As Rich Dixon is in the middle of the 2024 edition of the Freedom Tour, he’s taking us back to the first one.

+++

Now that FREEDOM TOUR 2013 is underway, I’ll offer a few stories to reflect some of the laughs and learnings.

At the beginning, I was plagued by a vague sense of futility. We were supporting 22 kids in one safe house. Meanwhile, more than 30 million humans live under the burden of modern-day slavery. More than 100,000 U.S. children are trafficked into prostitution every year.

Faced with those statistics, it’s easy to believe our puny efforts are pointless.

+ + +

In Colorado Springs, our host church organized a yearly neighborhood block party that coincided with our stay. It was a great time – burgers, bouncy houses, and dozens of kids everywhere. Colin and Teagan made themselves right at home, cavorting like adopted big brothers.

Watching the commotion, thinking about our kids – an image occurred to me, one that profoundly impacted my perception of those big numbers.

I wondered what would happen if a panicked mom suddenly screamed, “My child is missing!” What would we all do?

The answer, of course, was obvious. The party would stop. Everyone would drop everything. We’d all do whatever we could to find that child. But why?

It’s just one kid out of dozens, from a family most of us didn’t know. Why interrupt everybody’s fun over one lost kid?

It’s Jesus’ message in The Parable of the Lost Sheep. Every single child is priceless in Jesus’ eyes.

The 22 kids at our Home of Hope aren’t throwaway lives just because they were born with brown skin on the other side of the world. Each one is precious, worthy of our sweat and sacrifice.

Our team won’t solve human trafficking. Fixing the world is God’s job, not ours.

But we can make a difference for our 22 kids, one at a time.

In fact, one life at a time is the only way any of us makes a difference.

+++

Note from Jon: Please consider helping Rich support the kids.