❼ My Confessions…Hear Me Out. Please

I really struggled with whether to share it or just keep it to myself. As you can tell, I decided to take the leap. I hope you enjoy this new video. I have a feeling that you might see a little glimpse of yourself in it. Thank you for always being so amazing. Enjoy! xo

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In case we haven’t met, HI my name is Kola (just like Coca-Cola) and I am a talker.

I am sooo good at talking that I even get paid to be a Speaker at various events.

I would talk about how I wanted to make a difference. How it was important to live with purpose. How we could all do something as long as we were passionate about it but I never actually did anything.

It’s not that I didn’t want to do anything. It’s just that there were alot of things in the way.

I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have time. I had issues in my family. It wasn’t convenient. I didn’t know how everything would work out. There were just a lot of reasons why I was talking but I didn’t really do anything.

So you can understand why it was shocking (even to me) when I posted this video about my mission to Go Make a Difference.

Two weeks after posting that video, I posted another video announcing that I had picked the country I would be traveling to. India.

Let’s just pause there for a second.

I. Me. Oluwabukunolami Toluwalope Yewande Olaosebikan from Offa. 

I was going to fly to India to figure out how I could help orphans?

I posted that video on the internet and then proceeded to have a major what the *bleep* moment.

After that, I did the only thing that made sense to me at that point. I got on my knees and I prayed. I prayed for a plane ticket and I got one. I prayed for a nice hotel that was affordable and in a safe part of town and I got one. I prayed for peace of mind about the whole project and I had some.

When everything fell into place, I was happy that I would get to go to India but I wasn’t excited. In this video, I said I was excited about going to India. But, nah, I wasn’t.

I was happy but I wasn’t excited.

I wasn’t excited because I was scared.

Just the week before I was supposed to leave, it was all over the news that somebody had gone to New Delhi and she got raped on the bus or something like that.

And I wasn’t excited because I didn’t know what to expect. I had no clue what to expect when I got there.

I felt like I was getting on this plane and flying straight into a black hole. And the funny thing is, maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t know what to expect.

Maybe if I had known what I would see when I got there, maybe I wouldn’t have even gone in the first place.

At some point in your life, you may have seen images like these ones

And of course, when these pictures show up on your television you have a voice over telling you things like “for the price of 1 cup of Starbucks coffee, you can help Amina go to school and have a life and have an education…”

There was a small part of me that wondered if the orphans in India were going to be just like that.

I wondered if they were going to fit into that stereotype.

And there was a small part of me that was hopeful that if they fell into that stereotype, it would be easy to know how to help them.

I mean, I would just take a few pictures, and post them on the internet. I would post them on Buzz Feed, #Upworthy and next thing you know, BOOM. People are excited and emotionally giving to these kids.

It would have been easy to know how to help them if that were what I saw.

Just imagine how humbling it was for me to get there and realize that they didn’t fit.

They didn’t fit the stereotype that I subconsciously hoped that they would fit into.

In fact, what I found when I got there was actually quite surprising and very remarkable to me.

 

When I got there, I met 29 orphans that had a stake in a nearby farm.

So when they weren’t going to school or driving each other absolutely crazy, they were working on the farm under adult supervision.

They were farming their land. They were raising things like chickens and they were harvesting things like carrots and tomatoes and rice.   They farmed that land through a combination of rented tractors, cows and plows.

When they farm the land, they take the food and they use it to feed the children in the orphanage. That way, they don’t have to spend money on buying expensive food.

The excess from their harvest, they sell in the village or transport to the city so they can produce an income for the orphanage. It was clear to me that this was a completely different way of doing things.

So I asked them – I said, what do you need?  

When I asked that question, they asked for something very surprising to me.

They asked for dignity. They wanted the ability to farm even more land so that they could produce even more food to nourish the children and also sell to the village so they had more of an income to be self-sustaining.

That way, they wouldn’t need people like me anymore.

Wow.

They’re not waiting for handouts. They’re not looking for my pity. They don’t even want my help if they can help it. They want the dignity to farm their own land so that they can sustain themselves. So that they can generate enough revenue to sustain the orphanage.

That to me is remarkable.

You would assume that this is where I am going to include some sad pictures and some slow music so I can guilt you into giving them money to keep going.

I’m not going to do that.

I want you to know that I’m not sitting here writing about orphans because I’m a good person or because I know what it feels like to be an orphan.

I’m not and I don’t.

I’m sitting here talking about orphans because I know that God loves these kids dearly.

And I truly believe that He loves them enough that if He wants you to give, He will move you to give.   So if your mind is telling you to give something, please click here to visit the page you see below.

And give generously toward creating a future for these kids. Invest in them. Give them a chance. Give them a fighting chance.

Here’s the link again.

And please make sure you thumbs up this video and share it on social media to spread the word about this project. Thank you so much for reading.

There is no greater privilege than the opportunity to invest in a person that would probably never have the chance to help you in return

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THE LINK: please click here to visit the page.