You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt;

as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear;

as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

~Douglas MacArthur.

Education is a wonderful thing. Many people take it for granted because they got an opportunity to go to school at a young age. It is a great deficiency not to be able to read and write for yourself and get to understand the world around you. If you are illiterate, you always have to give a thumbprint on documents instead of a signature, and someone has to always show you where to put it. In town, you cannot read the signs and have to keep on asking for directions.

The value of an education is not only in the job it can get you; it can help you to actualize yourself so that you are more independent. Imagine depending on others to read the Bible for you and never to fully discover for yourself the miracles within!

When the government of Kenya made primary education free, it produced an influx of old people wanting to go back to school. Kimani Maruge was one of them. At the age of 84, he decided to get an education.  His main objectives were to be able to read the Bible for himself and to possibly one day become a veterinary doctor! With this decision, he was distinguished by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest pupil.

Reading about him and seeing his photographs in the newspapers dressed in a pupil’s uniform put a smile on many people’s faces. It was rather funny, seeing such an old man in the same class as 6 year olds young enough to be his great grand children. Some may have thought that he would soon be deterred, but he soldiered on for six years and inspired many to the fact that it is never too late to pursue your dreams. Unfortunately he died of stomach cancer at the age of 90. Even if he did not live to qualify as a doctor, he was at least able to read the Bible for himself, a great blessing indeed.

The life of Maruge has now been made into a movie “The first grader”. Age is just but a number.