Sometimes our wishes are totally irrational.  This is one of those times.

It’s about 6am and morning prayers are echoing through the streets of Arusha. I’m too excited to sleep; I’m in Tanzania now celebrating the graduation of our very first class from primary school. 

In my heart, for so long, I’ve carried a perhaps far-fetched wish that for graduation, I’d be able to give a truly epic gift to one boy & one girl from the school’s first graduating class.

I want them to visit the US.  To meet and hug in person so many of you who have poured your love & gratitude into them over the past four years.  To experience the kind of learning only travel to far-off places can bring.  To participate, in person, in our Epic Thanks efforts this November to raise the funds we’ll need to ensure their secondary school will open in January. And to sing their little hearts out as part of a program & concert we’ve planned with OneVoice also to raise funds for their secondary school.

Perhaps most of all, I want to give them this gift so they grow up with hearts that dare to hope, like mine, for ridiculous, unimaginable possibilities.  For themselves, their community, their country and the world we share.  I want them to know, beyond any doubt, that even their wildest dreams just might come true.

To bring them, and Mama Lucy as their chaperone, I need to raise $5,000 by this Friday - so that I can give them their gift on graduation day.

That means we have about 48 hours to make a miracle happen.  50 of us would need to chip in $100.  Or 100 of us $50.  or 250 $20.  That’s all. 

This isn’t an Epic Change fundraiser.  It’s truly a graduation gift for children so many of us have grown to love - and who have taught us so much by becoming our friends.

I hope you’ll join me in filling their graduation day with unexpected magic.  Just select an amount from the drop-down list & click “Give” below…

UPDATE (6PM EST 9/22):

In addition to the total displayed on the widget, $650 has been pledged offline. So we’ve already raised $1,770 and have just $3,230 to raise in the next 18 hours - by midnight EST on 9/23 - just in time for their graduation ceremony in Tanzania!!! ASANTE SANA to all those kind, generous souls who are making this possibility a reality!