This is a Miracle.
What made me look up was a basic sentence, “Mwana usu aema uthi sukulu wa kwambililya ndeasya mwanya wake” That child will forfeit her admission if she does not join the school on Monday, in my native Kikamba language. What I witnessed, a father shedding tears in public, kept my interest.
In February 4, 2010, I was at a cybercafé in Nairobi, Kenya, checking my emails when a man watching his friend check emails from a computer next to mine received a phone call. It wasn’t long before he said those words. He stared at a spot on the floor. When he looked up, I noticed tears streaming from his eyes. He ended the call, saying, “Nyie ndyisi undu ngwika” I don’t know what to do.
I pulled my chair closer and asked what he was talking about. He was talking to his wife about their daughter who had passed high school admission exams. She was supposed to enter a high school the following Monday with full tuition and fees otherwise her spot would be given to someone else. But his family didn’t have the total amount required. They needed Ksh.8,000 ($106.70).
That was two days after Kenya’s main newspaper reported on a mother of six who committed suicide because she couldn’t afford to pay for her daughter to join high school tuition.
I didn’t know how to get involved but I asked this stranger to show me his identity card and make me a copy of it. I requested he write his daughter’s name and the school where she had been admitted. I asked him if I could call and talk to his wife. He granted me permission. Nothing unusual except the fact that this man had never seen me, didn’t know who I was or why I needed all the information he had so obediently provided. Imagine giving a stranger your personal information and that of your spouse and child. Desperation has no privacy.
After I talked to his wife, I gave the man $106.70 and $26.70 more for books. All he said was, “Kii ni kyama” This is a miracle. He kept repeating those words as I tried to learn more about him. He is a part time driver with five children and had bought food with all his money because of three consecutive years of famine.
Another miracle happened on my flight back to Idaho. The first person I shared that story with promised to be a sponsor of a child in Kenya. The check arrived two days after I emailed her where to send it.
Orphans, children of widows and/or single mothers and from poor families have no future in Kenya unless God performs miracles. Your contribution, no matter the amount you are capable of, is a miracle.
Every penny contributed for a student is used to pay for their education. To help, mail a check to Caring Hearts and Hands of Hope, Idaho United Credit Union, P.O Box 2268, Boise, ID 83701 or call (208) 376-8734 and get details on how you can help a student directly and get his/her photo and their school’s contact information.
