I Have a Dream

It had to be done! On the 50^th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, I can’t do a blog that doesn’t make reference to it in some way.

Although many of the young people on the teams I lead think I probably am old enough to have heard the speech live, I would just like to confirm that I am not, and so my only experience of it is through history books, archive radio broadcasts etc. It was certainly a very impressive speech, and one that was pivotal in the civil rights movement in USA.

But whenever I hear the words ‘I have a dream’ my thoughts go only momentarily to MLK, and then they move on to the many conversations I have had more recently that also refer to dreams for the future.

At various points in my many trips overseas with CRED Teams I have had opportunity to chat with young people from the various CRED partner projects, and ask them about their hopes and dreams for the future. These are all children living in poverty; many orphaned, some living on the streets, some refugees, some from marginalized communities. Some are in recognized schools, some are in catch-up education centres, some are waiting and praying for access to education to be made available to them. And given that sort of background, it would be understandable if their hopes and dreams were fairly low-level, more on the scale of survival and having food and clothes and security.

But no, almost without fail, the dreams of these young people are much more aspirational – they want to be doctors, teachers, pilots, lorry drivers, engineers. I’ve had some say they want to be dancers, or musicians; one wanted to be a meteorologist; a couple of girls wanted to be nuns; one lad in Kenya wanted to be president!

And when I hear the answers, I feel so torn inside – on the one hand I admire their faith in the possibility of a better future, and I pray that it will come true in their lifetime; but on the other hand, as I stand amidst the squalor of the slum, and consider the background to their individual lives, I wonder how it can ever come true.

But then I asked Harriet about her dreams. Harriet is a mother and a member of the Acholi community in Kampala, a tribal group displaced by civil war several years back, and now without any land rights or proper recognition. Harriet’s dream is to have a home where the bedroom is separate to the living room – bam, back down to earth with a reality shaped bump.

Maybe that’s the difference between the hope-filled, black-and-white, optimistic outlook on life that children have, and the ‘shades of grey’, battle-scarred, self-preservationist outlook that adults tend to take. And if so, where do each of us fit in to that description? Is this a prompt to take time to stop and review.

Oh to be a child, and have a child-like view on the world – to be hope-filled, to reach for the stars, to step out in faith in their God of love, and take the risks needed. God is in those dreams, God is waiting to hold the hand of those who take the risks and steps of faith – but we need to make the first move.

May we all have a dream this day – a dream for a better future; for ourselves, for the children who want to be doctors, teachers, dancers, meteorologists and more; and may we dream in faith and through prayer to our loving Father, who loves to see the right dreams come true.