Читать книгу Hannah’s Hope - Paul H Boge - Страница 14

CHAPTER

six

There is power in words. Not simply in what is said, but in the assurance behind certain phrases spoken at certain times by certain people that can provide great encouragement. Especially to people in need. Especially to me.

A word spoken at the right time changes everything.

I had never heard of Mully Children’s Family. Yet the simple sound of those three words somehow—somehow—convinced me right to my core that this was a place of hope. How could that be? How was it possible to know in my spirit that this was a good place even though I had never been there? It was just a name. Wasn’t it? Or maybe my inner being was so grasping for any semblance of positive news that no matter what my uncle would have said I would have automatically assumed it was good.

No, it was more than desperate hope. After hearing those words part of me came alive. It was as if I had always been longing to hear them—like this was an appointment that had been set years ago. This was not something that only affected my mind and heart. Those three words spoke right to my spirit. And I knew in the deepest place where any person knows things to be true that this was a place for me.

Mully Children’s Family.

“I have not heard of it,” I said. That was true. But if that were so, why did I have such an unmistakable connection with a place I had never heard of?

“Let me tell you,” he said, hardly able to contain himself. “I work at Mully Children’s Family. It is a home with hundreds of children. And it is run by a man named Charles Mulli.”

I felt a rush of peace come over me. For the first time in a long while I felt I could breathe again. Like something had released its tight grip on me. I felt I was living a dream from the night before. Who was Charles Mulli? I had no idea. Absolutely none. Still, I felt I had known him my entire life.

“There are amazing people in this world. But no matter where you go—whether you go high up in the mountains or get on a plane or a boat and go all around this world, I tell you—and now you really have to listen to me—you will not find such a man as this. Charles Mulli—he is a fascinating man. You can even walk to every city and country and continent in this whole earth and you will not meet a man like him.”

As I listened to our uncle in our humble home, I knew I was hearing words I would never forget. I knew I would look back years in the future and always remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard the name Charles Mulli.

I think many people would tell you the same thing.

“When he was just six years old, his family abandoned him,” Uncle continued. “Left him all alone. Can you imagine? He wakes up one morning and they are all gone. He has nothing. He has to go from hut to hut with his hands outstretched, begging for food.”

I could relate to asking for food. That feeling of a knot in your stomach, tired eyes, difficulty concentrating, and having to find it within you to hold out your hands for something to eat. Knowing that this man Mulli also had to beg gave me immediate comfort. I felt he could understand what I went through.

“He was not able to attend school, because he lacked the required fees. That left him with no education, no money, and no family. All he could do was dig holes for a little bit of money to help him survive. Everything looked completely hopeless.”

My sister Zemira leaned in to me. I instinctively put my arm around her.

“But one day, when he was a teenager, a friend invited him to a church gathering. He heard about God, and he received real hope. When he was older, God gave him an idea to start a business driving a taxi. That business grew bigger and bigger. He branched out into other businesses. Oil and gas. Property management. Insurance. He got married, had a family, and became so rich, right here in Kenya, that he could buy anything that he wanted.”

I tried to imagine that. What would it be like to be able to buy anything you wanted? What did anything look like? For me, my imagination took me as far as a pair of shoes, enough food for two days—maybe even a week—and a bed to sleep in. I could not ask for or even imagine more than this. And yet this man Charles Mulli had far exceeded what I could not even dream of.

The passion in my uncle’s voice told me he was speaking about a man who had affected his life far beyond anyone else on this earth. Even if I had suddenly become deaf, I would still have been assured of what he was telling us. He motioned with his hands and his arms with such fervour. His eyes shone bright with hope. Joy comes with sharing good news. But this was a joy I had not seen before. He conveyed a larger reality, a truth, something so deep that it would make all other pursuits plain by comparison.

“And even with all of his money, he felt convicted in his heart about the many children here in Kenya who have no parents. Children who walk the streets. Who have no place to call home.”

My uncle described a man who once had to beg and who now loved children like me who had no parents. At first, this amazed me. But the more I thought about it, the more it concerned me. I had nothing to offer him. No money. No goats. No sheep. What did all the other children have that I did not have? What did it take for them to be rescued? What did he require of those children to come to his home?

This all suddenly became impossible and pointless. We could not afford school. Certainly we would not be able to afford living in this man’s home.

“He struggled with what he should do. He thought ‘Do I stay in business, or do I help all these children?’ He felt a deep love for children who had no food, who had no family—children who had been just like he had been. But how would he help them? And then one day everything changed for him and hundreds of others.”

Hundreds? Is that what he said? How exactly was a rich man going to help hundreds of people? Would he buy them food? Would he help them to go to school? How can one man do such a thing?

“One day Charles Mulli came out of a business meeting and discovered his car had been stolen by street children. That got his mind thinking about the street children problem. And after much praying he wanted to do something to help. But what? What should he do?”

That was easy. A rich man should give some of his money to help those children. Give them food. Maybe a place to stay. It seemed so obvious to me.

But wouldn’t his money eventually run out? What rich person would do that? Wasn’t the point of becoming rich to also stay rich?

“He left his office one day feeling very sick. And on his way home he became disoriented. Confused. He pulled over on the side of the road and discovered he had been driving in the wrong direction. Can you imagine? Going the wrong way home? He got out of his car and stood on a bridge. He prayed to God and agreed that he would sell everything he owned and commit his entire life to helping the street children.”

What? Had I heard that correctly? Give everything away? What on earth for? That made no sense. Why would a person do that? I could understand that a rich man would want to give some of his money away. That is generous. But all of it? What was the point of that? If he gave everything away, what would happen when it was all gone?

Would he not become poor again just like the rest of us? Why would someone who had lived in poverty like me, who had escaped it, put himself and his family at such incredible risk to possibly end up poor again—and all for helping children he did not know?

“And so—”

“Wait,” I interrupted. It is wrong to interrupt someone. I knew this. But I simply had to understand. Why in the world would a man do something like this? “Did he actually sell everything?” I asked.

My uncle smiled. I loved his smile. You can always tell when you are loved. And his genuine smile gave me such assurance. “He sold every last thing he owned.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to understand. This story was getting stranger and yet more compelling all the time. This made no sense. None whatsoever.

“Why?” I whispered. It was all I could manage.

My uncle smiled again as he continued. “He went to the streets and rescued children. He gave them a bed to sleep in. He built classrooms for them. He gave them three meals a day.”

Three? Three meals a day for orphans and street children? This was all too much for me. A bed to sleep in. School. Food.

Could a place like this actually exist?

And if it did, why would he bring children he never knew into his home?

“He started in the city of Eldoret. But he outgrew his home there. So, he built a new home in Ndalani for all of his children.”

His children? How was it that they were his children? Would this actually mean …?

This far surpassed everything my uncle told us about food, clothing, schooling, shelter, and on and on and on. It was already incredible. Far more than any child I knew could hope for. But more than this, these children were actually becoming his children, and that meant that he—

“He becomes their father. And his wonderful wife, Esther—oh, wait until I start talking about her, I could go on and on. She is right from heaven. And she becomes their mother.”

I felt a jolt of electricity shoot through my body. Could this be possible? A father and a mother again? It felt so real it was as if I could reach out my hand and touch them right in the hut.

But then it suddenly became unclear why my uncle was telling us this. What good is it to show the palace to peasants? Peasants have no chance of entering. The palace only serves to further reinforce the difference between the rich and the poor in their minds.

Why tell us about a heaven I could not reach?

My uncle must have seen a look in my eyes or read something in my body language that indicated my worry and disappointment in knowing about this place and not being able to go. He leaned forward. He raised both hands, palm out, the way Kenyans do when they are trying to make a point.

“And the children go there for free,” he said. “Nobody pays any money to go.”

My mouth opened. I was too shocked to breathe.

“And that is not all,” my uncle said. “There is something even better.”

Better? How could any of this become better? The question was no longer whether Mully Children’s Family was reality or fiction. My uncle’s compassion convinced me the place was real. But now I wondered if this place would become real for me. I wondered if this might be the way for me to become a doctor. I was never going to be able to pay for it on my own. But perhaps this man might be interested in helping me. Perhaps he would be able to—

“I have spoken to Mr. Mulli,” he said. He shrugged his shoulders the way humble people do when they want to ensure that what they are doing is not because of themselves. “I have made some enquiries.”

I heard the pulse in my ears. I took in a breath. That impossible distance between me being a hungry girl in a hut and me serving as a doctor to the poor suddenly did not seem very great at all. In fact, it seemed like the impossible had become nothing. I gazed into my uncle’s compassionate eyes.

“I asked Mr. Mulli if the two of you could come to his home. If he would be willing to take you in as his children. To give you a future. A hope. A love that would fill your hearts with the love only a father can give. And you know what he said?”

I had done nothing to earn this. I had nothing to offer Mr. Mulli. And the strange thing was, he seemed to be okay with that.

“Charles Mulli said yes.”

My eyes lit up. Zemira was the first to jump. She had strong legs. She jumped well. We cheered as we wrapped our arms around our uncle and hugged him. Really hugged him. We squeezed him so hard.

My grandparents hugged all of us. It felt good to smile again.

“We leave tomorrow,” my uncle said.

So quick. I turned to my grandparents. Their assurance spoke from their hearts through their eyes.

“So I will let you pack and have supper. I will come to get you early in the morning. Is that all right?”

As a matter of fact, it was.

Everything was becoming all right.

He smiled like it was no big deal. He was about to leave for the door when I stopped him.

“Uncle Raza?” I asked. He turned. Everything about him resonated with me. Yes, I was going to get a new father. But I had him as an uncle. And when someone loves you who is not your parent or your grandparent, you feel a different kind of comfort, a different kind of connection that comes when someone doesn’t have to go out of their way to help you but does.

“Thank you,” I said. Zemira nodded in agreement. If I was shy, she was even shyer.

He shrugged his shoulders. I think he winked. “That is not a problem.”

“I really love you,” I said.

In that brief moment, I knew I had touched him. “I love you too.” Then he smiled. “Sleep well!”

He left. I watched him walk down the path until he was out of sight. A quiet man. Doing anything he could to serve those around him. I closed the door. We began to get our things together.

Suddenly, I felt that a whole new future lay ahead of me.