Just Give Them a Hug . . . and the Rest Will Be Easy

A call to action from a philanthropic educator.

Debut author Weiss had always wanted to visit Africa, but he put off a trip until a cancer scare in middle age forced him to reconsider his life. Before finally traveling to Kenya in 2009, Weiss connected with Village Volunteers, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization providing opportunities for westerners who want to improve downtrodden Africans’ lives. Weiss toured the impoverished village of Dago, several hours west of Nairobi, and lived there in a manner similar to that of the villagers themselves: hand-washing and wringing out clothes, spending mornings and afternoons in the village schoolrooms and orphanage, and even, in a pinch, substitute teaching. “In most classes there were not enough desks,” he remembers, “so some students would just sit on the dirt floor.” The children showed warmth, kindness, and diligence, but despite how hard they worked, “roughly 50 percent of Dago children…never made it to class eight.” The money wasn’t there; the government had promised education funding, but that promise was empty. This inspired Weiss to travel the country, get to know individual students (some of whose stories he shares here), and eventually inaugurate the Bernard and Else Weiss Dago Scholarship Fund, named after his own parents. Open to donations from any and all, the fund has already awarded scholarships to 24 children, Weiss writes. He includes pictures of the children in this book’s appendix, although it’s tricky to say where the narrative ends and the appendix begins. In part, this is because Weiss’ text is more of a documentation than a thesis-driven work, made up of journal entries, speeches, quotations from the children and other inspiring figures, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and testimonials from Weiss’ colleagues and fellow aid-workers. Perhaps surprisingly, given the scattered organization, the whole still reads smoothly with a consistent, consoling tone. Readers will encounter something far less sentimental but more genuinely moving than they might expect: the story of one man who wanted to help and did, in larger ways than he might have imagined.

An engrossing look at a poor Kenyan village.

Just Give Them a Hug is a missionary memoir that shows how one person can truly make a difference.

Brett H. Weiss’s memoir, Just Give Them a Hug … And the Rest Will Be Easy, is an inspiring story about the author’s trips to Dago, Kenya.

The book chronicles four life-changing trips to Africa during which Weiss visited schools, encountering students who struggled to get an education and adults doing what they could to help them. Weiss shares detailed, sometimes painful, stories about the people he met, about the overwhelming poverty, and about the impact of AIDS on Kenyans.

Weiss conveys how he felt overwhelmed by the harsh reality of not being able to help everyone. His giving spirit permeates the narrative, which revolves around sharing, inspiring others, and helping to meet the academic needs of Kenyan children.

Weiss’s visits inspired him to create a scholarship named after his parents. The book includes follow-ups with some of the scholarship recipients, encouraging the public’s investment in their successes.

The writing is straightforward and conversational. Most of the book is structured around journal entries, with lots of detail about Weiss’s day-to-day activities and anecdotes about the people he met and the places he visited. Such entries sometimes run long and contain unnecessary information, which leads to a general lack of focus.

The chapter about his last trip to Kenya is written in a more narrative style, and proves to be compelling. The book’s final sections shift again, when Weiss muses on the general impact of education, which, he says, is considered a luxury in many parts of the world.

Detailed descriptions of sights and sounds make for engrossing reading, evoking a strong sense of a place that is teeming with life. A host of intriguing characters fills the pages, including the teachers at the schools Weiss visited, volunteers, adults who showed him around, and, of course, the students.

Weiss includes a glossary of Kiswahili terms at the beginning of the book, though many of the terms are not included in the narrative. More compelling is the supporting material—photographs, report cards, copies of handwritten application essays, and letters from students who received scholarships. Such materials provide a heartwarming touch, helping to bring the students to life within the story, and often conveying the true human impact of education.

Just Give Them a Hug is a missionary memoir that shows how one person can truly make a difference.