Good news comes in all shapes and sizes. A cold drink on a hot day. A square meal. A new pair of shoes. A visit by a good friend. A foot pump. An encouraging word….

Wait. Back up. A foot pump?

Yes, that’s right. When that cool drink means scooping water up from a murky steam…

…and hauling it up a steep mountainside.

Then, a simple foot pump is great news.

The first test of a Dreams InDeed dream is that the poor recognize it as good news.

For years, one of our dreamer teams has lived in remote areas, silently hauling muddy water on their backs up rough trails. Their dream is abundant life for one of the most marginalized tribal groups in their nation

But the more we talked with them, the more we realized that water access was a key component of that dream. Without water access, hands are not washed. Toilets are not used. Dishes are not cleaned.

Then disease spreads. And kids die.

But Dreams InDeed is not staffed with hydrology experts. Nor appropriate technologists. Nor extreme affordability engineers. Nor do we need to we need to be.

That’s where our Dreams InDeed “networking” function comes into play. Networking is not mere schmoozing over drinks. Or double-click “friending.” Or being “linked-in.”

No, by networking we mean weaving lasting human relationships. Aligned values and shared visions propel us to get our hands dirty together. Dreams plus talent leverages change!

Woven over three decades, the global network for this remote tribal dream wound from Amman to Bangkok, added threads via Addis Ababa and Indiana, looped through Oxford and Stanford, and then converged with providential joy in Himalayan foothills.

There we discovered an extreme affordability engineer who had designed affordable foot pumps for Asian subsistence farmers. We invited him to join us to devise sustainable water access solutions in remote areas off-limits to foreigners.

Dreamer and engineer teamed up to test water foot-pumps, design bamboo rainwater catchment systems, train remote team members, and pack up equipment for motorcycle delivery to villages where running water is still almost unimaginable.

The engineer found a niche to serve. The dreamer advanced on his dream. And Dreams InDeed had the joy of nurturing that win-win match.

Rugged individualists may prefer to go it alone. But that doesn’t deliver dreams. Even Solomon grasped the wisdom of sustainable synergies. We need each other:
“Two are better than one for they have a good return for their labor…A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.”
Together, we can bring dreams to life among the poor in hard places.