It was a busy day, and we had a lot of things to get done. It is always that way in Malawi. No matter how long our schedule allows us to be in the country there is never enough time. Going here, going there. Meeting this group, meeting that group. Planning this, planning that.
Now, it is time to go into another meeting, and I can’t find Wilson. It is critical he be at the meeting. Where is he? Why isn’t he here? It is past time to start. Going outside I start looking around the grounds. Then on the north side of the building, I see him a short distance away. He is bent down in front of a small boy. The scene stops me, and I raise the camera to snap a picture of the scene being played out in front of me. He seems so calm. I, on the other hand, am often watching the clock, hurrying along with a mission. As I watch him with the small boy, I realize I have gotten sidetracked from the theme statement we put in place early in the work of the Malawi Project.
“It is not about the Plan, the Program, or the Project. It is about the People.”
After the conversation ended and Wilson returned to our “rush, rush” world I asked him what he was talking with the small boy about.
“I asked him about school. He was telling me all about it,” he said.
For a minute everything stopped. Wilson had it right. Not the plan, the program, or the project. The people. A small boy who, for just a moment, became so important to that guy in a business suit that he was asked to tell the man what it was like in his school.
