Hello Friends and welcome to April’s Moment with Mary-Ann!
I was so busy on the 1st of April 2024, that I forgot to do an April fool’s joke on my lovely husband. I am very disappointed in myself.
My best April fool’s joke was 10 years ago and although I am really proud of it, everyone I tell seems to think I am pure evil… It was our first year at university, we had only met a few months earlier, but on April 1st, I pretended that I had decided to go back to Ghana, where I was born, because I could not stand the cold weather anymore! Which is partly true, I hate the cold but it’s not a strong enough reason. But, you know, they say the best lies have an element of truth!
He believed me, hook line and sinker, so I kept it going for hours. When I finally told him the truth, he was so angry at me…
Don’t judge me… I thought it was funny, and in truth, I think it was the first time I realised how much he liked me. Oh, the irony.
On that note, we recently went back to where I was born to see my family that still reside in Ghana. It was an emotional journey, just being back to where I was born, learning about my family’s day to day life, and getting a glimpse of, well, my origin story! It was on one of the days that we were walking around my, now derelict, old house, that my husband turned and said, “It’s crazy to think that I might have never met you, had your family not decided to make the move to the UK…”
It got me thinking about how every decision, every moment in life, is so significant to our own bigger picture. Who you meet, what you say, how you say it and when you say it, will open or close a door that you may not have even known existed.
I had a very similar moment of realisation while at the Rafiki Thabo ‘meet and greet’ with the Kenyan committee earlier this month. We met Bishop Liverson, his wife Miriam and Erasto, all of whom work diligently to support young people through education in Africa. It was an idyllic sunny day in a quaint village hall, nestled in the beautiful Cotswolds, a far cry from Kenya, but everyone was there, nonetheless. There were so many people I had never met and so many stories shared, with countless yet to hear. But a common theme among them all, was people saying, “I am here because I met so and so, who knew so and so. Then we talked about this, which led to that… And now, here we are!”
If someone drew a diagram of how every single person in that room met, or how they were interconnected, it would blow your mind.
For example, the founder of Rafiki Thabo, Jon, met Liverson and his family when he went to Kenya for his gap year. That adventure led him to various other people in differing situations, some good, some bad, but crucially some that created a need in his heart to do something, to offer his help in some way. ‘Jon’s brother had a similar gap year, spent in Lesotho. They also met Zanna, who through the same gap year organisation spent her year in Uganda. The three joined forces to help form this incredible charity. forward a couple of handfuls of years and Jon met the wonderful Janne during a normal working day. They struck up a conversation where she was immediately touched by his vision, and decided to start working for Rafiki Thabo, because she also believes in their mission to provide education to all…
Well, Janne has a long time friend called Nicky, who asked if I wanted to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro for charity with her…Of course, I said yes. The cause and the challenge were too great for me to possibly decline and now, thankfully, I am a bonafide Rafiki Thabo advocate!
Everyone in that room had similar stories and I found it truly beautiful. The truth is, everyone in that room had a drive within them to help and do good and there was one shared goal: education for all. However, we found each other, each person had an internal seed sown and became a unified community, allowing that seed to grow.
You can meet a million people, but who they are and what they say is what changes how your relationship will develop. It’s why it’s so important to talk about the things that you care about to people and take interest in what others care about. You never know who is listening and at any moment you might have just changed the course of a life. Just like how, Jon talking about Rafki Thabo to Janne on that fateful day changed the course of her life, and the life of Rafiki Thabo… He probably thought he was just having a lovely conversation with a nice woman, but so many cogs began turning at that moment.
Building a community is one of those things we all talk about and we see them in so many aspects of life and many times we just assume they spontaneously appear but there is always a beginning, a catalyst that sets off a reaction.
Don’t get me wrong, there are times when I don’t want to bother people by talking about my charitable acts. The time isn’t always right, and sometimes I worry that people might feel like I am pushing an idea on them or trying to get something from them… I think it’s normal. I’m not saying that we should go around trying to ‘force’ these serendipitous moments. But the truth is, when you are passionate about something that means a lot to you, inevitably it will infiltrate your day-to-day life more and more. So, naturally it becomes increasingly likely that you will touch someone who needs to hear about it at the right time. Perhaps it will be someone unsure of which direction to go in their own life or doesn’t know how they can be of use…someone like me. I wanted to do something, I had the drive, I had the longing, but it was only when Nicky dared to tell me about something she believed in, that the right door opened for me and now my world has changed. I am sitting here writing this blog feeling a bit tired, instead of watching a Netflix film while sipping a cup of tea. To some, this might not sound like a win, but to me, it’s everything and more. Now I have a purpose and it happened so naturally and wonderfully. So, don’t shy away from sharing your passion, as I said before, you never know who is listening!
I called this blog the butterfly effect, partly because I like butterflies, but also because I think the concept of it rings true with that moment of realisation I had in Ghana, or while I was sitting in the village hall. Everything affects everything and it can be beautiful, although it could also be referred to as ‘chaos theory’ in scientific writings… we will just gloss over that! Anyway, it all really stuck with me, how a small thing like a chat with your landscape designer, your friend, a work colleague or a neighbour can set such large things in motion. That’s what supporting Rafiki Thabo can do, just a small word, a small contribution, can lead to so much more than you could ever imagine. So, keep talking about what you care about! Tell people all about it and let your passion be known. If Jon had kept it to himself, I would not be here writing this right now!
