LIFE transformers
What motivates some people to be caring? Yet she has a great desire to save a needy girl By Vincent Kituku from being forced into early marriage, prostitu“I just want a poor child to have a chance tion or child labor. She had saved $725, which for a better tomorrow,” said my friend, Mary. will cover one year’s school fees, room and Because we had not seen each other for about board. five years, and we had a lot to catch up on, the Mary’s kindness and personal challenges have impact of that sentence didn’t register immedioccupied my thoughts for days. What is it that ately. motivates people to be kind and generous? Mary was forced to retire due to a work-reMust they have the means, the financial capalated injury involving her foot. She also suffers bility, before they can offer help? from unspecified stomach illnesses that affect People who transform the living conditions her appetite and what to eat. Her ailing mother of others have the quality of empathy within reached a point where she had to be taken to a their being. They make other people’s pain nursing home. One of her brothers, the closest their own. They don’t have to have the finanone to her, has been suffering from a myriad of cial means in order to help. They can pray, health issues, including Parkinson’s disease. share the stories of others with their family and Mary’s ordinary day includes visits to doctors, Vincent Kituku friends or give whatever they can afford to – be spending time with her mother, which is often it used clothes, a can of food, time to visit the sick or those who a challenging experience, and visits with her sick brother. She are grieving or in prison. also has her own children, and a close-knit relationship with The key factor that triggers kindness and generosity is each. She checks on how they are doing regularly. awareness of a cause and belief that what one person can All that might not be unusual. What is unusual, and sets do matters. There is also an intrinsic factor: the desire and people like Mary apart, is that she has been saving whatever commitment to make a difference. People who transform lives spare change she gets just to be able to pay high school tuition normally start by caring for those who are closest to them. I through Caring Hearts and Hands of Hope for a child in have yet to see someone who is unkind to his/her own mother Kenya who has lost her parents to AIDS. This year, Mary inbut relishes the chance to protect and save young girls to whom formed her family and friends that she would be donating the he/she is not related. money that she intended to invest on their Christmas presents Mary has cared for other needy children and adults in this in order to educate a child. country but when she talks about her family, even with the up Over the years, Mary has sent me notes or emails expressand down dynamics that are experienced in all families, you ing her willingness to contribute something even though her financial circumstances were not favorable. But that didn’t stop can tell that is where she hatched her caring spirit. n her from championing the needs of orphaned children and © By Dr. Vincent Muli Wa Kituku, motivational speaker those from poverty-stricken homes through social media. She and author of “Overcoming Buffaloes at Work & in Life,” posts positive comments that encourage people to learn more is the founder and executive director of Caring Hearts and about Caring Hearts and Hands of Hope. Mary has inspired Hands of Hope, a non-profit organization that raises tuition her children to be just as kind, and to give what they can. and fees for poor orphans and other children from povertyI cried after our brief visit. Here is a woman whose leg will stricken families in Kenya. Contact him at vincent@kituku. be amputated soon, her mother is on her sunset season of life, and the prospects of her brother’s illnesses are not promising. com or 208-376-8724.
Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay
28 May / June 2022 | Christian Living
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