The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and the God Who Made It
I just finished reading William Kamkwamba’s inspiring book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. In the autobiography (co-written with Bryan Mealer), Kamkwamba shares his childhood story of growing up in the impoverished country of Malawi, a country where magic rules and modern science is often viewed with suspicion and mystery. As the son of a farmer, life in Malawi for the young Kamkwamba was a constant struggle with poverty, famine, and a lack of access to quality education. Even as Kamkwamba was struggling to meet his basic needs, he had a thirst for more: a thirst to know and to live for something greater than his day-to-day existence seemed to require.
He was also naturally curious, a lover of learning. One day, as he was perusing the book cart in the town market, he discovered an American textbook called Using Energy, and as Kamkwamba reports, “this book has since changed my life.”[1]
He discovered that you could harness the power of the wind and convert it into electricity. All he needed was to build a windmill. If he could provide electricity for his family, Kamkwamba reasoned, he could turn their lives around—they could work into the evening, pump water into the house and into the fields, and even add an additional harvest of crops to the year.
But he had no education, no money, no parts, and no know-how. What he did possess, however, was a longing to know and a longing to accomplish something great. And he did. You’ll want to read the story to see how he pulled it off, but yes, Kamkwamba succeeded in building a working windmill that provided electricity for his family, captured the attention of the village as well as those who could help fund his further education. He is now a student at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire and his life has been completely changed.
I am inspired and sobered by Kamkwamba’s story.
I am inspired by this young man’s tenacity, vision, hope, passion, and quest for more. He was not content to accept the status quo in a very hard situation. He strived to overcome. He worked to make things better. He labored to create. Kamkwamba was fulfilling his God-given passion to live a dramatic life; to live a life of significance; to refuse defeat, to refuse to cave and allow this universal human longing to be placated. The many people who generously helped provide educational and financial opportunities for Kamkwamba also inspire me. Most people really do want to make the world a better place.
I’m sobered because the subtext of his story is that education is the answer to man’s problems when in fact it is not. I love learning. I value education. I think that through education we will see a better world, and Kamkwamba’s life is an obvious testimony to this. But, education is not the answer because physical poverty and ignorance are not our fundamental problems. They are symptoms of a deeper ill—the fact that we’ve been cutoff from God due to human rebellion. Man’s greatest need is Jesus and the forgiveness for sin that he offers. The God-given longing for more can only be satisfied in a life lived within God’s story. As inspired as I was, and think you will be too, in reading about Kamkwamba’s story, don’t forget that all the good things in his life (and in yours) are gifts, gifts from a pursuing God who lovingly shepherds and draws us to himself through our hopes and dreams.
Kamkwamba harnessed the wind. God is the maker of the wind. And that wind blows everywhere, inviting you to come and find life:
“He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man . . .the Lord God Almighty is his name.” (Amos 4:13)
Here is a nice video of William Kamkwamba’s story:
Here is a TED talk he gave sharing about his story:
1 William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, The Boy How Harnessed the Wind (New York: William Morrow, 2010), 167.
One Response to The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and the God Who Made It
I love to read. Of course, being a professor helps. I get to read as part of my job. That’s good. But I also love to read for the sheer pleasure of it. When it comes to fiction, I love entering into secondary worlds and journeying along with the characters of the story. Often non-fiction reads like a good story too: life is life, story is story, and often the two kiss (a loose paraphrase of one of my favorite nonfiction stories of the year, All that is Sad is Untrue). (more…)
I love to read. It’s partly why I’m an academic today. What could be better than reading, writing, teaching, and learning every day? Reading books awakens me: to truth, goodness, and beauty. I try, each year, to read broadly. This year, I managed to read 47 books. I’ve been recording every book read in a book log for over 10 years now. Whenever I finish a book, I list the date finished, the title, author, and a one sentence summary of the book. As has become my custom, I offer to you my favorite reads of the past year in philosophy, apologetics and theology, fiction, and non-fiction. (more…)
2020 has been a year of change for my family. We moved in the middle of a pandemic from Texas to Florida. I started a new job as a professor of philosophy and the director of a new program in philosophy at Palm Beach Atlantic University. We left behind two of our children in Texas–both college students at Baylor. Our younger two sons have had to endure an on-again/off-again year at a new school. But there have been many constants, even in the midst of change. Family. Jesus. And the reading of books! And this blog post. (more…)
Pingback: How Reading Enlarges Us: Or My Favorite Books of 2014 | Paul Gould