“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.”
–Henry David Thoreau
In February of 2011, I travelled with Love146 President & Founder Rob Morris to Philadelphia to meet with a new Love146 Task Force and to speak at a conference for church pastors at Realife Church in the blue-collar neighborhood of Bridesburg. There, Pastor Rob Burns introduced us to Dave and Laurie Wirgler. Dave was leading worship and on the pastoral team at the church that was hosting us, and Laurie was working as an executive with a nationwide children’s clothing brand.
We had dinner with Dave and Laurie and they unpacked a dream for us – they wanted to develop a “for-profit” social enterprise that would fund the work of ending child trafficking. We left that meeting inspired and hopeful, but unsure if we ever would see their dream come to reality.
At Love146, we love hearing dreams and ideas. I’m not sure anything inspires us more than seeing people being creative as they tackle injustice. We love it when our friends and supporters respond to our cause by looking at who they are, their history, their gifts and talents, and then connect the dots, using their experience to serve the movement.
But, realistically speaking, only a small percentage of people who dream big dreams have the faith, capacity and determination to see the dream through to reality. That’s not discouraging, but it keeps us grounded as we have these sorts of conversations with dreamers.
In this case, Laurie had a solid background in the apparel manufacturing and retail industry, and was interested in drawing from that experience to fight injustice. She also had a husband and business partner in Dave determined to help her realize the dream. Together they invested in the dream, took some significant risks, prayed, worked lots of hours, and just last week – 19 months after our first conversation with them – LAUGH Brand clothing went live.
Now they’re selling fun kids clothes and giving 30% of their profits to Love146 and other organizations bringing about the end of child trafficking.
Be inspired! What is unique about you? How could who you are shape your own fight against injustice? What is holding you back? Is there just one small step you could take today to advance your dream?
