Dreams & Disparity

DREAM– something that you have very much wanted to do, be, or have for a long time, a strongly desired goal or purpose.

Meet Michelet.

Michelet hopes to become a doctor when he grows up.

He is an 11 year old cutie who dreams of becoming a doctor one day.  He lives with his mom who crushes rocks to earn money.

These Haitian women spend their days crushing rocks to earn money.

This is Philomene.

Philomene would like to be an engineer when she grows up.

At nine years old, her dream is to become an engineer.  Her mom, who she lives with, is a trader in the market.

People trading at a Haitian market

DISPARITY– different from each other, containing or made up of fundamentally different and often incongruous elements

Do you see the disparity?

These children, like all children, have big dreams.  Just like my children. Just like your children.  Many of these Haitian children dream of becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers or nurses when they grow up.

Yet  the family members or friends that these kids live with all do very different things for a living.  Many of them are traders in the market. Some wash clothes. Or crush rocks. Some attempt to farm the depleted Haitian soil.

Sometimes I look at a situation that is so big, and it feels hopeless.  I see disparity in the fact that these children have HOPE that their big dreams will be realized in the midst of the poverty that surrounds them. But who am I to say that their dreams are too big for them?  How am I to say that the problem is too big for God to work in?

I love this quote from Katie Davis so much that it appears on every page of this blog:

“I believe that we were each created to change the world for someone. To serve someone. To love someone the way Christ first loved us, to spread His light. ”

How do we change the world? How do we change Haiti?  How can we change just one little village? We serve one person.  We love one child.

This morning I read this statement by Ann Voskamp:

“You are changing the world – when you are changing one person’s world.”

My prayer is that God will use this ministry to enable us to each change one child’s world.  May God use us to help make those big dreams a reality!

You can see more of our children & their big dreams at this link.

This was a favorite saying of Pastor Ward Willoughby, who spent his life sharing the gospel of Christ. “Well done, good and faithful servant!” December 3,1928-March 31,2014. (The picture was taken in Haiti in January of 2013)