TheWRITEaddiction.com

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase. –Martin Luther King, Jr.

This picture is a vivid reminder of acting on the seed of a dream and watching it harvest.  These students are not just any students.  They are members of The Exodus Project—a non-profit teen mentoring program my husband and I founded in 2007 in Kosciusko, Mississippi.  Kosciusko is a rural community of about 7,000 people, many of who live in poverty and are underexposed to affluence, opportunities and success.  Several years ago, my husband and I had this crazy idea to start a program to assist young people in this community, which happened to be his hometown.  We had complained about the problems that existed within the community and the hopelessness that existed with illiteracy, apathy, underachievement, poverty and gangs, but had not given much thought to doing anything about it.  We especially had no plans of returning to that area to make a difference.  We were living in Arkansas and were content and comfortable with life.

As time went on, we couldn’t shake the feeling of helping those who needed us.  We had to become part of the solution rather than perpetuate the problem.  And so our journey of faith began.  We couldn’t see the whole staircase and had no idea how this crazy idea would work.  We packed our U-Haul and one-year old daughter, sold our house and made the seven hour drive to this community.  We had no start-up capital and very few people knew who we were.  However, we planted, protected, watered and nurtured the seed of this dream until we started seeing pieces of the harvest.   One student rescued from gang life and going to college.  Another student enrolled in special education classes graduating from high school and going to college.  Another student so entrapped with anger and seeing her blossom into a person others wanted to be around.   Other students who took their first airplane flight with us.  Others whose eyes got big in wonder as they traveled to Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Birmingham.  Another student graduated from college and is in his first year of Law School.

Who would have thought that two people who really struggled with starting a program for teens would see such success?  And this is just a “drop in the bucket” of what can happen.  These students who stand in front of the Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King mural in Atlanta at the King Center are truly a testimony that the dream is always bigger than you.  We are all called to reach out and serve others.  Someone is waiting on us to plant our dream so they can be a part of the harvest.  It all begins with one step of faith.  One action.  One phone call.  One application.  One thought of “what if”?  Together, we can make this nation one that we are all proud of…”a nation under God”…which is not afraid to take a journey of faith.

~Coletta Jones Patterson

*Read more about The Exodus Project at http://www.exodusprojectms.com.