Heroes in their Superman Underwear

Superman. Spiderman. Anikan Skywalker (before he became Darth Vader). Tim Tebow. Tom Brady. Michael Jordan. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mother Theresa. These people are all heroes to somebody. They are all heroes to more than somebody, they’re heroes to millions. They have all accomplished great acts of rescue and of getting the bad guy (even if just in a movie or comic book). They have performed a great feat of athletic greatness or changed the lives of millions through their moving service and speech. Legitimately, they are thought of as heroes, and that is ok with me. It is not my place to tell anybody who his or her heroes should or shouldn’t be.


My kids will tell you that I secretly like watching Star Wars with them. It is hard to find a bigger sports fanatic than me, you can verify that with my wife who will regale you with stories of me watching a football game on TV and while tracking two basketball games on my laptop. I am a big fan of Mother Theresa, MLK and plenty of other activist leaders. However, none of these people are heroes to me. To me, the word just takes a different meaning I guess. I find my heroes in people who overcome situations that they didn’t choose to put themselves in. I am not saying that is a universal definition that we all should follow, that is just how I look at it.

So who are heroes to me then? There are plenty I cold choose from, but I keep coming up to these 12 boys. These heroes do not seem to have superpowers or a platform to show their greatness to the world. In fact, nobody really knows them at all. Their names wouldn’t be found with a Google search and they don’t have a Facebook page. They certainly don’t look like Supermen, in fact they wear Superman underwear, secretly hoping, perhaps, to have a little bit of his super powers themselves…if they only knew.

The 12 boys at Freedom House Grace Boys Home in Jacmel, Haiti are, for me, a group of heroes. They do have superpowers; they have changed the world. Maybe they haven’t stopped genocide or saved a sinking ship. Maybe they can’t see through walls or fly above the city fighting crime. Superpowers don’t have to work like that though, do they? Isn’t it a superpower to overcome being a child slave? Is it a superpower to lose your mom and dad at age 5 and still thank God everyday for His faithfulness? The powers to smile and have hope, despite the hopelessness that you have known your whole life is a super power, isn’t it? I think that it is, I think that they are doing something that I am not sure that I would be able to do. That is heroic. Their example has changed my life. Their ability to smile, hope and praise God for what they have, despite all of the garbage that they have been through in their short little lives is something that changes my life every single day. I want to be more like them. I think that they have a lot more in common with the heroes who adorn their underwear than they think, in fact, to me, Superman’s got nothing on them.