Our Best Christmas Gift

This year, as Christmas was approaching, my husband and I were contemplating what presents we wanted to get for our 10-year-old son, Jake. With the amount of toys and technology available, we had many choices from which to choose. One of our teachers announced at Lionheart’s weekly staff meeting that Zander, one of our high school students, wanted to start a business building K’Nex for, as he stated, “good boys and girls.” Zander had a flyer with all his information and I immediately knew this would be the perfect gift for my son! We have seen the K’Nex sets at various toy stores through the years. These sets looked neat and exciting and we knew Jake would love them. The problem we faced was with over 1000 pieces in each set, the task of building one seemed too daunting for not only our son but for my husband and me! Zander was hired!!

Zander came to our house the Friday before Christmas to show my family (Jake in particular) how to build the K’Nex Atomic Coaster with 1,255 pieces! Wow! Zander came in, sat down and quickly got to work. He took out the directions and piece by piece started assembling this amazing coaster. To observe him was nothing short of spectacular. While Zander had directions which he occasionally viewed, he seldom used them. He had to take these small pieces and connect them in a specific way to create this 4-foot-tall roller coaster. It takes such persistence, fortitude, patience, and a great attention to detail for one of these K’Nex creations to come to life. Even with the detailed work, Zander would talk to us about various subjects while always making sure Jake was watching him. After almost two hours of meticulous and careful labor, this masterpiece was built! The real test was turning on the roller coaster to see if it worked and, of course, it ran beautifully!

Zander built this perfect Christmas gift; however, the real gift was something we didn’t expect. As we observed in amazement how quickly and accurately Zander worked, he said more times than we could even count, “I am so happy.” What we witnessed that day is an incredibly talented boy who found his passion and was doing what he loved. That is a true gift! Every child at Lionheart has talents and capabilities unlike anyone else. Unleashing these abilities is what Lionheart is all about. Zander reminded us that we all have talents and when those talents are discovered, we can forge ahead with enthusiasm, desire and love of life! I certainly cannot think of a better gift than that!