The next day, Moses had breakfast at 8am, before Deb left for work. Kyme was to come for him at nine, and they would go together to the meeting at ten.
Deb was uncomfortable about Moses watching her from the front window as she backed the big station wagon out of the garage, but there was nothing she could do about it.
For his part, Moses just waved and smiled.
When Kyme arrived he shared candidly with Moses:
"You had Deb and me both embarrassed last night," he confessed. "You may not know it, but Deb goes to meeting by train, and I walk to meeting in Newcastle; but I agree, we could be doing more... much more."
"I wasn't trying to humble-ate you," Moses said. "I was really just interested about global warming. I never heard of it in Kenya."
"I see," Kyme said. "I can get you some more articles on the subject, if you like. You can take them back to Kenya with you."
It wasn't clear whether Kyme had changed his plans as a result of what Moses said, because he arrived by car but then parked it at the station and they caught a train to the meeting house in the city.
It seemed that everyone else had arrived early, because the fourteen-year old and his older companion arrived on time, and still the committee members were all waiting for them. Introductions were made and then they got down to business.
"I asked for this meeting," Kyme explained, "so that young Moses here could tell you something about a project that I have been supporting in Kenya, where there are tens of thousands of orphans as a result of the AIDS epidemic. The woman who I have been sponsoring is not supported by any church or charity, and she has no other source of income. She personally takes care of nine orphans, whom she has raised as if they were her own family. She would have come herself, but she can't leave the children on their own. So she sent Moses here to tell us about what she's doing."
"Are you one of the children from the orphanage?" asked a plump man with grey hair and spectacles.
"It's not really an orphanage," Moses replied. "Just Amy and her kids. Me and my sister, we take care of ourselves. But Amy helps us sometimes."
"If you and your sister are orphans, why isn't she taking care of you?" asked another overweight member of the committee, this one a woman with short black hair and heavy make-up. Just then, Moses looked them over, and noted that all of them were plump, or by Kenyan terms, just plain fat.
"She doesn't need to take care of me." he said indignantly. "I have a job, and I take care of myself. But she's having too many complexities just with the kids she has. That's why I'm here... to ask you to help her."
"And what is it that you want us to do for her?" another woman asked, leaning toward him with the widest smile Moses had ever seen.
"Well , she needs some money, mostly for food right now, but if she had a little extra, she wants to build a whole bunch of cages in her yard and grow rabbits. With about a hundred cages, the kids can have meat, and she can sell some to buy clothes and stuff. Then she won't need to ask you for anything more."
Several members of the committee looked knowingly at each other, and then the woman with the short hair volunteered to speak on their behalf.
"Moses, rabbits are not indigenous to Kenya, are they?" she asked.
"No, not in the early days, but we got lots of them now," he said.
"People brought rabbits to Australia many years ago," the woman continued, "and today they're a plague to the farmers. They eat up everything. It only takes a couple of rabbits to escape, and they can upset the whole balance of nature."
"But in Kenya, if rabbits get out, wild animals eat them. They're not a problem, I promise," Moses pleaded.
The committee just looked at him sadly while the reality sunk in. But they were not prepared for his plucky spirit.
"What do Australian Quakers eat?" he asked. And when they did not answer he went on. "Do you eat potatoes? Do you eat carrots? Do you eat chickens?"
He was going through the items that he had consumed for tea the night before.
"Are these things indigenous?"
There was an awkward silence, and Kyme struggled to keep from laughing.
Then the man who had spoken first, leaned forward across the table as he tried very hard to reach Moses emotionally.
"It's true, we do eat these things, Moses," he said kindly. "But you see, son, we have been doing it too long now to change. It's different with you. You're asking us to start up something... to support something with Quaker money, that is likely to become a threat to the environment. We just can't do it."
Moses paused only for a few seconds, because he had a different approach that he wanted to try... one that he was sure would pass their indigenous concerns.
"That's okay, then," he said. "Amy has another idea... one about bees and honey. We have bees in the Kakamega forest... little ones that don't sting.… they're African bees... indigenous, true and truly" he said, followed by a big grin.
And then he went on. "Amy has a friend who knows how to start up beehives, and if we can build a bunch of them, Amy saze she can make enough honey to sell to the whole village. No one has ever done it like a business before. Some people even use the honey for medicine, so I know they'll buy it."
The committee listened intently, obviously impressed with the idea. They asked a few questions, and Moses had the right answers for everything. Final y, they asked him and Kyme to step out into the hall way while they discussed the proposal amongst themselves.
"That was excellent," Kyme said to Moses when they were alone in the hallway; and he shook his hand enthusiastically. "Now we just have to wait and see."
They were there quite a while when the woman with the short hair poked her head out the door and asked Kyme to come in.
"Shall I bring Moses with me?" he asked.
"No, it won't be long. He can wait here," she said.
Kyme went in and Moses waited anxiously. The door and walls were thick, but he thought he could hear some raised voices, and that made him nervous.
Then the door burst open and Kyme came out.
"Come with me," he said to Moses, and reached his right hand toward Moses' good arm, while his left hand pointed toward the street outside. Moses had no choice but to follow him.
"What happened?" he said when they were outside of the building.
"They were never going to help you in the first place," he said angrily. "The whole meeting was a farce. They let me bring you all the way over here for nothing."
"What do you mean? How do you know that?" Moses asked, feeling the anger in Kyme's voice.
"They said your request was a good one. It fit all of the criteria for a grant.
But they said that the bottom line is that it needs to be made to someone in London. British Quakers are responsible for projects in Kenya, they say, and Australia supports work in Uganda."
Moses just listened, bug-eyed.
"They could have told me that right at the start, but they didn't want to hurt my feelings. They wanted me to think they were giving you a fair hearing. A fair hearing... hah! They were never going to help you!"
It was about then that Kyme started thinking beyond his own hurt and to realise that his anger could spread to Moses and, of course, to Amy, since they had as much reason to feel disappointed as he did. He looked across at Moses as they strode toward Central Railway Station.
"Don't worry. Amy will get her money," he said. "I can cover it myself. I don't know why I even bothered asking them in the first place. I'll go to the bank tomorrow, and get out $6,000. That's enough for a whole year. And Amy can raise rabbits or make honey or sell bloody chocolate lamingtons, for all I care!"
Moses decided right then that Kyme was definitely the best Christian he had ever known, even though Kyme himself had never said anything about what he believed.
"C'mon, you wanna see some of the sites of Sydney before we go back to Deb's place?" he asked.
"Sure," Moses replied.
"There's Chinatown, the museum, the art gallery, or a boat across the harbour to the zoo. Which would you prefer?"
"Oh the boat, for definite sure!" Moses shouted.
And the older man reached out to give him a little hug on the shoulder as they turned toward Circular Quay.