Small hands reach over to give me a simple Kenyan saltine cracker. She doesn’t have to speak a word, and somehow this message is the most powerful one I’ve ever encountered. In ten seconds, ten-year old Baraka teaches me what it means to give. She is young, skinny, and has no opportunity for education. Yet, she is hungry for opportunity, education, and for food. When our team brings simple snacks for the children, Baraka brings her share and splits it with me. She needs the sustenance so much more than me, but her first inclination is to forget herself and provide for another.
It’s no coincidence that “Baraka” means blessing or fortune in Swahili. That young girl is a blessing and fortune in the truest sense of the word. Although she didn’t have physical blessings and fortune in her life, she embodied blessing and fortune. I believe that fortune is tied to wealth, wealth is tied to abundance, and all of the above tied to attitude. If we base our personal fortune on physical things, we will never be satisfied and will always desire for more, to meet a new standard of enough. However, when individual wealth is tied to an attitude of abundance, then it’s possible to be content in the face of any circumstance. True giving comes from a heart of being content. This attitude should not be based on or swayed by standards of society. Figures like Baraka, Jesus Christ, and Mother Teresa motivate me to give. It does not matter if it is a child, a religious leader, or an elderly person, it is the giving attitude inside the person and the subsequent action that inspires me. When I travelled through Kenya in 2012, I saw poverty in front of my eyes, which I had prior only heard of and or seen in still photos. What I also saw was joy – manifested through giving – during my interactions with Kenyans. They gave their presence by saying hello and welcoming us into their country, even if to them we were strangers at the street corner. They gave their food by cooking plentiful meals and hosting us with great hospitality, despite having meager supplies and humble abodes. The Kenyans understood that need should be met by giving whatever you could; this could be helping a blind person navigate the streets, pulling over on the roadside to help push a car out of a pothole, or teaching a foreigner some basic Swahili. After I returned from Kenya to finish my last year of high school, I realized that Kenyans embraced giving by demonstrating that it starts now. In America I am often taught to plan and experiment, then implement when I know it will result in impact. While I always keep that in mind, I know that giving must start now and be done smartly. Someone who is constantly researching and keeping up with a social issue is more likely to care about it, give to it, and engage in solving it. As a student, I can only give so much of the limited amount of money I have, time that I also allocate towards studying, and energy that I also spend on getting involved with school activities. However, I know that if I am faithful in giving when I have just a little, I will also be faithful in giving when I have more. To remember what I learned about giving in Kenya, I fast on a normal basis. On the twentieth of each month, I spend 24 hours choosing not to eat food and instead read my journal to be reminded of my experiences, give the money I would have spent on food towards the charity I worked with, and research the latest news on the areas I was in. Instilling a habit of remembrance, gratitude, and giving allows this experience which happened 3 years to keep changing me to this day. The more that I build up this practice, the more I can make a greater impact in the future and inspire others to do the same. I give because Baraka gave me a lesson I’ll never forget.
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July 2016
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