During our meeting with the Sabah volunteer teachers, I shared with them the importance of dreaming big. These people had been so down-trodden by their circumstances, so stuck in their little villages and so busy just surviving that they had given up hope of ever getting out of their miserable situation. Basically, they were content just to survive. But Goducate believes that they were created for more than mere survival. Goducate believes that every person should be given the opportunity to fulfil his potential.
Over a dozen people from Singapore had come on this trip to visit the Goducate learning centers. The teachers had the chance to meet these Singaporeans. So I decided to share with our teachers some of the real life stories of these Singaporeans.
I told the teachers about a lady in our group from Singapore – whom they had all seen – how that she herself was unable to attend school when she was a little girl because her parents were too poor. I told them how she cried and cried until a relative of hers took pity on her and financed her schooling. She graduated as a pharmacist, married a doctor, became head of a large health-care company and is now chairman of another health-care company. Today, this dear lady is now one of the most committed supporters of Goducate – helping children to get the chance that she had! As I told the story, I could hear sniffles all around the room and I could see the teachers wiping their tears. One of the teachers who was sitting just by me with a little child in her hand had to get up and run away from the group because she couldn’t hold back her emotions! This young mum has eight children.
I told the group about another one in the Singaporean group who was a kampong boy who was now a successful doctor who started one of Singapore’s largest managed health-care organizations. I told them how he showed little promise in his early days but worked hard to overcome every obstacle to become a success. I told them how he too was now the major supporter of Goducate and was helping hundreds of poor children to fulfil their God-given potential. By now everyone was choking with emotion – including the narrator!
I ended by encouraging the teachers to dream BIG and to help the children to dream BIG. I reminded them that the greatest poverty was not the lack of money but the lack of hope.
Then I turned to my interpreter – Miss D, a teenager who had never had the opportunity to go to school until we taught her to read and write just over a year ago – and asked her what her dream was and she immediately replied “To be lawyer!” Then I asked another teenager. Miss L, who had also learned to read and write through our phonics program and was now an assistant teacher, and she readily replied “To be a businesswomen!”
Every child is created by God and created in His image. Therefore, every child has an unlimited potential. Goducate believes this!
Goducate wants to help poor Asians help themselves – and the first thing we must share with them is that with God there is hope! Every Goducate volunteer teacher must spread this message!
