People ask me how the Zambia’s Scholarship Fund got started. I suppose you could say it started with a friendship and a prayer. I had traveled to Africa to rekindle an old friendship with Ruth Simbayi, a woman I had met at the University of Utah 20 years earlier. While it was wonderful to see my long time dear friend again, the people, the sites, and the things I saw made an impression on me I can’t explain.
Four days before I was to return to America, I met a man who was truly sent from God. It was late at night, and I was alone in the Zambezi Lodge. The night watchman, Muganda, came by and the conversation I had with him turned on a light bulb for me.
“Madame, you are an American. You don’t know what it is like to go to bed hungry. You don’t know what it is like to walk with a sick child in your arms for four days only to find the doctor is not there until next week. Sometimes you Americans are good to send food, clothing, or stuff when you hear about our suffering. But more than food, more than clothing, I want to get an education. I want to go to school; I want to learn a better way.”
There it was, the explanation of why these people were still cooking over their fires and living in their grass huts when we have computers, skyscrapers, and e-mail. 
What could I do? My husband is a school teacher, and I am a nursery worker. Together we make $30,000, and there's never extra money.
That’s when the thought came into my mind to write a book. I must confess I fought the idea. I wanted to help, but I knew nothing about writing. My brain said, "Peggy, you know you can’t spell worth a darn and your grammar is even worse than your spelling." But, my heart kept telling me, "You can do it; you have to do it!"
I really think it was God who put the thought in my heart and mind. I know there are many who will laugh and find this hard to believe. However, a solution has been presented for every obstacle. These solutions have been too amazing to call them mere coincidences.
So, how did it start? With a prayer and a book:
HEART TO HEART WORLDS APART by Peggy Rogers
My hope is that you will read my book. After you have read the book, your desire to help will be yet another solution to this great education problem.
