From Geoffrey to you– Dream Big Dreams

Tuesday May 20, 2009

Dream big dreams… PLEASE REPLY TO THIS EMAIL

I spent the last thirteen hours in a van taking a group of people to an eye clinic practically light years away. Though the distance was vast and the roads unbearable at times, today was a blessed day. As I sat with these AIDS orphans for the entire day, I asked a simple and yet profound set of questions, “What are your dreams? What do you want to become?”

One wanted to be an accountant, God bless those types of people cause the good lord knows I couldn’t sit and look at numbers all day : ) Another replied that she wanted to work within the medical field to help those who are sick. One more boy added in the fact that he wanted to become a doctor despite the years of education required. Here is a small group of children who at one point had no hope of even attaining a basic education and yet now they are dreaming big dreams and reaching for the stars. Despite the difficulties and dilemmas life throws their way as a corollary of the loss of one or both of their parents, these children have hopes, aspirations, and dreams. The past doesn’t imprison their ability to dream and have hopes of achieving great things in life. I think they have something that the cruel “realities” of life have robbed us of through the bumps, bruises and wounds inflicted by the sheer brutalities life holds. Many of us stopped dreaming big dreams years ago. Whether I am in Kenya or the U.S. I love hearing the responses from children to that question because they don’t put God in a box or limit their dreams. We do though.

A little over two years ago I was spending a large portion of my time working as the apprentice of a youth pastor near Inglewood. The leaders of this youth ministry, including myself, set out for a one-day leadership retreat. We gathered around in a circle, attempted to write down our “God sized dreams” and explain our personal dreams to the group. If money was no option, if obstacles were no more, if it didn’t matter what people said or thought, if the impossible was made into the possible, what would your God sized dream be. I wrote down two things, to work with the homeless and to work with AIDS orphans in Africa.

Here I am a little over two years later and I helped create an origination working with the homeless and am serving AIDS orphans in Kenya. I guess my “big” dreams weren’t big enough. I think that is our problem, we don’t dream, when I ask people what their “God sized dream” is most people say that they want to get married or buy a house, which is all fine and dandy and all, but your dream is the dream that millions of people are living, let’s dream bigger. What happened to reaching for the stars? We are reaching for things an inch off the ground that a toddler can easily get his hands on.

I feel like it is time for me to go back to the old drawing board and rethink my God sized dream, I need to dream bigger and give God room to work and be God. After hearing the dreams of these children today as well as throughout my trip, the little flame of hope has been rekindled in my heart and I find myself dreaming in a childlike fashion. I look past the obstacles, difficulties and improbability of it all and return to the uncomplicated hope that seems to be entrenched in the heart of every child….This is a brief overview of what my aspirations for my next chapter of life are.

I really enjoy working with the homeless, I was el presidente of H.A.N.D.S. and was the pastor of our Sunday morning breakfast for about two years. Embedded in those two years were some of the most staggering and miraculous experiences of my life; watching drugs addicts throw their drugs away, holding fully grown men and women as they wept, and being privileged enough to baptize some. Though these experiences were life altering, I want more of them and plan on continuing my work with the homeless, if it is God’s will. I want to do more though, don’t get me wrong feeding them, dispensing clothing, cutting hair, washing feet and ministering are incredible but besides the ministering all of the others seem like a band aid on a broken arm or a temporary fix for a life-long problem.

I want to attempt to repair what is broken and help to not only fill their stomachs for a day but assist in rehabilitating them back into society in a way in which they are able to provide for themselves instead of begging for food. I dream of developing a transitional home in which we give them employment for one year, pay for their rent, food, and also put them into a year long trade school. After the course of one year they will have saved up a nice chunk of change to move out, will have a year of work experience, will have a skill and will have an actual shot at life instead of just being kicked to the curb once they get sober.

This is going to cost a GREAT deal of money right? Where the heck will that money come from? I’m glad you asked. I want to open a small coffee shop, called Holy Grounds, where 100% of the profits go towards the funding of this home. The employees will be those who are going through the program. Every hour that they work they will get paid but wont get it until they leave the program, that way they have a years worth of salary to be used towards moving into an apartment and starting their life over again. The rest of the money from the coffee shop will go towards paying for their schooling, rent, food and other expenses that life brings up. Additionally I have a few designs for T-shirts that I want to get printed. I want each shirt to be sold for $30; $5 for the production, $15 towards sponsoring an AIDS orphan in Kenya for two weeks, and $10 towards feeding a homeless person for two weeks here in America. Ideally word would get out about this coffee shop, a place where your money isn’t making the rich richer and just going into the pockets of an entrepreneur, but the money that you would already be spending will be saving and transforming lives one cup at a time.

This is my dream and what I am going to be working towards when I am finished with my mission trip. This is my God sized dream. This is something I desire and aspire to see launched. I figure I can aim and reach for the stars and miss or aim for the gutter and hit every time. Personally, I would prefer aiming for the stars.

My question for you today is what are your dreams? What is your God sized dream? If there was one thing you could do, despite financial cost or improbability, what would it be?
If you are looking back on your life and find yourself saying, “I haven’t really done anything great and don’t have any extraordinary dreams,” that is fine today is a new day and tomorrow marks a new chapter in your life. The past is the past and there is no changing it, but tomorrow is a new day, what are your dreams despite the past?

If you are looking back on your life and find yourself saying, “I have done so many incredible and life altering things,” great, what is in your next chapter? What is the journey you are taking on next?

I want to hear your God sized dreams, and if you don’t believe in God I want to hear your dreams and aspirations in life. Too many times has the response to this question been an awkward silence or cliché answer. I am requesting that if you are reading these words, mom, dad, sisters, cousins, aunts, friends, grandparents, strangers, reply to this message and tell me what your dreams are. If it money didn’t matter, if time was irrelevant, and if obstacles were of no concern what are your dreams? I actually want you to reply to this and tell me. It seems like as our age progresses our dreams stop, but that inhibits our lives.

Too many of us don’t dream. I don’t think that AIDS, starvation and disease are the most tragic death of our day and age. I think that the continual demise and eventual death of hope and dreaming is the most tragic. My wheels may be turning, but without direction and a vision I am going nowhere. I may be working a job just to pay the bills, and wake up each morning out of routine, but I am just going through the motions of life if I don’t dream. You may have air in your lungs, but without dreams, you aren’t really living.

What are your dreams?

Asante Sana,

Mwendwa

Prayer Requests:
Carro and her recovery
Tomorrow I get to read for a blind woman… we found out today that she will never be able to see again and she is only 23 years old. I am going to try to show her some love and get some friends to help me in supporting her. Just keep her in prayer, she was really heartbroken when she heard the news about her sight.

Randoms:
I get to organize a youth convention in August, I am STOKED!!!
Some of the food here is a little too rich for me… I think it is a good thing that I am living alone now… I probably would have driven William out of the house : )
I ate a pretty raunchy hamburger today…. It had carrots on it… weird huh?
Kenyans make the best mango juice
I am listening to “wrapped up in you” by Garth Brooks, I cant wait till I get married and get to “woo” my wife with this song.
When we were driving home we saw three giraffes just kicking it right by the road. We were about ten feet away from them. Really crazy to see them in their natural habitat
I read the book “Children of Hope” today… INCREDIBLE

Question:
Does anyone have the series or any of the books from the chronicles of narnia? A friend sent me the first book and I read it and loved it, now I want the rest of them and my parents are going to try to get another package to me… if you have any of the books from that series can I borrow them?

Anyone want to buy me a tattoo for my birthday when I get home?… figured it was worth a try…. Haha

WORD OF THE DAY

Mkate – mmmm –caw-tay
Bread… I eat like half a loaf a day

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