KINDNESS RETURNED: Grandma Soja Helped a Boy Get to School—Years Later he Came Back

Grandma Soja says a boy she once helped get to school returned years later with food and gifts after completing a PhD.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Georgina Mensah says one of the most touching rewards of her life has been seeing people she helped remember her kindness years later.

She shared the story of a young Muslim boy from the Zongo community whom she helped while he was growing up near her home.

According to Grandma Soja, the boy and other Zongo children used to come to her house to clean the compound.

She also remembered helping him get to school when she was working at the US Embassy.

“He used to come and blow his horn. At the time I was working at the US Embassy. Then I would join your vehicle and you would take me to school,” she recalled him telling her.

Years later, the boy returned, not as the young child she remembered, but as a university graduate with a doctorate.

Grandma Soja said the man recently called her and visited her home carrying provisions.

He brought two five-kilogram bags of rice, Milo, cooking oil and milk.

What touched her most was that he remembered acts of kindness she herself had forgotten.

“The things he was saying, I don’t even remember that I ever [did them], but he remembered,” she said.

For Grandma Soja, the encounter reinforced a principle she has lived by: kindness should be offered without expecting anything in return.

“I believe that goodness is a ministry. It is a gift of God. So if you are good, do it,” she said.

Even the provisions he brought did not remain entirely with her. She said she gave some of them away because she does not consume certain items.

“The gifts come and then the gifts go again as gifts,” she said.

Her story is a reminder that a seemingly small act such as helping a child get to school can remain significant in another person’s life long after the giver has forgotten it.