Rice Seeds: Nurturing Unlimited Potential
A small seed has so much potential. Given the right care and the opportunity to grow, a beautiful fruitful plant can result. This plant then bearing more fruit and more seeds is equipped to produce an abundant return again and again and again.
YWAM Ratchaburi has been running ‘Rice Seeds’, which is a ministry to primary school aged children in underprivileged areas for four years now. ‘Rice Seeds’ serves to nurture and provide opportunities for children in such areas to grow and develop potential within them. One of those opportunities is realized through a project under Rice Seeds. This project ‘s mission is to build libraries in underprivileged areas.
With the help of the Sri Ayudhya General Insurance Public Company Limited, YWAM Ratchaburi was recently able to open their third Rice Seeds library! This library is in a small Karen community in Suan Pueng, near the border of Burma. There are seventy-nine children in the community and tragically, before the library opened, there was barely a single book or toy in the entire village.
Books, it’s said, can nurture the potential in someone. Mr. Rowan D’Arcy, the CEO of the Sri Ayudhya General Insurance PCL so aptly stated to the children on the day the library officially opened, “Books can bring the world closer to you.” The children were encouraged to use the opportunity that was being granted them, to value every chance that they were given, and to be intentional about dreaming their own dreams. Mr. Rowan D’Arcy continued to say, “You have been given this opportunity, but now it’s up to you.”
That’s the tricky thing about opportunity and things like seeds and potential. Dr. Suess wrote in his book, The Lorax, “It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become”. At the end of the day, it really is up to the children in that community as to what they will do with the opportunities that are granted to them. It’s also up to the rest of the community to take care of what they have been given and to be a part of nurturing the potential within each and every child that lives there.
The Rice Seeds Library in Makaam Waan Village, Suan Pueng, has just opened, and there is no telling what wonderful things will happen there. Nobody can know for sure how each child will embrace the opportunity, but if there is just one child whose life is changed because someone believed in them enough to build a library for their community – then it is all worth it.
Thank you to the Sri Ayudhya General Insurance PCL for believing in the children of the Maakaam Waan Village. May they, in turn, believe in themselves.
