Man Down: Will Someone Please Stand Up?

Will and I returned from church down a road filled with pot-holes and puddles; a typical Nairobi street this time of year. No sooner had we navigated across the tarmac river than we heard a loud krada-thump!. Spinning around I saw a man falling to the ground as a green BMW sped by. The man hung in the air a split second before falling listlessly to the ground.

Dumbfounded, I took two steps toward him before turning back to see the car hesitate, pausing to consider God-knows-what, before speeding off with a broken side mirror. I looked back at the man, sitting up as if waking up from a nightmare. He scooted himself off the asphalt, clutching his left leg just above the knee. I went over and got his sweater out of the street.

I asked if he was all right. His response was to lay down and cover his face, grimacing in pain. By now some other people has stopped and were watching events unfold, living statues of silent witness. A man walked over and talked to the man in Swahili. He asked if we had gotten the license plate of the car. The one way we could have possibly helped and we were blinded by shock.

I had no idea what to do. After five minutes of wondering, a car pulled up and the driver said he had the number of the culpable person (I assume he had followed the car). We helped the man, Michael Oduor, across the same forsaken street and inside the car. I asked if he needed names and numbers of witnesses before going to the hospital, possibly with a fractured femur. The driver, Charles, and the man who stopped to help, Peter, thought that it was a good idea.

By now it had started to rain. I wrote my name and number on some paper and handed it to Charles. After I re-crossed the street, Will asked if he was going to need any money for the hospital. The car was already pulling away. “Well, he’s got my number,” I mustered up, hoping that he would call.

Not a block later a man with loose change in one hand and a nibble of corn cob in the other asked us for money. We refused.

And I wondered. I wondered about how people can always use a little help, and then there are times when someone is absolutely in need of help. We are all under God’s mercy, and at times chosen to be vessels of grace.

How can we say no? Yet how often do we say yes?