Preface

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Look again at the book’s cover. The hand is holding something that is going to grow. Even though it is small right now, its roots will go deep and its branches will spread. It will provide strength or shade or beauty to its surroundings. It could grow in a yard or a forest, but it will grow because that is what it is meant to do. And, as it grows, it will change the world around it.

This book is about changing our world. It’s not about a revolution, but it is revolutionary.

It’s about serving others—looking at others as people who could use a hand. It’s about looking at our hands and realizing that they already contain what others need.

This book starts with some assumptions—mainly that people really do want to help one another and make the world better, but they often don’t know how to do it. It also assumes that people are looking for meaning and significance in their lives, but they don’t know how to find them. They’ve tried accumulating wealth, tried increasing excitement, tried exercising authority, but those attempts left them empty. The book assumes that people are asking, What am I here for? It assumes we’re searching for something and don’t know where to look.

This book shows that the answers to life’s important questions are simple, but not easy.

This is a book that claims something extraordinary: That the true source of power in our lives, the power to change the world, is available when we serve others. I have seen this first-hand through the impact of Gary Morsch’s life and Heart to Heart International, the humanitarian relief agency he started.

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Our paths crossed a few times in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was not until 1991 that Gary and I had our first deep conversation. He was in New York for a board meeting for the Lamb’s Club, an arts, community service, and ministry center just off Times Square. I was in New York, working on a project with The New York Times. I had rented an apartment at the Lamb’s Club, just a block or two from the Times building.

One night some of the Lamb’s board members were going to see The Grapes of Wrath at a Broadway theater and they invited me to join them. I had always been moved by the story of the Joads, leaving one desperate situation after another as they moved from Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bowl. I was particularly struck by the ending where, just as it looked as if no one had anything left, they found a way to help someone even more desperate than themselves.

When the show was over, most of our group headed for the subway, but Gary and I walked back to the Lamb’s together. We got to talking about what we wanted to do with our lives. I told Gary I wanted to write about things that mattered. He told me he wanted to figure out a way to help suffering people. He thought there must be a way to take excess resources and match them with people who need them. We ended up walking through late-night New York for hours.

“I think that, deep down inside, people truly want to help others,” he said. “They just don’t know how. Wouldn’t it be something to match the desires of those people with the needs of the world?”

It was too big a concept for me to get my brain around, but I remember thinking “If you could figure that out, I’d love to write about it.”

Since then, Gary started Heart To Heart International, a humanitarian relief organization, and linked thousands of volunteers who have the desire to serve others with people who desperately need assistance. The organization has earned the respec of governments and corporations around the world. Operating at 2 percent overhead (many agencies work closer to 40 and 50 percent), it is one of the most efficient agencies in the world.

xi

Volunteers are the key—people wanting to help others. What I have observed about the people who volunteer is that their eyes open to the needs in their own neighborhoods and communities, even in their own homes, and serving others becomes part of their lifestyle. They see the power available to change the way they view the world, others, and themselves.

One of the biggest transformations I observed was that, when people began to serve others, they saw how easy it was to start wherever they were, regardless of their circumstances and resources.

We don’t have to go to different parts of the world to serve. We can serve the person we encounter next.

That’s the conclusion I hope you reach when you read this book.

This book articulates the personal philosophies of both Gary and me. Most experiences narrated being specifically Gary’s, we made the decision to write the book entirely in his voice. There are two authors, but one editorial voice. It’s like two musicians, singing in unison.

Look at the book’s cover again. As you read this book you’ll see how that plant can grow and sense your own purpose growing right along with it.

Dean Nelson
San Diego, California