“I have told this story at least seventy times,” says Sandy Schley as she dabs her eyes with a crumpled up tissue she pulls from her pocket, “and I still get so emotional; it’s a story I’ll never, ever forget.”
This emotion-inducing story revolves around Moses Mwaura, a six-year-old with a wide smile, inquisitive nature, an abundance of energy and a love for music—but more on that later.
Schley and Moses’ paths crossed one afternoon a few years ago when Schley, district governor for Rotary International District 5950, was traveling with a fellow rotary club member in Kenya to check up on a Rotary-funded ablution block project that would implement toilets and fresh water. Their trek brought them into the heart of the Kenyan slums, the Mathare Valley slum, where over a half million people—mostly women and children—live in shanties made of tin and cardboard that are built on foundations of heaping and decomposing garbage. There was no running water. There was no sewage system. For the most part, there was no hope.
Moses, then four years old, was milling around the Inspiration center, unsupervised and alone, in dirty, tattered clothes when he caught Schley’s eye. “He looked like he wanted me to see him, to hold him, and he inched up closer and closer to me until finally he was kind of snuggling up to me,” says Schley. “His nose was running, he had one eye that was pointing this way and the other eye was pointing that way; my heart was torn from me.”
She pointed at her camera, asked if she could take his photo and he nodded, so Schley snapped a photo of the little boy with no shoes and crossed eyes, and then the van driver told her they had to leave. “I started walking towards the van and he got this terribly sad look on his face,” says Schley. “It was kind of like a ‘you’ve left me’ face, and he looked so lonely and so sad. I thought, ‘This kid has changed my life.’”
And indeed he had.
Schley thought about that little boy over the next year. She kept the photo on her computer and looked at it often, and wondered if she would ever see him again.
One year later Schley was back in Kenya and walking around that same activity center, silently hoping she’d see her little friend. And, lo and behold, he came running up to her, a wide smile on his face. This time, he looked a little cleaner and had on what appeared to be a school uniform, complete with shoes and socks.
“I was so happy to see him,” says Schley. “I was also happy to see that Rotary was making a difference in East Africa, and that he had benefited from our projects.”
The effect and impact that clean water can have on so many aspects of life is what Schley and the group’s international service projects chair, Tim Murphy, began to speak about at various rotary and business meetings. And, as fate would have it, it was one of those meetings that set into motion what Schley would call “The Moses Miracle.”
At the January meeting of Rotary of Edina, Murphy was telling Schley’s story—Moses’ story—and displayed the photograph that she had taken; Schley, per usual, was crying. She had heard it, lived it, but still the sight of that little boy tugged at her. Also in attendance at that meeting was Schley’s ophthalmologist and Edina resident Dr. Charles Barer, of Edina Eye Physicians and Surgeons.
Seeing how moved she was, Dr. Barer came up to her at the end of the meeting and asked, “Sandy, do you want to get that little boy’s eyes fixed?” The tears once again came to her eyes, and the doctor said, “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”
Here’s where the miracle begins to unfold. Murphy sent out e-mails to all of his Rotarian friends and colleagues. Within two hours, the Rotarians who were putting their “service above self” motto to the test, had offered airfare via Delta Airlines and Delta employee, Tom Bach; operating room, equipment and nursing staff from Fairview Southdale President, Bradley Beard; in-office consultations with Dr. Barer and eye surgery by his colleague, Dr. Jafar Hasan; Power of Attorney assignment would be provided by Mike Kallas; and Angela Wandera, pediatric dentist and orthodontist, would provide dental services.
And Murphy, who had an eight-day window in Minnesota between two trips to Africa, would get the little boy here and bring him back.
Not bad for two hours.
Now all they had to do was find the boy. It, surprisingly, was easier than they imagined. They sent a note to David Waithaka, a Kenyan native who had studied in the states and was a fellow Rotarian, to search for the boy with the crossed eyes. “I know that little boy,” Waithaka told Murphy enthusiastically. “He is my nephew, and his name is Moses.”
On March 25th, one day later than expected due to complications with Moses’ birth certificate, Moses walked down the jet way at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International airport and hopped on a luggage cart. He was wearing clothes and slippers the Rotarians had sent, and had a pair of boots his mother Priscilla had procured.
“Jambo, Jambo!” (“Hello, Hello!”) the crowd shouted. Moses grinned.
He spent the night with the Murphys and slept on the floor because he couldn’t get used to the bed. The next few days were filled with pre-op visits, dinners, social gatherings (where many who had only known him as the poster child for the SafeWater Plus project got to see him), play time at the Southdale YMCA, a trip to the flower show (where Moses, intent on having fun, reached out for strangers’ hands because he wanted them to twirl him over), and baths; yep, quite a few baths. “They really calmed him down,” says Schley.
He unearthed a love of music and carried a Casio keyboard with him to many of his appointments and events, and gave impromptu piano recitals at 3 a.m., which were concluded with blowing kisses to make-believe crowds. Schley taught him how to shake hands, write his name, and to say, “Hi, I’m Moses Mwaura.”
On Monday, Dr. Hasan performed the two-hour eye surgery for Moses’ strabismus and esotropia. “He was the perfect patient,” says Dr. Hasan. “His straightened eyes should help with his self-esteem, and will hopefully help him to live a great life.”
After surgery, Schley coaxed him to open his eyes. “After he woke up he would walk around the house and just stop and look at things. He was seeing things how they really were for the first time.”
But his eyes weren’t the only things that needed attention: he also had extensive oral surgery and dental work, provided by Dr. Wandera.
He was back up to speed in a short period of time. He gave high fives and wiggled out of his car seat. He ate rice and gobbled up bananas. He kissed a plastic butler on the lips and zoomed cars along the floor. He drew pictures, ran in the yard and did just about anything else that seemed fun and exciting.
“Gentle, gentle,” he would say as he ran from one thing to the next, pausing long enough to look Schley in the eye and give her a kiss on the cheek. The sweet boy with the crooked eyes could now see straight.
The day before Moses was to head back home, there was a Rotary meeting at the Edina Country Club, where over one hundred people, including members of the media (Moses had become something of a star), Rotarians and friends, had the chance to marvel at this little boy and his miracle.
Rotary has helped countless numbers of people in our country and beyond, and now, continues with Moses. “I just can’t believe everything fell into place,” says Schley. “We’ve made arrangements with doctors and Rotarians in Kenya to continue his treatment, and another Rotarian has come forward to pay for private school. Now, Moses has the opportunity to become the young man that God intended him to be.”
