“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” – Jennifer Lee
Reach One, Teach One (R1T1) and Mi Esperanza—two missions we support in Honduras—are, on the surface, very different. They have different missions and address different underlying problems in Honduran society. However, in addition to being faith-based, they have another thing in common. Dalton Hines and Lori Connell, the respective founders and leaders, are dealers in hope. In myriad ways, they help the men and women of Honduras develop marketable skills, a sense of purpose, and hope for the future. Hold that thought.
Forty-one years ago, Jennifer Lee was a miserable middle-schooler with divorced parents. She was, by her own account, “Always a mess. Stains on my clothes… knots in my hair… chubby. I was born into a very modest life. I was a kid with ADHD, terrible in school. I don’t think people ever thought I could amount to anything.”
Jennifer’s life raft was a VHS tape of Cinderella, rewatched daily for its pep talk in perseverance. “Cinderella was bullied severely and I was bullied. But she stayed true to herself, even when it was really hard. Something about the concept of fighting through it helped me. I think a lot of us get knocked down often, over and over again, in our lives.”
According to Catherine Shoard in The Guardian, “After a few stumbles, Lee ended up in New York with a job in publishing, a postgraduate degree in film, and a young daughter. When Agatha was seven, they decamped to Hollywood so that Lee could do rewrite work on the script for Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph. Two months turned into 12 years; today, Lee is chief creative officer at the company where she once temped. She won an Oscar for Frozen in 2014, which also made her the first woman ever to direct a film (which she also scripted) that made more than $1 billion.”
How do you go from a young, bullied Cinderella fan to a billion-dollar boss at Disney? You work hard and you never lose hope. Jennifer lived her famous quote, which undergirds our theme for this year’s mission trip: “Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.”
The Apostle Paul had that fearlessness. In Ephesians 6:19-20, he writes, “that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.” Paul could have asked for many things, including release from prison and creature comforts. Instead, his heart and mind were focused on his responsibility to be an ambassador of the gospel. He wanted to share the Good News boldly and clearly. Through words and deeds, Paul’s fearlessness and hopefulness were on full display. Throughout his ministry, Paul’s soul was on fire.
Our goal on these mission trips is not to turn the people of Honduras into billionaires. No, we’re striving for something far more ambitious and significant. We’d like to see more Hondurans become self-supporting, productive members of society and, ultimately, Christ followers. That same goal has Dalton and Lori in a lifelong pursuit of what sets their souls on fire. They are fearless dealers in hope.
We should be too.
