Nigerian Sensorium: February 2009

I was on a collision course with destiny but did not know it. This was a lesson in learning the smallest help can go a long way in life. I wondered were the people begging out side the church running game. They had so many serious handicaps: arms missing, legs missing, hands missing, blind, deaf, wheel chairs, walking on two hands sitting on mobile boxes, mothers with children begging in the heat. Each Sunday it seemed as though their numbers increased; I gave as much as I could. It seemed as though the epidemics had ravaged the old and young. I remember how polio had taken so many of my classmates and friends in the 1950's in America. It has been eradicated there but what happened here is a tragedy. I eventually found out that the drugs never made it to many of the crippled and maimed. The dreams of so many were blown away in a wind of suffering. The people who are providing the things that we take for granted; shelter, food, clothing, medicine, and most importantly hope, they are the God sent; hero's. There are organizations by the numbers existing just to help misfortune through another day. The fact that I was living in the home of a great benefactor and highly religious family inspired me to help more. I couldn't be a passerby; I became a helper, a giver. I was not a charity. When little Sandra was able to receive her operation to save her sight; that opened my eyes to destiny. If I didn't do anything else while in Africa: I had almost gone blind in my early years, a vision saving operation restored my sight. The families of my friends that needed my help were never denied.

I asked Gift," Are you in school?" She said, " I don't have money for my fees and books. I want to be somebody one day." The children are the future. They can not far without an education; why must they pay to learn? I made sure she got to go to school; I told her to be smart, stay smart. The mother sitting at the market entrance with the three children; They drunk and ate that day. The photo is the winners of a choir contest, Christmas, they are all disadvantaged but

the joy in their faces and bodies; you wouldn't have know if I had not told you so. I was in Benin for a jubilee for the children; Santa Clause was in the house. You could feel the emotion, the joy of life overwhelming all the children no matter their fate or condition. Where there is a will, there is a way: you never know what's coming for you. I collided with destiny so many of the days I was in Nigeria; God knows I tried. I will be back to finished what I see i can do now; a little can go a long way. What is God's will, how can I help God my mission. Peace.