The clearer you are on what you want, the more coincidence you will have in your life.

On the third and last flight of the 10,000-mile journey that would bring me to Kigali, I was seated next to an African man. We were two strangers on a flight that was about one quarter full.

I’m not very chatty on long trips. I value the too-rare chance for peace and quiet and the eclectic music on my iPod. But on this flight, chatty I became.

It started when my companion turned to me and commented on the number of boarding passes I was holding. We laughed. I asked him where he was going and where he was coming from. He was on his way home to Nairobi from Norway where he had been for three months. He was Maasai, a tribe in Kenya. He was the director for a not-for-profit headquartered in Norway.

He asked where I traveled to and I told him Rwanda, for the Itafari Foundation. And he said, “What did you say?”

“I-ta-far-i,” I repeated.
He looked at me and said his name was Ita!

I often sense significance on these long international flights: in where people are headed to, coming from, or doing. This one blew me away.

We laughed and began to talk of things that change the world. Passion for living a life which will bring success, comfort, and joy to yourself and others. A deep sense of commitment to making the world a better place through your talents, education, and focus. A sense of calling which makes no sense but must not be ignored.

Many of the people I meet who work to serve others come from a strong sense of faith and calling. You see them everywhere – men and women, young and old, who want to serve others. But especially, you see it at airports and on the plane. There is a nexus of possibility in these crossroads. There are old nuns, priests, Hassidic Jews, Muslims, doctors, teachers, Peace Corp volunteers, students with t-shirts boldly proclaiming their faith and affiliation, middle-aged people from everywhere in the world, and others whom I cannot label. All of us are heading to a place that is foreign and different, yet that has somehow called to us. Different attitudes, different expectations, different focus: but all of us on some sort of personal mission.

This is Ita:

Raised in a Maasai tribe in the country of Kenya, he was the first member of his family to become highly educated. He received his undergrad and graduate degrees in India, and had stayed in India a number of years to start churches – nine of them! He is only 33 years old. And he is just beginning.

He has traveled the world, made friends with those whose lives have affected him, and he in turn has changed theirs. Not only is he a strong Christian man of faith, he is one who feels compassionate about serving others through his gifts and talents.

We talked of his concerns for those who have no faith. Of the practical issue of stopping female genitalia mutilation in cultures such as the Maasai and in greater Africa. And of the challenges he faces in being a foreigner in so many foreign lands, of balancing his strong sense of duty to his family with this ability and desire to travel the world and share what he knows to help others. We talked of love and his fiancée, Rose, who he will be marrying in December in Kenya, and we talked of his dreams of starting businesses that utilize his talents and create a difference in the world.

We are unique. Each of us brings certain talents and vision to the world, and if we do not manifest our deepest goals and dreams, the world will never see them. No one else will do it better. As Ita spoke about what was in his way of accomplishing his goals and dreams, I stated that I believed only one thing would stop him: himself.