I have so much to be grateful for. So much! I want to show my gratitude by inspiring you to dream the biggest dream you possibly can, and then work for it.
A really big part of our energy and success lies in our ability to dream. There’s a great line in the movie Grey Owl starring Pierce Brosnan, where the Ojibwe elders tell Archie Grey Owl, “A man becomes what he dreams. You have dreamed well.”
When moms and dads at the ballpark would ask me for advice, I always told them to help their kids dream, and dream big. That’s what I did as a kid. I didn’t know if I could be a professional ballplayer! But I dreamed about it anyway. You see, back then I could dream any dream I liked! I had no idea what a privilege that is. It’s not the same for every kid.
Some of the kids that we rescue from slavery have awesome talents. But those talents have been squandered by the people that were slaving them out. These kids never enjoyed the chance to use their talents or challenge themselves. They didn’t dare to dream, not even small dreams.
Imagine not being able to dream at all! It’s shocking! Instead of dreaming and telling their parents, “Some day I’m going to…,” these kids were saying, “I just want to wake up one day, and not be a slave. I just want to wake up one day, and know that I’m not chained to the floor, that someone won’t come take the chains off just to tell me to go have sex with some guy.”
Think of the children out there who never dream for anything more than release, maybe even death. They are tired. “I’m tired of going in these fields and working hard. Every day I work. I don’t play. I don’t go to school. I don’t see my mother. At the end, I get hooked to the floor in a dark room, and I get a thing of bread thrown in front of me as my food.” Kids. This is happening to kids.
That’s why we have to dream as big as we possibly can. It’s through our dreams and determination that we can rescue these kids from slavery and restore them to their talents and their dreams. These kids are suffering and I promise you that Jesus is with them, waiting for you and everyone else to come and love these kids just the way He did: by saving their lives.
Everyone can help, no matter how old they are. I’ll tell you more about this next time. See you Monday.
Jeremy Affeldt 
Jeremy – I have been fortunate to work with students in Kenya, it is not slavery that holds them back but poverty and what I refer to as a limited horizon, they can only see what they know and to them, the highest order career is to become a taxi (matatu) driver, thru education we are helping them see other possibilities, we are raising their horizon.
A quick story from 2004 – my boys and I went to spring training in Surprise, AZ and before 1 game I was helping my 8 year old ask for autographs. Most players grabbed the ball and marker from him, signed the ball and moved on. But a certain young left handed pitcher asked him “How are you doing?” My son was/is very quiet and just looked down at his feet. You then told him, “If you don’t talk to me, I’m not signing your ball”. He and you then had a brief conversation as you signed and I was and am grateful that you did that, made a personal, however brief connection.
Ron