The flight from London arrived into Nairobi one hour late. Consequently standing in line at immigration I had forty five minutes to get a visa, recover my bags, get through customs, switch terminals, pick up my ticket, clear security and board my flight to Kitale. I began to make a plan B which wasn’t very appealing and would be expensive. Spend the night in some guesthouse in Nairobi sandwiched between grueling traffic jambs as I travelled back and forth to the airport all of which would take about twenty four hours.

        “Please God, if you don’t make this happen there is no way I’ll make it. I’d have to set some kind of record so please, make it happen, but your will be done.”

        I offered up my little prayer but with little belief that it would actually happen. Yet forty four minutes later I found myself beneath my luggage in an old van speeding across the tarmac to the waiting plane with it’s props already spinning. Some guy in the rear of the van was muttering something about excess luggage and I figured he could be making a comment about an overweight white guy or referring to my two large bags or both. Either way he was apparently talking to me so I reached into my pocket and gave him the only Kenyan currency I had which totaled about $6. No receipt was offered but he did give me a toothy grin and shut up.

        About an hour later we landed at the Kitale airstrip but since I had been in such a rush I hadn’t been able to alert anyone of my arrival and thus arrange for a ride to my house and it’s not exactly like there’s a taxi stand at Kitale airstrip. No worries I had thought, I’ll call when I arrive. But of course, my phone was dead and I needed to revive it to even retrieve a number to call.

        “Please God, I need a charger for Nokia phone. Help.”         Well, a few minutes later after making a plea to a man behind the desk in the small office called a terminal, I was handed a jumble of entangled wires from a drawer. The second one I tried heralded victory and soon the phone came to life and the call was made. I’m embarrassed to say that only after I arrived at my house did I whisper a ‘thank you’.

        Perhaps only in Africa could this happen because who knows how many FAA rules had just been broken. How ironic, I thought, that in a land where it is often so difficult to get the simplest thing done did the impossible happened. (I later learned that the same plane I had just flown on had blown a tire as it landed at its next stop in Turkana and was stranded there. I did offer another ‘thank you Lord’.)

        Upon arrival at the house warm greetings were exchanged between myself, the staff and the two guests who had been staying there but whom were leaving that day. Later I went to recover my car from storage and soon noticed that the tires were up but the battery was down. Last time I arrived from overseas the battery was up but the tires were down. Not sure which I prefer.

        I’ve never figured out how people know when I arrive back in Kenya from overseas but within minutes my phone was ringing. My friend Samuel was one of the first to call. I was aware of the severe drought going on in most of the country and that the region of Pokot has been particularly affected. The village of Chemali, where the most resent school we built is located does have a well drilled by UNICEF some time ago but lightening had hit the tower and destroyed the solar pump. What are the odds of an electrical storm delivering no rain but causing lightening to destroy the pump on the only well for miles around.

        The ever resourceful Samuel has been busy trying to find funding to repair the pump and also for the bore hole to be flushed out so that it might be put back into use. He and the community of Chemali made a valiant effort but still had a short fall. When I learned of the amount I discovered it was just about the sum raised by friends in England. A truck is currently on its way to begin the rehabilitation process and put the well back into use.

        There was more good news. After months of wrangling back and forth with local, corrupt officials over the jurisdiction of the orphanage we built in Runo, I’m told that there are now a hundred children being cared for in that facility. Add to that the report that now well over a thousand kids attend the schools we’ve built in Pokot district and I think we can safely say we’ve had a positive impact. Chemali’s three classrooms now hold 340 kids somehow.

        Sometimes I see the most unusual sights here. What would go through your mind if you returned home from a long walk with your dog to discover a man sat on one of your dining room chairs in the middle of your drive way? Not only that but the man is impeccably dressed in a pinstriped suit complete with pressed shirt and tie and wearing shoes so shiny you can see your reflection in them. Such was the sight to behold in my driveway this morning. There he was, sat still as a statue, expression unflinching and to make things even more bizarre the gardener was sweeping up leaves around him from the clay driveway causing clouds of dust to rise. The closer I got the more I expected him to move but he didn’t. So I just walked right past him and went into the house as if he wasn’t there. I couldn’t help put peek through the window though once inside but there he was, still unmoved. He got the better of my curiousity so I went back out and asked him if he was waiting to see me.  I hardly expected an answer so still had he remained but slowly as I asked him his reason for being there he raised himself from the chair and introduced himself as Wallace. He was very nervous as he spoke, his lips puckered to the side as he explained to me that he had once been a cripple, but that old Mrs. Mayer, who owed the house where I now live prior to her passing, had sponsored surgery on his cripple feet for him as a child. Once confined to a wheelchair he can now walk and he wanted to show her. He had been unaware that she had passed away last year.

        I felt ashamed of my actions of initially ignoring him. Wallace is now looking for a second miracle, that being a sponsor to take him overseas to attend college. I wish I could help.

        As Wallace walked away I watched. It would take a miracle to change Africa from its paralyzing grasp of corruption which sap the life of opportunity and hope from its people. People like Wallace. But this is a land where miracles happen. After all, I caught that plane didn’t I? Then I remembered, I too am in a grasp, His grasp.