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In 2005, Pakistan suffered a devastating earthquake. I was invited by the Pakistani Ambassador to the USA to help with the earthquake relief efforts. Telephone calls followed and two prominent Pakistani businessmen joined me in Pakistan. As guests of high-level Pakistani government officials, we were provided a helicopter, piloted by an Army major, to tour the devastation from above. Our guide was a brigadier general. Our flight took us over the hardest-hit regions, including the India-Pakistan border. 

“What am I doing here?” he pleaded. 

We traveled to seven villages over a widely-affected area. Many scenes were heart-wrenching. In one area, the entire mountain had been split in half, as a cake might be cut down the middle, obliterating the entire population. In another village, all the buildings had collapsed, killing everyone except the few who were out farming when the earthquake occurred. The eyes of these survivors were filled with pathos. One young man showed me the foundation of his small house in which 11 of his family members were killed.

“What am I doing here?” he pleaded. 

We all prayed around the foundation of the old mosque that was no longer standing. 

One of the villages was at an elevation of 7,000 feet. The government had arranged for us to have a guide from a nearby area because this was a dangerous part of the country, reported to be infiltrated by the Taliban. Several years before, President Bhutto had tried to visit, but the people stood with their guns pointed at the helicopter in the air. Bhutto had to turn around. A few days before my visit, a Pakistani wedding party was killed by American aircraft. The American government had apologized for it as a grave mistake, but the people were certain it was intentional. Emotions were high. 

I was told I should speak to the people only through the local guide. I was supposed to pretend I was from Pakistan. They didn’t want anyone to know I was from America.  

I refused to go along with that. 

“People can sense deception,” I said. “That would defeat the purpose of my coming all the way here.”

It was a risky move, but I chose to address them directly. I remembered that the source of fear in human interaction is protecting lies. I had to be honest with myself and with them.

“I am a Hindu,” I said, introducing myself. “I lived as a child in what is now Pakistan. I moved to the United States, and I have an American wife.” 

I saw my companions wince. 

It was the same mantra of self-help that I had shared over and over again since the beginning of my work in the Indian villages. 

The message spoke to these proud people and their long tradition of independence. I could see the message connecting.

When I was through, the man in the black turban stood up to speak. 

“We have lived in this area for thousands of years,” he said. “No foreigner knows this area better than us. There is nobody who can give us advice about what we should or should not do. We are survivors. We have overcome many problems in the past, and we shall meet this challenge also.” 

The Mullah’s voice was strong and firm, far larger than his physical size. His tone was defiant. By this time, I was sure I had made the wrong decision, perhaps putting the entire team in danger.

He continued, “But here is our brother from America, who is surrounded by all the worldly comforts anyone could imagine, yet his heart is so touched by what has happened to us that he has come all the way from America, leaving his wife and children, to help us.” 

I thought he was making a parody of my coming there. He wasn’t finished. 

“Allah asks us to listen to people of pure heart. In the name of Allah, we must welcome our friend and pay attention to what he has to say.” 

“In that case, my wife will fix channa daal (lentils) for you,” he said. He was insistent. “When people such as you come, we cannot let them go so easily.” 

If not for meetings I had on my schedule for the next morning in the capital, I wouldn’t have been able to resist that once-in-a-lifetime invitation. After we had driven a few miles from the village, our team, which was now in three cars, made a pit stop. The team members were almost giddy with what had taken place. 

When it was just the two of us, the driver who took us to the seven villages confided his thoughts about the trip. He was born in the area.

“Sir, the moment you leave, nothing will happen,” he said. “I have been a government driver for a long time, and I know how officials make big plans and promise everything under the sun. However, there is no intent behind it and thus nothing takes place. I am witnessing the enthusiasm you have created. Please stay in Pakistan to make sure these things can take place. People will get things done while you are still here,” he pleaded.  

“I cannot stay here,” I said. “I have a wife.”

“Call her here. You cannot leave this place or all the work you have done will come to nothing.”

“It will not be safe for her to stay here,” I said.

“She will stay with my family, and she will be under our protection,” he assured me. 

“Our work is not through the government,” I explained. “We are dealing directly with the people. It is a vision, not a task to achieve. Let’s see what happens from this trip,” I told him. 

On the day before I was to leave Pakistan, the government minister threw a big party for me. There must have been two dozen government officials. They had at least 20 vegetarian dishes made just for me. I was the only one partaking.

A government minister, other than my host, came over to me and asked me to have lunch with him the next day. When we met, he asked, “Mr. Mathur, we are both Punjabi. Be frank with me. What portion of the money do you want from this?”

The purpose of all that wining and dining became clear. They were expecting me to attract large grants from the United States for Pakistani relief efforts, and they wanted to know what my cut would be. In developing nations, a large percentage of monies intended to help people in need go to line the pockets of government officials.

“I have come simply to help my brothers and sisters in Pakistan who need my help,” I answered. 

With that, lunch was over. He left me, and I finished lunch with his assistant.

Three months later, I was back in Pakistan on another matter and paid a courtesy call to the government minister. The same driver who had warned me nothing would change when I left happened to be in the parking lot. When he saw me come out of the building, he started to run towards me from the other end of the lot. He was over six feet tall, a huge man. Against all protocol, he lifted me off my feet in a bear hug. 

“Sir! In those villages, they have started the work. They are not waiting for anybody!” he said. “They are not waiting for anybody!”

He had seen with his own eyes what happens when people feel inspired. He had become a convert.

Trees for Life was called to help the village of Tisma, Nicaragua. After visiting the farmers in the village, I received a message from the women. They wanted their own time to meet with me.

Later that evening, when their housework was done, 18 women gathered in one of their homes. They explained how bad their situation was. The official unemployment figure for the village was 60 percent. The men couldn’t afford to get married. The women would get pregnant, have babies, and then couldn’t find jobs because no one would hire them. To make enough money to put two meals on the table for their families, some women had to engage in prostitution. All their stories were depressing. 

After patiently listening, I told them that during my travels around the world I had heard the story of the plight of women everywhere. It made no difference if I was in Asia or Africa or Latin America. The world was caught in the deadly trap of poverty and despair.

“Let me tell you a story,” I said.

There was a young brash king who got angry at his wise old counselor, Ramsu, and ordered him locked in the top of a tall tower to die.

Wailing in despair, Ramsu’s wife came to the bottom of the tower to say goodbye, for no one had ever come out of the tower alive.

Ramsu told his wife there was no need for tears. He asked her to find a cockroach and bring it to the tower.

“A cockroach? Are you crazy?” his wife sobbed.

Ramsu assured her that if she did what he asked, he would soon be free. Still shaking her head in disbelief, the woman found a cockroach. Ramsu asked her to tie a silk thread to it and put a touch of honey on its antennae. Once she had done that, he asked her to put the cockroach on the side of the tower, pointing its head upward. 

The cockroach, smelling something sweet, started crawling upward to reach the honey. When the cockroach reached the top, Ramsu picked it up and untied the thread. He then called down and asked his wife to tie a cotton thread to the silk thread.

Once that was done, Ramsu carefully pulled the silk thread up the side of the tower, till he caught hold of the cotton thread. Then he asked his wife to tie some twine on the other end of the cotton thread.

Again, Ramsu carefully pulled the cotton thread up the side of the tower until he could take hold of the twine. Then he asked her to tie a rope to the twine.

He quickly pulled the twine up until he had the rope in his hands. He secured the rope and climbed down the tower to his overjoyed wife. The old couple happily escaped together.

The outraged king wanted to know who in his kingdom could throw a rope that high. He ordered a contest in which the best and most powerful people in his kingdom were asked to throw a rope to the top. No one could. For the past one thousand years, every year, a contest has been held to see if anyone can throw a rope to the top of the tower. None of the strongest people in the kingdom have been able to match the feat of a tiny cockroach.

I acted out the story dramatically, even standing on a chair to act as Ramsu looking down from the top of the tower. I climbed off of the chair, to act the part of his wife, sobbing and bringing the cockroach. Each sentence was then translated into Spanish. The women sat listening with rapt attention. At the end of the story, they all stood up and broke into the playful Spanish song, La cucaracha, la cucaracha…. There was a shift in the whole dynamic of the evening.

The women started to discuss the implications of the story. They figured that even in the most hopeless conditions there is a way out. They just had to take the initiative and not get discouraged. They had to start small and solve their problems one step at a time.

Once the women reached this collective insight, they decided to address one problem in the village: how to help the street children. Too poor to afford school, such children took to the streets and had no hope for anything better in their future. The women decided that they would start a small primary school for the street children. They would raise funds for the school by doing odd jobs and selling meals at their village fair. 

Their own initiative and determination, plus help from Trees for Life donors, made their dream a reality. Once the dream of the school had been realized, the women decided to create a community library, another dream that came true. They continued to find the cockroach for other problems they wanted to solve. They rekindled the spirit within themselves—and in their community. They began to call themselves Las Mujeres Milagrosas: The Miraculous Women.

I learned my lesson from what happened to Trees for Life in India, but not before a similar situation occurred in the U.S. 

I strongly believed that businesses and environmentalists should work together. I had written several letters to various corporations suggesting partnerships. 

One day, I had just received a “No” through a phone call with one corporation when the phone rang again. It was the senior vice president of another well-known, multi-brand, international conglomerate. I assumed the call was a second “No” to my letter. I was in for a surprise. 

“I just came out of a meeting with the chairman. He said we need to be involved in the environmental movement, especially with students, and here is your letter,” he said. “It answers exactly what my chairman asked me to do. Can we meet?”

I told him I was leaving the next day for India for four months.

“Are you going through New York?” he asked.

I had a four-hour layover at Kennedy Airport. I agreed to meet him in the airport lounge. He brought along the corporation’s vice president of advertising. They handed me a check for $25,000 soon after we sat down.

“We want to support you,” they said, enumerating some of their ideas for how they wanted to work with us. “When can we meet again?”

After I returned from India, they came to Wichita. This time they were joined by the vice president of public relations. David Kimble, our executive director, picked them up at the airport in the junker station wagon that had been donated to Trees for Life. The headliner of the car was ripped and hanging down above David’s head. During the drive from the airport, they talked about their cars. One of them had just received a $100,000 car as a company bonus.

Because our office in the church was too small, we scheduled our meeting in the boardroom of a corporation with headquarters in Wichita. The former president of this company had been my professor and a friend, so he arranged for us to hold the meeting there. The mayor of Wichita attended, as well as the vice president of advertising for the local newspaper.

The corporate guests had prepared 20 large posters with artist renderings of the types of pictures that would appear on the covers of the company’s products promoting the Trees for Life message. They said Trees for Life would become a household name. The storyboards were spread out all over the board room. As part of their promotion, they said we could expect up to $8 million to Trees for Life annually.

After the meeting, I had a long chat with a person who had attended the meeting. I needed a sounding board.

“This will kill Trees for Life,” I told him, but I could not articulate my uneasiness. 

“You are having a fear of success,” he said.

“Whatever it is, I don’t have a good feeling about this,” I responded. It was not what I had conceived of for Trees for Life.

The day after our meeting, a reporter from the newspaper wrote an article about the corporation joining hands with Trees for Life. I had no problem with the article. 

A good friend of mine, who understood my motivation for starting Trees for Life, called me on the phone. He was incensed.

“You have sold out to commercial interests!” he said.

I tried to interrupt, but he hung up before I could explain. He never spoke to me again.

After a few weeks, I was invited to meet with management at the corporation’s headquarters. The management put up a grand presentation in their executive conference room. Even divisional managers had been called in to the meeting. Eighteen executives dressed in suits sat around the table. A new set of much improved storyboards were on display. They were well done, except for one added detail. Now, Trees for Life was mentioned as their Trees for Life.

At that moment I knew the reason for my discomfort. For a promise of $8 million a year, they were buying us. Now I would be serving their corporate interests. Our mission was to empower people at the grassroots level. I had left the corporate world to serve the poor, not to be bought by corporate interests.  

After the meeting, I told my host, “I’m sorry, but we are not for sale.”

Unusual events–what I called miracles–kept happening, keeping me in a state of awe. 

A college friend was the chairman of a large international conglomerate in India. During a breakfast meeting, we caught up with each other. I told him about Trees for Life.

“We should be helping you,” he said. “How can my company help?” 

I told him our biggest need at that time was cash. 

“What is your annual budget in India?” he asked. 

I answered,  “300,000 Indian rupees,” which was $30,000.

“Fine, we will give you that,” he said. “What else do you need?”

“We don’t have an office in New Delhi,” I said.

“Ok, you can use my office in New Delhi. It is equipped with everything, including secretarial staff. I use it only when I am there, which is quite seldom.” 

“What else?” he asked. 

“I don’t have transportation,” I said.

“You can use my company cars,” he said. “Just call the office, and they will send you a car with a driver.”

His company owned some of the best hotels in India. He told me his office would also make sure I could stay at any of these hotels as his guest. In our next meeting, I invited him to join our board of directors, an invitation he gladly accepted. During a subsequent meeting, I suggested we strengthen our board by inviting some of his colleagues to join. He brought in the president of a major engineering company and the president of a large tea company. They were delighted to be on our board and participated actively. The equivalent would be having the chairman of Marriott, Bechtel Engineering, and Kraft Foods on our Trees for Life India board. 

Now shortages were rare. There was a fleet of four cars to receive us at the airport or railroad stations. We stayed in the executive suites at 5-star hotels and the guest houses of various companies, and we dined at the best restaurants. Our board meetings were held in their boardrooms, where we were served by waiters wearing turbans and all their paraphernalia. The curtains were parted electronically before the seven-course meals were served. When Treva came to visit me during a long stay at one of the hotels, hot water was filled in the bath tub for us when we arrived. Private planes took us to some of the Trees for Life project sites and landed back at the companies’ private airports. Our work spread quickly, which meant adding more staff, including a country president. This went on for three years, while I continued my frequent trips to oversee the Trees for Life work in India.

This was opposite of who I was and what I wanted Trees for Life to be. Before this, I was eating peasant food with the villagers and sleeping with them under the trees. I was walking for miles and traveling by bicycle. I was helping lead groups of villagers in discussions to identify the crux of their problems to determine how they could solve them. Now I was living in the lap of luxury.

Our new staff members were comfortable with this new style and wanted to proceed in that direction. 

I became uncomfortable. Something had to change.

A powerful dream helped me articulate my problem. In the dream, I was driving a large motorbike at a high speed. After having traveled some distance, I realized I was going the wrong way. With some effort, I was able to turn the powerful bike around and find my way back. I was feeling bad for losing so much precious time because I was on an important mission and time was of the essence. Then a voice told me it was a diversion that I had to take to learn some important lessons. 

After the dream, I requested a meeting with the board.

“Trees for Life has to be a people’s movement, not a corporation,” I told them. “My meetings need to take place under a mango tree in a village and not in corporate board rooms.” 

They were amused. After all, it was their country, and they were providing all the resources.

“How are you going to get the money?” they asked.

That was the least of my concerns. I was on the wrong path and needed to get back on track as fast as possible. At the end of the meeting, they all agreed to resign. That night I had one of the best sleeps in my life. I was back home where I belonged.

The tree kit campaign had more than exhausted our financial resources, as well as our tiny staff of volunteers. However, after witnessing its success, everyone at Trees for Life was flush with enthusiasm and felt the need to celebrate Earth Day with an event to let our presence be known in the community.

Though the green movement had been around since the 1970s, 1990 was the first year Earth Day had become a public event. The corporate world was eager to find a place to get involved. We were delighted when the largest grocery store chain in the state, the telephone company, an international soft drink company, and half a dozen other businesses in town joined us. We requested their public relations and advertising people design this event. 

Since we had the best minds pooled together, I delegated the process to them. The theme of Earth Day that year was on recycling, so they decided to put out a call to the citizens of Wichita to drop their empty aluminum cans at a central place. The proceeds from the sale of the collected cans would go to help fund Trees for Life. Some of the sponsors would provide publicity through their own channels.

I was livid when I heard this. 

“You won’t have any cans!” I said to David Kimble, Trees for Life’s Executive Director. “People don’t do that sort of thing today!” 

I could not understand how an eminent group of advertising people did not realize such an event would be a fiasco. My experience had taught me that while people might come to attend an entertainment event, they would not come to drop empty cans. We were now in the age of communications. Before the communications revolution, people went to events. Now the events came to their living rooms on television. Getting people to travel somewhere to drop empty cans would not happen.

But I did not wish to go back to this team and tell them that. Thus, I was looking forward to a big egg on our organization’s face. 

The telephone company erected a huge wire cage near downtown. Sponsoring businesses paid for billboards and advertising. A large stage was set up near the can-collection point. Everything was done. A day before the event, there were just a few dozen empty cans in the cage, dropped by an elderly gentleman. I was perhaps the gloomiest person on this planet. 

Then the phone rang. It was 10 am. 

The man on the other end of the line told me his name and that he owned a can recycling company in Wichita. “You guys are doing something with cans on Earth Day, and I would like to be a part of it,” he said. 

I listened listlessly because I expected him to offer to buy the cans from us, and we had no cans. For me, the negative was starting to manifest itself even before the event. 

“I am also the king of the Gypsies in Wichita,” he said. “We Gypsies don’t get any respect. I want to show that we are a caring people. Would you allow me to participate in the event?” 

I was stunned. “When can we meet?” I asked.

“I’ll come over right now,” he replied.

Dressed in a well-fitted suit, a short, dapper man walked into our office. This man, in his fifties, took off his hat as he entered the room and greeted me. A familiar vibration went through my body. I could tell he, too, felt something. We became instantaneous friends, as if we had known each other all our lives. I wasted no time in sharing my misery with him and we cooked up a plan. 

I asked if he would be willing to put a trailer load of his cans in the cage.

“The cans belong to you and they will be returned to you in 24 hours,” I said.

“Yes! I will do that tonight!” he assured me. “I better get busy, time is short.”

He left within 15 minutes of his arrival, with the assurance that the secret would remain with him. That night I tossed and turned in my bed, doubts creeping into my mind: He is a stranger, and I have no idea if he is for real or not. Does he really own a can recycling company? Will he fulfill his promise? Will I ever see him again? 

Before sunrise, I drove to the site, praying for a miracle but bracing myself for disappointment. I shook my head with disbelief and smiled at what I saw. The wire cage was filled to the brim with tens of thousands of empty aluminum cans. 

I went back home, had my breakfast and read the newspaper, as if I didn’t have a care in the world. 

Later that day, several hundred people showed up for the event. It turned out to be the only Earth Day event in Wichita. Volunteers were guiding the traffic. Speeches were made, songs were sung, a big globe balloon was sent aloft. The president of the telephone company came from Dallas. He and one of our Kansas congressmen were hoisted high in a cherry picker to empty into the cage a large sack of cans collected at the telephone company. The PR people who had designed the event were delighted with the success of their plan and its perfect execution. My friends told me I had worried for nothing, that everything had a way of working out. 

Indeed.

By 1990, even though Trees for Life was gaining some traction, we were still very fragile. We were staffed by several volunteers and a few paid staff who were behind in collecting their minimum salaries but continued to work by exhausting their personal savings. In the middle of it all, an opportunity appeared that propelled us further toward our mission.   

It was part of our fundamental belief that, to solve the problems of the world, all segments of society must be involved. Otherwise, we would be singing to the choir. Our effort was to find common ground between various ideas, groups, and people. We were for something, not against anything. We tried to involve as many segments of society as possible. 

One such effort was to create environmental awareness among young children. For this, we designed a tree-planting kit. It contained seeds, instructions on how to plant them, and information on how children could help other children in developing countries to fight malnutrition by planting a fruit tree. The kit included a pint-sized empty milk carton for children to use as the container to start a tree sapling from seed. 

We offered this kit to elementary school teachers in conjunction with Earth Day. A one- column-inch announcement was published in a one-time pamphlet that highlighted planned Earth Day activities nationwide. We expected a few dozen orders, at best. It was something to be ignored on our back burner. I left to help plant trees in India for six weeks. 

Upon my return, I was shocked to learn we had received more than 60,000 orders! More orders were arriving daily, until the number of kit orders reached almost 100,000.

We did not have the staff, funds, or the capabilities to handle such a flood. This item was no longer on the backburner. It was now boiling over, needing immediate attention.

A retired businessman who was volunteering his services as the Trees for Life business manager saw no problem at all. “Just ignore all those orders as if they weren’t received. Throw them in the trash can. No one will know,” he advised.

The rest of us disagreed.

After an intense discussion we concluded that if we broke this trust with others, then it would have also broken us. We would not have been able to trust ourselves. Crises such as these are what allowed us to grow. 

“Bunk. Fuzzy thinking,” our friend maintained.  

There were still six months left before Earth Day, and we made a commitment to somehow meet the challenge. We did not know how.

The cost of the milk carton was the biggest item on the budget, which totaled $66,500. We decided to tackle that first. Our local milk producer introduced us to their supplier, a major manufacturer of paper cartons, and soon I was on a flight to their headquarters. My objective was to get a donation of those cartons, and their objective was to sell us the cartons. It turned out to be a hard-bargaining session that was not going anywhere. I asked to see the boss. 

“He’s out of town,” the man told me. He opened the door and started walking me out of the building. We passed his boss’s office. The door was barely cracked open. I could see the boss talking to someone. He saw me.

“Hey, hey, hold on!” he said, and waved us in.

“How did your meeting go?” he asked the person who was seeing me out. After a short conversation, he said, “Let’s make a deal.” He assured me we could count on them to donate the cartons.

After that, the company’s public relations vice president asked me to meet him in New York. I took the next flight. He said the donation was worth a large amount, and we would have to do several things, including letting them manage our public relations. They wanted Trees for Life to make fundamental changes in our message to suit their needs.

“Work with us and you will have no money problems,” he said. It was obvious they were trying to buy me.

Back home, I wrote a polite letter informing him that we would need to do things our own way. 

Soon after, a new person in the company was named to be our point person. 

“I am taking charge of this thing to help you,” he said. He asked me to give him a final “date of no return” when the cartons had to be shipped.

On that date, he called to tell me the company would not give us the cartons. Using abusive language, he said, “You are doing this to yourself.” He had  hoped I would give in to their demands. But I was not about to.

I hung up. The paper company had played dirty with us. But I did not have the luxury of sweating over that. I had to act NOW. For us, the 100,000 orders for tree kits were not ordinary requests. They were commitments from little children to plant a tree. That was sacred. For us, it would have been criminal to let these children down.

Immediately, I contacted another major carton supplier by phone and got through to their general manager. He told me that to get a donation, I would have to go through their committee and it could take months, with no certainty. The bottom line: we were going to have to pay for the cartons. For them to even initiate the action, we had to send them $20,000 up front. That was done within the hour, cleaning out every penny in the till. 

“There will be no paychecks next month,” our volunteer business manager warned. “Let it be known that I am signing this check under protest.” 

Treva was displeased, to say the least. Her voice betrayed the fear caused by a good many missed paychecks over an extended period.

The business manager was as much displeased with my apparent nonchalance as he was with the act of parting with our last penny. “You are a mad man. You are all a bunch of crazy people here,” he said.

I was the only person in the office that afternoon when the phone rang. It was a woman’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Our family met yesterday to discuss our charity budget and we are sending you a check,” she said.

“May I ask you how much?” I put all my courage in my throat.

“Twenty thousand dollars,” she answered, acting surprised, as if I should have known.

 Treva wiped tears from her eyes when she heard the news.

“It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle,” our business manager kept repeating, loudly for anyone to hear, as if he were dancing a jig.

I was experiencing, yet again, that someone, somewhere, somehow was telling me, “Don’t worry. You are being taken care of.”

That evening I went for a long walk. One cannot describe the energy, the high, caused by the mystery of the Spirit, but one can experience it. I pledged to thank the Spirit 20,000 times, by count, starting that moment.

When some of our supporters heard what the first carton supplier had done, they worked to help us to raise the rest of the money. The mayor of Wichita called on others to donate. Another friend sent us $3,000.

But it was the advice of a public relations executive with a national restaurant chain that tipped the scales. I had never met this man before he came to my office. I had just written a letter to a donor, who had given us $1,000 in the past, explaining our predicament. In that letter I suggested, “If you are inclined to donate, this may be the time.” The letter was on my desk ready to mail. The public relations person picked up the letter as he passed my desk and started to read it. Then he took out his expensive fountain pen from his jacket, crossed out the word ‘may’ and substituted ‘is’. The revised letter read: “If you are inclined to donate, this is the time.” The donor responded with a gift of $40,000, making up most of the difference of what was needed.

The movement to plant moringa trees spread in the decade after Trees for Life published its moringa book, taking root in more and more places. It is estimated during that time that more than 200 million trees were planted. It is certain the number is in the millions. 

One story is illustrative of what took place: 

A well-known politician from Latin America visited me in my office. His party had lost the last election in his country, and he had busied himself with social work. He came to ask me to help his country.

When I made a trip there a few years later, he hosted a private lunch for some of the country’s most prominent people. During my talk, I told them about the magical moringa tree.

I had no idea that those who were enjoying elegant fare under my friend’s gazebo made up the shadow government. Within days of my talk, they formed a new government and declared the moringa their national tree.

About a year later, they sought my advice on their plan for the government to plant a very large number of moringa trees. Immediately, I left to meet with the Minister in charge. He was eager to hear what I had to say. I told him much work needed to be done before such a planting could take place. I requested a meeting with some of their core decision-makers on the subject. The Deputy Minister of Agriculture convened a meeting with 28 of their top scientists from various disciplines—horticulturists, academicians, and planners.

Their plan called for immediately planting 2.2 million acres of moringa trees on marginal lands in an effort to fight malnutrition. We spent a couple of days in long meetings. They came to realize they did not know which moringa variety was best suited for their agro-climatic conditions. And since their people were unaware of moringa or its uses, there was no existing demand for the product. 

Finally, the group concluded it did not have the necessary conditions to undertake such a massive planting. This came as a disappointment to the Minister in charge, because he was a man of action and was ready to go.

The government’s desire to plant a huge number of trees was no substitute for a mass movement created by people’s awareness.

“Moringa is not a silver bullet,” I told them. “Go slow. Make sure it is done the right way.”

Fidel Castro, in the last decade of his life, dedicated himself to promoting moringa. He appeared regularly on television exhorting people on the benefits of the moringa tree. 

When we shared the moringa booklet with world leaders in 2005, we knew there was high quality protein in moringa leaves, but we didn’t have the research to show exactly how much protein. In 2015, Trees for Life provided the seed money to start a genetic bank organized by Dr. Mark Olson, a British scientist settled in Mexico. Collaborating with Dr. Jed Fahey of Johns Hopkins University, they were able to analyze a collection of 13 moringa species from around the world. They demonstrated that moringa leaves across the board contain 25%-30% protein, an astounding figure, putting moringa on par with eggs and meat.

The moringa revolution is beyond imagination. In less than a decade, a hundred lifetimes of work took place. It is an example of what all my mentors were trying to teach me: As individuals, we feel we are helpless, caught in circumstances and political systems, when, in fact, we have immense power within us waiting to be unleashed.

Our next stop was New Delhi, where we went to call on Dr. Gopalan, President of the Nutrition Foundation of India. Dr. Gopalan was an eminent scientist of worldwide repute, and the first person to have suggested scientific research on moringa leaves. We asked him if it was true that moringa contained protein.

“Certainly,” he said, “and in large quantities.”

Within hours, we were pouring through the literature. To our surprise, there was indeed evidence that the moringa leaves contain a large amount of protein of the highest quality. How could we have missed it? The information existed, but our eyes had not been opened to it. We were focused on vitamin A.

We started wondering what else we were blind to. We took a fresh look at moringa leaves, this time with no preconceived notions. Now moringa was no longer a means to our objective, it was the objective of our study.

What we found changed our perspective. Moringa leaves were not merely a preventative for blindness. They could help fight malnutrition on a global scale. 

We researched moringa for almost three years. Based on that information, we decided to create an authoritative book to be shared with the masses. 

Our research with the villagers had shown that for moringa to become a movement, it would need validation not only from international research, but also from local scientists. For that, local research was needed, which would require funding. It was important that the information percolate from the top down and not vice versa.   

Since heads of states are very busy people, our challenge was to convince them in less than 10 minutes that the book about moringa was worthy of being passed down the chain of command for further investigation. A second section of the book would need to provide backup information and data for their scientists. Creating such a piece turned out to be a tough assignment.

We knew we needed to create a piece of  “candy” . . .  a book that would evoke in people the desire to have it, not just a book filled with facts that spoke only to a person’s intellect. The facts about moringa had been available in libraries for many, many years, but they had never caught on with the masses. Our “candy” had to build a dream showing that the health of the readers’ families could improve because a very important source of nutrition grew right at their doorsteps.  

Our very capable team went through draft after draft. It was my job to be the bad guy who said, “No, the dream is still not there.” We had already spent four years and the book was not ready. Then a woman with just the expertise we needed joined Trees for Life as a volunteer for a year. She had quit her high-paying job with an advertising agency in New York, where she had designed and created annual reports for large pharmaceutical corporations. 

Like a skilled potter, she used facts as clay to create a beautiful piece of art. She was like a tigress. No one could get in her way. When someone suggested we use only one page to tell about the protein content of moringa, since we were short of space, she insisted the fact was important enough for two full pages. Those pages were filled with a large photograph of a girl playing soccer, symbolizing that protein builds our body. There were to be no compromises.  

The result was a beautifully illustrated 32-page book with a minimal amount of text, printed on the best available paper. I said “Yes” to this version of the book, which was both poetry and a dance.

A paper company donated the paper, and we secured another grant to help with the cost of printing 15,000 copies.

In 2005, we launched a campaign to distribute this book into all the right hands. The response was immediate and long lasting.

The book became the fulcrum for a worldwide movement to plant moringa trees. It was the pivot point that allowed the news about moringa to spread far and wide with very little effort. 

One of the first signs of the book’s impact came when I took a copy with me to India. I delivered it to a man who had long been disgusted with me for not providing information about moringa in writing.

“If moringa is so good, give me something in my hands in black and white,” he had told me.

After he read the book for just a few minutes, he pressed it close to his heart, as a child might hold on to a piece of candy.

“You cannot take it away from me. This exceeds my expectations,” he said.

There was a similar reaction when I gave the book to a former foreign minister in Nicaragua. He held the book to his chest in exactly the same way.

“You will have to kill me to get this book back,” he said.

A priest in Africa asked us to send him 10 books, which we did. He told us that when the books arrived, the customs agents wanted to levy a duty for imported books. 

“I went to them, opened the package and showed them the books,” he said. “I told them what the book was about. When that happened, they all said, ‘Please get more copies and distribute them around the country. But please, just give us one book.’”

We started receiving more and more reports like his. People from all over were asking us to send them another 10 books, another 15 books. We were spending hundreds of dollars a month just to ship them. One donor suggested we should start charging, but we knew that spreading the news of moringa was far more important than money. 

Even today, many of the manufacturers of moringa products use our literature and graphics. We did not want any credit ascribed to us, and we made sure people knew it. At the end of the book there was a statement: 

“This publication is totally, utterly, completely, absolutely and without a doubt copyright free. Share it freely with people who can make a difference.”

And they have.

The time had come to find a champion for moringa. We envisioned it would be someone very well known, well respected, and influential with the masses. Such a person could herald moringa for its Vitamin A content and its ability to prevent blindness, and everyone would listen.

We set our sights on Sai Baba, the Indian saint who was reputed to have 80 million followers around the world. He was most famous for manifesting sandalwood ash from his bare hands as a communion for his devotees. We knew Sai Baba could communicate with the masses through their hearts, rather than their minds. His message would reach far beyond those 80 million, to all the people whose lives they touched.

David Kimble, Trees for Life Executive Director, and I packed our bags and left for Puttaparthi, India. Our sole mission was to meet with Sai Baba and appeal to him to speak out for moringa. We didn’t have an appointment, but we decided that once we got there, we would find a way to see him.

We had done our homework. We had prepared a package the size of a matchbox that contained five moringa seeds and a small pamphlet explaining moringa’s benefits and how to plant and care for the trees. We were ready to tell Sai Baba that Trees for Life would finance the production of these boxes if he would be willing to give them out to his followers as his prasad—a holy gift to all those who flocked to him by the thousands to receive his darshan.

We flew to Bangalore then took a taxi to Sai Baba’s ashram in Puttaparthi and arrived late at night. Once we got there, we were told a room was available, but they had no sheets or towels; we were supposed to have brought our own. We slept on bare beds and rose early the next morning to attend Sai Baba’s darshan at 6:30 a.m. We were about five minutes late and, as we ran toward the tent, Sai Baba came out by himself. He looked at us and I bowed to him with folded hands. It was a brief, first personal glimpse, and then he went back inside where a crowd of about 10,000 people were gathered.

Before entering the tent, everyone took off their shoes. David and I put our shoes in a line with all the others. When we came out afterward, David’s shoes were right where he left them. My shoes were nowhere to be found. We both laughed.

There was another darshan in the afternoon. This time I wore simple canvas tennis shoes. David and I had a plan to foil any shoe thieves. We each put one of our shoes on one side of the entrance. The other shoe we put about 500 shoes away. We thought, who would want to steal just one shoe?

When we came out of the tent, David’s one shoe was there, but mine was missing. We checked the other side, 500 shoes away. David’s second shoe was there, but mine was gone. Once again, we laughed. What had happened was beyond our comprehension. 

The next day, we attended our third darshan. By then, I was wearing cheap flip flops. Guess what? When we came out to collect our shoes, David’s were in place and my flip flops had disappeared.

I was getting the message: come with total humility, not as a person trying to sell his idea to Sai Baba.

We were told that Sai Baba saw only a few people by appointment, and he selected who he wanted to see. Visitors could not approach him to get an appointment. One person advised us to share our message with Sai Baba’s personal physician. If he approved of the idea, he would share it with Sai Baba and perhaps he might invite us to see him. 

Getting an appointment with the doctor was another problem. He was head of Sai Baba’s new, state-of-the-art, multi-million-dollar heart hospital, and we were told he was a very busy man. The only possibility was to catch him at home, because he faithfully went home for lunch. We knocked on his door, unannounced, promptly at 1 p.m.

The doctor answered the door. He gave us a half-hearted greeting. It was obvious he was not expecting to be interrupted during his lunch hour.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

We apologized for the interruption.

“We would like to communicate the importance of moringa leaves to Sai Baba,” I said. “We were told to talk to you first and then, if you approved, you might relay the message to Baba.”

 “Come in! Come in! Come in!” he said hurriedly. Both David and I noticed the doctor’s face had turned ashen.

We had spent lots of money to get there, and I knew we had only one chance to sell our idea and the time was short. I went straight to the point. The doctor listened without any interruptions. I ended up speaking for almost 20 minutes.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” he asked, when I was finished talking.

“No,” I said.

“Now let me share something with you,” he said. “This morning, at the darshan, I was backstage. After Baba gave the darshan, he came backstage and started talking to me about moringa leaves. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I didn’t know what moringa was. Baba said, ‘These people believe the main contribution of moringa leaves is vitamin A. They are not aware of the protein content in moringa leaves and its quality.’ 

“He told me his grandmother used to feed him moringa leaves when he was growing up. He said he has a moringa tree growing outside his window, and he eats the leaves every day.”

Shaking his head in disbelief, the doctor continued, “Baba repeated the message seven or eight times. I was just standing there, wondering why he was telling me this and what it had to do with me.”

“When you stood at my door and said you had come to talk to me about moringa leaves, I thought I was seeing a ghost,” the doctor finished.

We realized Baba had sent his answer through the doctor: Check the protein content.

Before we left the next day, we attended another darshan. At that event, Sai Baba walked through the crowd of thousands, manifested hard candies and threw them to the people. David and I were sitting in a row through which he happened to pass. When Sai Baba passed me, he kicked me gently with his feet, and dropped three candies in my lap. 

“Oh, my gosh, how fortunate you are!” the man sitting next to me said. “He gave you three candies.”

“Here, one is for you,” I said, bowing to him while handing him a candy.

“No, no, no,” he said. “They were meant for you.”

In that moment I was fully aware that I had everything that I needed and Sai Baba was affirming my call to be a channel to share with others. I insisted that the man take the candy, and he accepted.

Bird Village was already a phenomenon. It was known as a holy spot, where people would come from miles away and be healed. Stories of healings started to spread as we were conducting our moringa field test. 

We were not impressed by these stories. Our goal was to see how people could empower each other by sharing the benefits of moringa. Our goal was not to impress people with what outsiders like us could do. 

For our first step, we met with the people to talk about moringa. Some of the groups were small, some large. They were men, women, young people, teachers, students, farmers, businessmen, and social workers. The greater the variety of people, the better it was. We called them focus groups and recorded and discussed most of what we learned each day. We must have met with 200 such groups. 

We used flip charts, posters, leaflets, and even a specially designed comic book. We had taken care that the information was scientifically correct.

We explained that a very important medicinal tonic was available to them right at their doorstep. They did not have to spend their precious resources to improve the health of their families, especially the women and children. 

We told them it was important that they articulate the message themselves and determine how it might travel through their own network, without the interference of outsiders and without resources expended on advertisements in the newspaper, or on radio and television. Outside interference was to be avoided, if possible, because outsiders had an agenda of their own. 

This went beyond moringa. Our question was: How can economically deprived people solve their own problems?

No one from our Wichita group spoke the language except me, so I was the main person the villagers could talk to. One of the village leaders found this process to be so important that he went to all the villages around that area and arranged meetings at 8 o’clock at night, which was the best time for the villagers because they had finished all their daily chores, including meals, and there were no other distractions. Most of the time our team traveled to the villages on the Training Center’s tractor, the only tractor for miles around.

We were surprised how cogent the villagers’ inputs were. Though they were quite poor and mostly uneducated, they were capable of precisely articulating their messages, as long as they were not being lectured to and knew the questions were sincere. For example, in one focus group a man spoke: 

“People from the outside who come to our villages think we are all alike,” he said. He added that when outsiders get advice from one of the villagers, they think that person represents all of the villagers, as if they were a homogenous unit. 

“In fact, there are many differences among us,” he said. “There are circles within circles within circles.” 

That group articulated five major groups or markets to consider: children, youth, women, men, and grandparents. For the moringa campaign to succeed, there would have to be five different messages, one to target each group, created with a common theme. For it to have impact, messages to each market would have to go out simultaneously, not one at a time.

Another group explained to us the changing dynamics of their society. For thousands of years, information had come top down, from the elders to the children. Now, because the grandparents and parents were uneducated and had no way of knowing what was going on in the world, they relied on their children to pass the information up to them. 

Armed with such advice, we designed the booklets and posters for students, explaining the nutritional benefits in terms of vitamins, minerals, and protein and how they affect our bodies. An artist familiar with their culture designed a comic book, explaining these facts in an interesting way for the children. 

We went to the schools and played games, sang songs and danced to draw them in. For example, if there was a fact that used the number 6 ½, I jumped once, and the children shouted, “One!” I performed the same routine, through the number six.

“How do I jump for the half?” I asked.

“Jump on one leg!” someone suggested.

I acted dumb and asked the unsuspecting principal to show me how to jump on one leg, evoking laughter from the audience. Sometimes, when I went into a village, children shouted, “Mathur has arrived! Mathur has arrived!”

I asked the kids in those schools to share with two other people whatever information or knowledge they got that day, if they believed the information was important. I used the drill, raising two fingers high. “How many people are you going to share this information with?” They shouted, “Two!”

“When will you do that?” I asked as I pointed down to the earth. “Now!” they responded.

In many of these meetings, I told the children they should share the information about moringa with their parents. I playfully planted an idea among them.

 “Tell your mom if she does not cook moringa leaves for you, you will not eat.” Children understood the mischievous intent behind it and gladly joined in. We heard from many mothers.

Similarly, the youth came up with the idea that they would join hands by taking inventory of moringa trees in their villages. Upon completion, they would plant the necessary number of moringa trees and take care of them, usually 20 to 50 trees. After that, they would receive a typewriter for their youth club. They became very active participants. We provided paint and brushes to these young people. They painted a slogan about moringa leaves on roadside brick fences, a popular advertising medium in rural India. The slogan was: “Moringa leaves fight 300 diseases.”

This was a simple, but powerful, message that had emerged when I was meeting with a group of about 30 women. I told them the Indian Ayurvedic system of medicine tells us that moringa leaves fight 300 diseases. Upon hearing this, one woman got quite angry.

“If these leaves have such potential, why isn’t our government broadcasting this message to each and every household?” she asked. Most of the other women joined her. At that moment, I knew what our slogan would be. I felt I had my hand on their pulse. 

The villagers seemed to have plenty of hidden talent to write, create, and produce effective plays about the benefits of moringa leaves. Each play used original songs with great rhythm and drama. These plays started after dinner and continued till late at night. All the men, women, and children sat on the ground spellbound. 

School children recruited their parents to join them in parades through the villages. The kids held banners and chanted, “Moringa leaves fight 300 diseases!”

Cooking classes were held for the women by home-cooking experts. The women loved the idea of learning a newer way of cooking in the companionship of other women. It was a new idea for these women, who had learned traditional cooking from their parents. 

Because of moringa’s unusually high nutritional value, our moringa slogan, intended for mothers and grandmothers, was “Mother’s Best Friend.” 

To the men, the message emphasized that with better nutrition provided by moringa leaves, the family would be healthier and save on paying money for the doctor. In addition, moringa leaves could be sold in the market to earn money, and the leaves made excellent fodder for their cattle, increasing milk production.

A year after completing our marketing tests, we retained an independent group to investigate if our message had taken root and if the people were applying that information in their lives. A team of a dozen people conducted surveys for two weeks. After thorough research, they found that 84 percent of the people knew the message and could repeat the slogan. But most importantly, the people reported they were incorporating moringa leaves two or three times a week in their meals.

With very little money spent and following the instincts and advice of the local people, the campaign to bring moringa out of the dark in those 20 villages proved to be highly successful. We also learned that the message had already started to seep into other nearby villages. For example, a school teacher at another village shared the knowledge in her village, a few miles away. The method was working. 

Now our task was to share with a larger audience the information about moringa’s potential to prevent blindness.