OUR VISION
Premise: A new day is dawning in our world. Communication between people all across America and around the world is growing exponentially. Today, more and more people can see each other and talk with each other. This means that we become more and more aware of the problems that exist. Many good people respond and want to be involved in solving the world’s problems. We invite all people of good will to join us in making this a better world.
For every abused child with no hope in his eyes, for every girl caught in sex trafficking with no hope of escape, for every disabled vet that has given his all for our country, for every homeless man with a cardboard sign on the street corner, for every homeless woman pushing all her worldly possessions around in a shopping cart, for every prisoner around the world whose future is crowded by metal bars, for every starving person facing total uncertainty every day in the darker parts of a forgotten world, for every sick person dying of a painful disease, for every person whose life is locked up by an oppressive government, for every lonely person who needs a friend – THERE IS HOPE AND WE ARE HERE TO HELP PEOPLE TO HELP THEM.
Over a period of six months in Calcutta, I worshiped with Mother Teresa at her Mother House on many occasions – sitting there perspiring, hearing the clanging of the streetcars and the car horns outside. I worked in Kalighat, her first home for the destitute and dying. I was asked to read the Bible to Mother Teresa and her nuns at their Maundy Thursday service – the night before Good Friday. Every time I saw her smiling eyes in the midst of incredible poverty and suffering, I saw what one person could do. Each of us has the capacity to do something for others. Each one of us has a part to play in making this world a beautiful garden. As St. Catherine of Siena said, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” We are here to help you do what only you can do, what nobody else can do. – David Marmon
Our message to you is this: Instead of being an ordinary person doing ordinary things, be a great person doing great things in a great time in our world’s history. You only live once. You only have one life. Why not make your life count? As you pass from this life to the great beyond, why not be able to look back and say, “Okay, I did something with my life, something I can feel very, very good about”?
David Marmon says: Are you seeking a vision for your life? You want to make your life count for something more than yourself? You feel a calling to do something with your life? But you don’t yet know what that vision is. I know how you feel. I was there, just like you. I went to the middle of the Sahara for 40 days and 40 nights, 30 of those days fasting, water only. Of course, you don’t have to do anything like that. But if you’re seeking that vision for your life, I know exactly how you feel.
Or maybe you do already have the vision for your life. If you do, I know how you feel, because I know that, too, and it is wonderful. My vision had to do with the poor of the world. First, I took clothing to the slums of Lopez Portillo in Mexico City. Then, I went to the Miskito Coast of Honduras for health clinics to help Nicaraguans fleeing the Sandinistas. Then, I took clothing to Mozambiquan refugees in South Africa.
Next, I helped drive a semi-truckload of medicines and seeds to the poor of El Salvador during their civil war. The army stole the entire truckload, but eventually, I got half of it back and was able to distribute it to poor barrios throughout the country. I met with the sub-director of the National Guard, the ones behind the death squads—I sat in his office and had tea with him and was his friend. My wife heard the shots that morning when the six Jesuit priests were murdered in San Salvador. I talked with people who heard the screams of those being tortured in the night because they wanted a better life for the poor. My wife and I were able to bring back severely burned children to Shiners hospital in Los Angeles.
Why am I telling you this? Because it demonstrates how a vision will unfold. When I had my vision in the Sahara, it didn’t include all this. It unfolded though, as I began to live out the vision, and yours will, too. Just keep moving forward with your vision. It will always keep unfolding.
As mentioned, my vision took me to Calcutta, India, where for six months I saw the poorest of the poor. Seeing lepers with no fingers and children scavenging in the same garbage with dogs and crows. But Mother Teresa said the poverty in the West is so much more difficult. “A person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society—that poverty hurts so much.” So your vision doesn’t have to take you half way around the world as it did me. There are needs all around us, and thankfully, so many of you are now lifting a helping hand.
Think of the talent that is wasted in those who are destitute and without hope. Think of the genius that could belong to all of us if these people had a chance. Think of the Leonardo da Vinci’s, the Michaelangelos, the Mozarts, the Tolstoys, the Einsteins, that are out there in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the slums of Tondo in Manila, those looking for food in the garbage dumps of a hundred cities and more. And right here in America, too. There is great talent waiting to be unleashed—perhaps by your ministry. Think of the talent being wasted – minds atrophied by numbing poverty. All this genius belongs to the world and could help make the world into a beautiful garden.
Only what you do for others will last.
Our vision is to help you fulfill your vision and your mission.
We invite you into our great family of great people doing great things to make this a better world and the planet a healthier, happier planet.
