'Seemingly small dreams can transform lives,
including your own'
Everyone has a dream, whether it’s
a new house, new car or the latest gadget. Some don’t
know what their dream is; some do but feel they can’t
reach it. Our ultimate, big dream, I believe, is waking
each morning, excited about the day ahead. Having a big
dream that touches the lives of others is the source of
true happiness and fulfilment. Let me share just one recent
experience from a trip to Bosnia that illustrates how
seemingly small dreams can transform lives, including
your own.
“Mohammed was a huge man with a happy
face, aged but tanned. He supported a white neatly trimmed
goatee beard. He shook my hand and grabbed me into a warm
hug that seemed to go on forever. I looked into his brown
eyes and my heart sank, as I thought what awful scenes
they must have captured, and how many tears they must
have shed.
We stood at the top of the valley looking down on the
football stadium below us. With the trees surrounding
it, it would have been a beautiful scene many years ago.
But the large houses that dotted the countryside were
now burnt out, derelict. The stadium itself in ruins and
overgrown.
Mohammed showed us around the stadium where everything
happened that terrible night. The Serbs herded the men
and boys into the stadium, the women and girls were brought
to the ‘factory’ which he told us was where
many were tortured and raped, including his wife and 13
year old daughter. ‘They played torturous games
with us in the stadium. They threw a tennis ball at us
and whoever it hit they shot dead, man or boy.’
He talked about men picking up their sons, crying
over their limp lifeless bodies then being shot with their
dead child in their arms. And this was in Europe in the
1990’s. Mohammed saw men send their young fit sons
into the surrounding forests hoping they would get away,
only to hear the sound of snipers moments later. He stopped
once or twice noticing the horror on my face or tears
escaping from my eyes. Each time I asked him to go on;
I felt I needed to know the detail. But after I heard
it, I wasn’t so sure. All I could think about was
my own family, my own son.
To read the rest of Stuart's account of his time
in Bosnia and how his company Zest4kidz not only enhances
the lives of children impacted by war, poverty and famine
but also facilitates team-building in companies click
here.
Welcome
to the February 2006 edition of Next
Steps the monthly newsletter of James Sweetman
& Associates.
