Frankly, I was nervous.

To strengthen a local visionary, Janice and I were flying into a conflict zone. Two months earlier, without warning in the dead of night, airstrikes had devastated a high-rise neighborhood within two miles of our rental. The violence was continuing, with no end in sight.

We arrived the day that visionary and volunteers started shoveling rubble to restore hope with newly homeless families. A mutual friend of the visionary texted me, ‘Where are you? I’ll take you to the site.’

I hesitated, ‘As outsiders, should we go?’ Despite my misgivings, Janice and I agreed.

My qualms grew when another guy showed up instead of the fellow I knew. ‘I’m taking in volunteer supplies; come with me.’ But after we set out, he admitted he didn’t know the way. He handed me his phone, ‘Can you use the map app?’ Suddenly I was the navigator and translator in an area new to both of us.

His maps hadn’t updated to reflect  rubble-blocked streets. So the blind  led the blind into one dead end after another.

He soon gave up and phoned a local insider to talk us in. We advanced a few blocks, but no farther. So that unknown phone voice concluded, ‘Just stop. I’ll send someone out to bring them in on foot.’

I froze in my seat, ‘What? Turn us outsiders over to a stranger on foot in a conflict zone?’ My concern spiked to alarm.

Then, abruptly, my car door opened from the outside. A joyful voice exclaimed, ‘Oh, I know you!’

A grinning face beckoned me to step out.  ‘Welcome! You volunteered to help rebuild my burned house, fifteen years ago!’ Those memories came rushing back.

My fears vanished instantly. Why? Because there is no fear in love. Love drives out fear.

That insider searched for a stranger – me. But he recognized a friend. The timeless wisdom that inspired Dr Martin Luther King Jr. proved true yet again, ‘Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.’

So what happens when love drives out fear?  This year, love turned dreams into deeds:

• • • Unified in diversity, a national volunteer network outfitted 140 volunteer first-
      responders, provided 1000 mattresses and thousands of meals to war refugees, gathered 80 children into multi-ethnic summer camps, and rebuilt the bombed homes of 450 families.
    • Across Middle Eastern conflict zones, 910 volunteers befriended, sheltered, and employed over 510 mentally and physically challenged persons, affirming the worth and dignity of all.
    • Despite coup d’état risks, two Himalayan women and three youth leaders taught values and job skills to 23 tribal HIV orphans, and delivered flood and earthquake relief to remote villagers.
    • An East African visionary persevered through civil war dangers to provide restorative counsel and communal support with 50 women recovering from gender-based violence.
    • Seven seasoned global workers piloted our servant leadership curriculum tailored for contexts of sectarian violence, human rights abuse, compromised rule of law, and chronic poverty.
    • And University of Oxford assessors endorsed my doctoral research on The Pedagogy of Parable: Exploring a Voluntary Network Serving With and For the Other in Lebanon.

Love banishes xenophobia. Bridges cultures. Transcends barriers. Confounds stereotypes.

Years earlier, on the other side of the world, I felt similarly ill at ease. But that time it was on a quiet tree-lined lane in suburbia.  Janice and I got a voice mail out of the blue that advised we meet a couple. The caller left no name, and made no introduction. Very odd indeed.

So, frankly, I was nervous.

We walked up and rang the doorbell of complete strangers. The door opened. A couple invited us in, sat us down, and asked who sent us.

Awkwardly, we didn’t know. Puzzled, they didn’t know either. So we just started swapping stories.

And before we knew it, love turned strangers into friends.  And then friends into family.

In fact, we discovered they had generational family links to one of the visionaries that we accompany in a remote conflict zone across the globe.

Overcoming fear and choosing love is contagious. It’s the key to our vision of a light in every hard place in our generation.

But are you nervous? Frankly, just like me?

Then let’s ask the awkward questions. Seek out the unknown Other. Knock on the closed doors.

And let love banish our fears!

David L Haskell
Co-Founder
Dreams InDeed