You have been given so much to accomplish your dreams. But there are people in Haiti, Uganda, and other parts of Africa where people are too hungry to dream. Given a chance, they might say to you, “I can’t dream. I don’t have any food! I can’t even think clearly!”
You might ask them what they dream about, and they might say, “I’m just trying not to die tonight! I don’t have the ability to dream!”
Well, you know what? We’re not going to accept that!
There’s so much we can do! That’s my whole message to young people. You can make a difference.
You have dreams, and you have hopes of accomplishing them. But what about someone else who wants to dream and can’t? If you truly love your neighbor as yourself, then that’s the whole point! If you want to follow your dreams, then you need to love your neighbor with the understanding that you want them to be able to dream.
This is your challenge: how can you use what you’ve been given to open doors for them to dream? How can you use your talents so that they can accomplish the things they want to accomplish?
I think it’s going to take believers to do this. It’s going to take people that understand the love your neighbor as yourself scenario. We have to defend what God has originally called us to do. We have to defend the life we’re originally supposed to have. Sin has entered into the world, and the attacks of hunger, disease, and slavery that we see on these people, on these countries, and especially on these young people, is just so traumatic. We have to defend them.
Young people have the ability to defend them. You only need twenty-five cents to provide a nourishing meal, and twenty-five cents for a young person is doable. Ten bucks for a young person is doable, and ten bucks is forty meals! Some of these young kids work their tails off to go buy the newest video game, and that can run sixty bucks! Sixty bucks? That’s going to feed 240 people!
I’m not trying to guilt anybody. I’ll buy a video game. I buy stuff for my son. All I’m saying is, if your goal is to work to get sixty bucks so you can buy your video game, then try making double that, so you can spend sixty bucks on your video game and give sixty bucks to feed 240 people.
Now, is twenty five cents steak? No. Is it going to be a chicken sandwich? No! Is it going to be what you want to eat your entire life? No, I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that for kids in third world countries who need nutrition, a twenty-five cent Feed the Hunger meal is going to give it to them. They’ll eat it their whole life if they have to. But they won’t have to. They’ll eat it until they get into a situation where they can dream really, really big. And then, like us, they can enjoy the pleasures that God has given everyone.
And that’s how you love your neighbor as yourself.
Jeremy Affeldt 