Articles ~ An Accidental Story

When I boarded Delta Flight 7604 from the Boise airport on the morning of January 16, 2010, I had no idea that this trip to Kenya, my native country, would transform my life forever. I left Kenya in 1986 to pursue graduate studies at the University of Wyoming—where I think I got my accent. I returned to Kenya for the first time after living in America for 24 years.

When I left Kenya, AIDS/HIV was just being talked about and I didn’t know anyone affected. Corruption was also not in each and every segment of public services, as it is now. Even the poorest of the poor were able to educate their high school students in my youth. It was devasting to visit my elementary school where, in the 1970s, I recall only two orphans, and find more than 300 children who had lost one or both parents due to this disease. Many couldn’t afford to enter high school.

My elementary school Head Teacher showed me his 8th graders exam results and said something that still makes me sick to my stomach. Two girls had passed, for the second time, to join high school but he said they were not able to do so due to lack of tuition. I asked, “What will happen to them?” He said, “They will repeat until they grow tall and get married.” The apathy and emptiness in that statement breaks my heart even now.

Also on that trip I read of a mother of six who took her own life because she was unable to pay her daughter’s tuition to attend high school, a cost at that time of about $500/year that covered room and board, books and other expenses.

Before that visit I knew nothing about depression, about feeling empty, or wondering why I was alive. Back in the states, I questioned whether there was a God and if there were, why would God let those children suffer like that? I was low, alone and filled with doubt. A friend told me I sounded depressed.

Little did I know that the poverty and emptiness I had seen in the same place where I grew up with hope was the “Burning Bush” that would change my life forever.

Two months after I came home from Kenya, I was driving in Boise and praying for something – anything – I didn’t know what to think. On a whim, I stopped at a bank and asked if I could open an account to raise money to pay high school and university tuition for the children I had seen in Kenya. I asked friends to help me establish a non-profit organization. We called it Caring Hearts and Hands of Hope. The problem was, I had never before asked more than ten people to donate for anything, although I was always happy to write about the needs of the non-profit organizations where I served as a board member, and appeal for donations. So, I thought, maybe I could write and let people know what is going on with the children in my birthplace. I learned how generous Idahoans are.

When you have been reduced to emptiness, you can do anything. In my favor were all the connections I already had with the amazing people of the Treasure Valley. A veteran lawyer offered to assist me pro-bono. Another friend provided (and still does) website development and maintenance on the same basis. Others offered their talents and skills to get CHHH off the ground.

In July 2010, two friends said, “Vincent, we know you are trying to help the children of Kenya and at the same time feed your family. We want to give you some money to support your family for a few months while establishing CHHH.” Those two friends had more faith in me than I had in myself. We have saved and transformed hundreds of lives and continue to do so because two caring people believed and invested in an uncertain cause.

Currently, there 964 sponsored students in high school, universities and vocational training colleges. We own and operate a girls’ boarding high school and another one for boys. We have also started a healthcare care clinic that will be a full hospital by the end of 2025, by the grace of God and for His glory.