no teacher would like to take up the class where students fair poorly but she was kind enough to take up the class, have compassion in them and hoping to coach them to become better individuals. The reason for poor performing students are mainly due to family background, most of them coming from single parent family, parents working outstation and were under the care of their grandparents and parents worked as hawkers. Well don’t get me wrong I believe all profession is noble as long as it is earned using decent ways. But this tells us that parents play the most important role in nurturing and educating their children.

My parents were not educated folks, but they brought up 3 fine individuals. It’s the time and values that are so important in a child life. I remembered clearly what my Pastor shared years ago, nowadays parents prepare the path for their children but not preparing their children for the path. What’s the difference? Parents toiled to make more money so that the children could enjoy more material things but starved their children of the time that they so longed for. So we can’t blame them for adopting values from those around them and that’s from their peers because they spent most of the time with them at school, before and after school.

I knew many not so well to do families who raised fine children, they need not have to excel but they know how to become a human being. So who to blame? Society? Government? God? I also observed a lot of adults driving luxurious cars with kids wearing branded clothing but do not mind their manners at road, in their speech and their actions (both parents and kids). The next time we contemplate to judge others by their external appearance and wealth, be aware…… I’m so glad God does not matter of who we are and what we own but He looks into our hearts. For those group of students, I hope they will not become gone astrayed individuals but be the prodigal son who goes back to their loved ones and their loved ones readily accepting and spending the much awaited time together…..