Someone Was Listening

A powerful vision in a plane over Cyprus. A mysterious illness that grew incrementally more debilitating. Then a six-day fast and a second, more powerful vision that healed me. What was next?

I knew from these visions what I had to do, but no instruction manual came with them. I had no idea where to start. I knew giving people food was not enough. I had heard people say, “If you give someone a fish, you feed them for a day; if you teach them how to fish, they will never go hungry again.” But how?

This was a very tough time for our family. The most obvious problem was our financial situation. Treva and I had chosen to pay back as much of our bankruptcy as possible even though, legally, we did not have to do anything. We could not get rich by taking advantage of others. It was her idea, and I concurred. Almost every month, Treva would look at the available cash, and I would make personal contact to deliver the funds.

I remember taking a partial payment to one of the people to whom we owed money, and he asked me how I had calculated the partial payment. I told him that it was almost all of the money we had in the bank that day. There was a long silence, then he asked me to wait. He came back with about ten of his staff members. When they were all gathered, he asked me the same question about how I determined the sum of the partial payment. Embarrassed and head down, I reiterated the statement that this was all the money we had in the bank today. There was a stunned silence in the room. He then leaned over his desk and said emphatically, “This was your final payment. You do not owe us anything. We owe you.”

We had some savings, but it was nowhere near enough to cope with the financial resources used up during my long illness. Now that I was healed, I still wasn’t making any money.

“We need money,” Treva said. “You’re so good at selling; you could sell anything. That’s something you could do.”

She was not alone; everyone was asking me what I was going to do. But I could not explain. It was as if I had left the shore and was swimming but could not yet see the other shore. 

I thought I might work for someone who was already helping to fight hunger, because I didn’t want to go it alone in a new enterprise. I wasn’t sitting idle. I traveled to several places, including Washington, D.C., Minnesota, and Los Angeles, interviewing with various non-profit organizations to see if I could help. The search was eating up our limited resources, and no doors were opening. During this dry period, I felt as if I were Moses walking in the desert. Close friends advised me to give up my quest.

Earlier, during one of my business trips to China, I had bought a couple dozen expensive, hand-woven rugs. They came in very handy at this time. Besides Treva’s modest salary from her job at a printing shop, the intermittent sale of one of these rugs would provide us income for a short time.

In late 1982, I happened to run into one of my old business contacts. He discussed his plans for international ventures and asked if I could help. A few days later, I sent him a note that I had been invited to participate in an Afro-American conference in Zimbabwe where I could identify some opportunities for him. But I did not hear back from him.

Our financial situation was becoming even more critical. All of our credit cards were maxed out. There was barely enough money to feed the family.

One morning, a very loud cry came out of me, and I started to sob as if someone in my family had died.

“I am not in a position to do anything,” I cried out loud, in a state of total helplessness.

After ten minutes of intense sobbing, I suddenly stopped. I felt something change. It was not only psychological, it was a physical change. A feeling of silence and calm enveloped me. 

At that instant, the phone rang. It was the businessman’s secretary. She told me her boss wanted to see me. He had decided I should go to Africa to represent his company and attend the Afro-American conference. The contract turned out to be for a large sum.

The response to my cry was not an hour, a day, or two days later–it was instantaneous, before I could wipe the tears off my cheeks. I looked around me in wonder. I stood there stunned. Somehow, someone, somewhere was listening.