The Hope QuotientSample

Francis Chan told a riveting story at our Thrive conference a few years ago. He had met a sixteen-year-old girl who supported kids in other countries. He asked how many kids.

“Fourteen,” she told him.

“You’re in high school! How do you sponsor fourteen kids?”

She said, “I work three jobs in the summer.”

“And all your money goes to the fourteen kids?”

“Yeah.”

Then Francis electrified the crowd with this unforgettable statement:

“I’m grateful for a sixteen-year-old girl who thinks saving fourteen lives is better than saving money for a car. People might think she’s crazy, but I think she’s right because at any moment now the Son of God is coming down from the sky in all His glory. Not in a human or a veiled form, but in all His glory with a hundred million angels. Can you imagine? He grabs all the people and starts to separate them. Now, is that girl stupid? At that point, is she crazy?”

Whoever changes today’s kids changes tomorrow’s future. Whoever wins the kids wins the culture. Whoever wins the kids wins the nation. Whoever wins the kids ultimately wins. It is possible today to rescue millions of children. You start with one.

Solomon grew up in the Massai tribe in Kenya. His dad lives with several wives. There is no school in the area. No running water. No electricity. This tribe has lived for thousands of years in grinding poverty. I visit annually. It’s like taking a trip back to the Stone Age. But seventeen years ago someone decided to help a boy who could never repay them. Solomon went through college, came back to his village, and now has 330 children on the same path he took.

Unleashing hope in the world is easier than you think when you unleash hope one child at a time. 

Mike Yaconelli, one of the most encouraging guys on the planet, said this over and over: Quit feeling guilty about not doing everything. But do something . . . because something is better than nothing!

Think Up:

Maybe you can’t find time to add one more job to your list. But you can empty a storage unit and free up eighty dollars per month. That’s two kids. Or get one kid by saying no to the forty-dollar paraffin treatment, choosing Netflix over the movie theater, or eating leftovers instead of buying pizzas.

Now that you are hope-filled and hope-fueled, unleash hope in your world. (Read on).