We didn’t want to be spectators
Of course, the founding of Diospi Suyana was madness from a human point of view. But trusting in God, a hospital, dental and eye clinic, school and media center were built. And because we reckoned with the possibilities of God, we organized large youth festivals of faith in the middle of nowhere. Defeat was always more likely than success.
And at the very beginning – in spring 2002 – my wife Tina and I were completely alone with our ideas.
I have often remembered Theodore Roosevelt’s speech. He said in Paris on April 23, 1910:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat!”
Many spend a lifetime pondering whether they should do something for God and their fellow human beings.
Unfortunately, many stay on the couch because the price seems too high and the chances of success too small.
At Diospi Suyana we want to leave no stone unturned. We work and pray. And we rejoice in the blessings that God bestows on those who stand in the arena.
“There was a job to be done and anybody could have done it, but nobody did it, because everybody thought, that somebody would do it!” God doesn’t need heroes, he just needs people who are willing to do his dirty work. /KDJ
