Making a Difference

Many times I’ve returned from somewhere like Bosnia, or Chernobyl or Pearlington, Mississippi and I’ve been asked if I really thought bringing friendship, song and small treasures to children really made a difference in their lives.

I’ve thought about the question over many years. It’s the nature of this kind of caring that you really NEVER know if you made a difference in another person’s life. You go and do what you can, as well as you can. You find the courage to take a chance and, as I’ve said, you break your own heart on purpose. You do it because you care and because you hope something you do will help, will make that difference. But usually, you’ll never know or ever find out.

You’ll never know if the Hope Chest you sponsored is cherished or used to its fullest. You’ll also never know if that little stuffie became a treasured toy that saw a frightened child through many a darkened night. You’ll never know if it ends up in the garbage, or in a child’s heart forever. You’ll never know if the smile you gave, or the hug or the kind word was now forgotten, or changed a perspective for a lifetime. You’ll never know.

Yet, when I think about my own life, some of the most lasting gifts came from those who will never know. The teacher who taught me to sing and saved my life, whose gift to me has been passed along to tens of thousands now, and still counting. The child who sat on my knee in a Kiev orphanage and told me her Dream was to be my daughter. Or little Ajša in the refugee camp who, on my second trip to see her in 1995, told me she knew I was coming, “because I dreamed of you last night.” She was taken away a few weeks later and I haven’t seen her since.

These people changed my life, some while they were serving me and some while I was serving them. And when we serve others we always win ourselves, not in a loud showy way, but deep in our hearts and souls where such things truly matter.

No, I cannot guarantee that when we open our hearts and hands to others we make a difference in their lives. But, I know with perfect certainty that when we do not, we don’t. I’ll never know if I made a difference by going to Pearlington, but I’m positive if I’d stayed home - I didn’t.

There are many more children in Pearlington than we have Hope Chests to give. It’s not too late to sponsor one, never too late to make a difference, for sure, in at least one person’s life:

YOURS.



Thank you,
Jon


hopechest@dreamschoolinternational.com

705-445-8713