So, anyone who knows me knows that I have my eyes set on going to Kenya not once with 100 Humanitarians, but twice this year. That last trip to Kenya had a “wow” factor that I simply didn’t expect. Well, okay … I kinda expected, but not to that level. It was *big*. BIG big big.

Obviously, I want to go back. However, I want to bring my wife. She *needs* this. She has to see this with her own eyes to understand why I’m so invested. The number crunching and payment dates begin …

As many are aware, I was laid off for 11 months. No real income, no solid money coming in … it was kind of a bad thing. Except we were totally taken care of. It’s humbling. Little contracts here and there, Ubering, some unemployment assistance … somehow, we managed to make it. On December 5th, I started a new contract. 6 months with a *really* strong chance of extensions. I’m excited about that because that helps fund our trip to Kenya! And, of course, pay our bills. 🙂 Come on, people. PRIORITIES!

However, there are some bills we need to catch up on. And last week, I didn’t get to work because no one else was in, and most of my job is interviewing people for information that I put into our manuals. If they’re not here, as a contractor, it makes no sense for me to be there. So one whole week of no money. That’s a big chunk of cash that we didn’t get today. That makes me sad. AND next week will be a small check because I couldn’t work this past Monday, either. For those of you tallying at home, that’s *A LOT* of money we’re not making.

So how do I come up with the deposits for my wife and me to go to Kenya? Why, simply manifest the need and watch the miracles unfold. Case in point: last night.

I was asked to help format an upcoming book for Kindle. I’ve done this before. It isn’t hard work at all. In fact, if you know how to use Word with any kind of proficiency, it’s super easy. Now … I’m friends with a few of the collaborators/authors for this effort, and some of the proceeds of this book are going help our 100 Humanitarians group. The author/compiler of the book came to me and asked what I would charge for my services. I simply asked, “Would you be okay covering my wife’s and my deposit fees for the trip in June?”

“That … that would be perfectly okay! Should I pay the director directly? Or should I send you the money and you can pay her?”

“Oh, just pay her directly. That eliminates the middle man.”

“Ok. Thank you SO MUCH!” And so on and so forth.

This opportunity popped up last night AFTER my wife and I were discussing how we’d pay for the deposits. We were already on grace time, and January was looking pretty bleak to be able to make the deposit payments. Nope! Miracle manifested!

Miracle number dos. That’s “two” for all you non-Spanish speakers.

Remembering that the editor said that she had sent me the manuscript last night, I took some time during a break this morning to look at the Word file. I downloaded it from my mail server and looked over it. Clearly the editor had already formatted it rather well. There are some things that will need tweaking, but nothing very time consuming. It should be fairly easy.

Except I deleted the email from my server. Why? Because I’m tired and clearly not thinking straight.

See … the author called me this morning. She has additional pages that need to be included. “No big deal. Just send me the extra material, I’ll paste it in, and we’ll go from there.”

“Ok. I also need to send you the front and back covers. They’re pictures in a pdf.”

“Awesome! Send all of that to [email address].”

“Okay!! Thanks!”

A few minutes go by. I get a text from her. “Hey, so … is this the right email address? [email address]”

“Yah, ohhhhhhhh … except it’s probably getting bounced because my email server is almost full and not accepting large files. Could you send it to [other email address]?”

“Okay.”

That prompted me to go in and delete all emails over 100kb so that nothing else gets bounced back. I selected all the large-attachment emails, deleted them, cleared them from the trash, and stared at my handy-work in now having a near-clean email server.

Small problem: I had just deleted the email with the manuscript. Insert sad trombone sound here because it would be very, very appropriate.

I panicked! I freaked! I broke a sweat! I CANNOT call this lady and ask her to resend it. No way, no how. Not happening.

Guess what was still open on my desktop. Guess what I saved to my local documents folder.

So now I had a copy of the manuscript, but it’s a big file. I couldn’t email it to myself. I desperately needed a thumb drive.

I messaged my friend and told her that I needed a thumb drive. I did not say why, I just told her. I … manifested that I needed one.

Two hours went by. I sat at my desk, working on a project that involved (and will for the foreseeable future) editing horrifically written manuals. We’re talking incomplete sentences, lack of punctuation, punctuation where it has no business being, spelling errors galore … these manuals are currently in our customers’ hands. I cannot imagine how these made it past any kind of review. Ohhhhhhh, that’s right–former writer didn’t ALLOW reviews! Seriously … that’s jaw-dropping to me. Anyway, I digress. As I’m working on this manual, up to my cube walks this guy. “Hey, maybe you remember me. I spoke with you about a month ago about some documents we need help formatting. Could you take a look at these?”

AND HE HANDS ME A THUMB DRIVE.

“Just empty the contents on your desktop. You can keep the thumb drive. I’m sure you need it more than I do.”

Little miracles, people. Little miracles.