Why a crown? What does it mean?

First a story.

Our sponsorship program includes and emphasizes the marginalized and broken. Most of our kids come from very impoverished families (living on less than $2 a day), many of who are single parent homes. At the start, simply going to school is the grandest of dreams.

At Retouch, we believe that every child should have the opportunity to dream beyond getting to eat that day or having a place to sleep. We strive to create an environment that satisfies basic needs (food, water, shelter, education) and presents chances to dream for a wild future.

A few years ago, we took in a small little boy named Larry. He was quiet, unassuming and had a scar on his forehead like Harry Potter. Looking back, we didn’t really notice anything about Larry or his story, that stuck out at the time. We simply placed him in school and put him on the path to dreaming.

All of the kids in sponsorship form a penpal relationship with their sponsors. They write letters (that often sound the same) and wait with baited breath for their far away sponsors to write back. We usually try and give the letters a read before sending them, mostly so we can track the child’s progress and identify any problems they may be having. It’s sort of like a parent snooping in their child’s journal, it’s ultimately for their good.

On one such occasion we came across Larry’s letter to his sponsor. Like most of the kids he had drawn a picture at the bottom, only this time His picture was of a golden crown, where usually the pictures are of crudely drawn houses or some Kenyan animals. Intrigued, we read his letter, looking for the source of the crown. In the letter, Larry wrote “One day I will be the King of Kenya, will you come rule Kenya with me?”

It was simple. Childlike. And honestly, we could have dismissed it as another fanciful child-hood dream… that is, if Larry was a child of privilege. You see, our kids don’t dream like that, at least we didn’t know they did. Their answers to “what do you want to be when you grow up?” are flat, pre-programmed answers. They’re not big, enormous, impossible dreams like becoming King of Kenya. Kenya doesn’t even have a King!

No, this… this was something else altogether. This was what we had been praying for, Kids who would believe that they could do and be anything they could imagine.

King Larry was the first fruit of prophetic imagination. His crown spoke deeply to our hearts about what the latent potential in every child and in every person. Slum kids, poor kids, broken families… God moves among the last and the least, elevating and empowering.

Even about Jesus they said “what good thing can come out of Nazareth?”

Obviously the savior did.

And so we find ourselves asking in every slum and shanty village…“what good thing will come from here? Where are the King Larry’s?” The quiet ones with little scars that are yet to realize who they are and the potential they carry.

That’s why we used a crown.

It’s about yet-to-be realized potential, laying dormant in the life of every child and every person. It’s about the kingdom of God bringing it forth and establishing their identity.

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