"...no great wonder..."

The Hospital of Hope has not been like any project I’ve ever worked on. I’m not talking about the glaringly obvious differences, like it’s in Francophone West Africa, has Swiss origins, will serve a population that has such extreme health needs that a pharmacy often substitutes for hospital emergency care. Beyond these differences, there’s something about this project that is subtle and magical.

Consistently, since I committed to volunteer for the hospital, I’ve experienced it in small and large ways, and again today, there it was…the magic. As Nathalie and I drove home from a meeting this afternoon, we looked at each other and smiled…and agreed: There’s something about this project.

It doesn’t need to be pushed. It flows. It keeps moving in the direction it needs to go. When I started thinking about an international volunteer assignment, a mutual friend introduced me to Nathalie. When we needed the funding to establish an account with our US fiscal agent, suddenly, there was the donor. When we began talking about financial sustainability, I was introduced to a former Fortune 500 CEO who’s now focused on health care and wants to help us develop the business model for transitioning from philanthropic support to revenue generation. When we weren’t making progress with the title transfer for the land, the mayor resolved the problem by giving us a different, larger, better, more centrally located site for construction. When we needed a 3D elevation, my architect friend in New York volunteered to render the design.

As we have begun to discuss how we get the community involved with the hospital so that they feel it is theirs, we were introduced to a business consultant whom I had hoped might—in the best possible scenario-- give us some ideas and or even models for how to undertake this work. But she had a bigger and better idea…much bigger and much better: She is bringing her consultancy onto the project—pro bono. Together, we are going to work on strategies for fundraising, communications, community engagement and organizational development. It’s a significant boost we need right now. And there’s more. Several times, the same names have surfaced as “people we need to meet,” and no surprise, she knows all of those people and wants to introduce us.

Coincidences? Possibly. As Plutarch wrote: "It is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur."

Proponents of ancient Vedic spiritual and other mystical teachings insist that there is absolutely no coincidence in the world. Everything that occurs can be related to a prior cause or association, no matter how vast or how minute.

I agree with that. And I also believe in magic.