Chapter 11
11
A THOUSAND YOUNG HEROES
Stories of new beginnings, impossible challenges, and the teens who are living them
Looking out from backstage, fifteen-year-old Zach watched and listened as David Crowder led fifteen thousand concertgoers in a high-octane set of worship songs. It was the Del Mar Fairgrounds in sunny California, and to Zach the sea of concertgoers seemed to stretch out forever. They sang. They clapped. They danced in celebration, hands waving as they offered up praise. Zach mostly listened because, after the David Crowder Band, he was up next.
Rock stars take this stage, he thought. High-school freshmen with a history of anxiety attacks and risk aversion don’t. Shouldn’t. Can’t.
“I don’t think I can go up there,” he muttered, but the words were lost in the thunderous worship, and no one heard.
Throughout this book we’ve asked what it would look like for our generation to start living out the principles of the Rebelution. The truth is that in many ways it’s already happening. The movement is growing; a counterculture is emerging. And as you’ll see in a minute, Zach Hunter is one of its leaders. Of course, he wouldn’t call himself that. And as you probably gathered from the opening scene, Zach is definitely not doing what comes easily for him. He’s just doing what God asks of him—passionately pursuing his holy ambition. Yes, it’s been hard, but Zach now finds himself at the heart of a movement that is changing his world and yours. And he wouldn’t turn back for all the comfort and ease in the world.
Zach isn’t alone. Thousands of young people whose examples defy silly labels like “ordinary” or “exceptional” are creating a whole new set of expectations. They are rebels driven by a new kind of rebellion.
ZACH HUNTER: AN UNLIKELY HERO
When he was twelve years old, Zach Hunter was confronted with a painful fact: twenty-seven million people around the world still live in slavery. And half of them are children.
Zach’s shocking encounter with that reality grew into a campaign against modern-day slavery that has taken this soft-spoken teen from the suburbs of Atlanta to the main stages of the nation’s largest Christian musical festivals and far beyond.
“It was Black History Month,” Zach recalls. “I’d been learning about people like Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman, and I thought, Man, if I’d lived back then, I would’ve done something to help them. I would’ve tried to end slavery and fight injustice. And then when I found out there was still work to do, I realized I couldn’t just stand around and wait for someone else to do something.”
That’s why three years before he’d be standing in the wings, watching David Crowder, Zach launched Loose Change to Loosen Chains (LC2LC), a campaign to raise money and awareness for the fight against modern-day slavery. The concept was simple: encourage his peers to gather and give their loose change, which then went to deserving organizations working to free slaves around the world.
Why loose change? Because there’s literally tons of it between couch cushions, beneath car seats, and in the backs of sock drawers. Zach likes to point to an astounding estimate reported by Real Simple magazine that nearly $10.5 billion of loose change is just sitting around in American households—$10.5 billion! The Hunter family found nearly two hundred dollars worth in their own home.
LC2LC got started at Zach’s church and school, raising almost ten thousand dollars in the initial drive. But this wasn’t a one-time project for him. “In Isaiah 1:17, God charges us to rescue the oppressed and the orphan and to plead for the widow,” Zach says. “It doesn’t really get much more straightforward than that. It’s a call to action from God.”
“If you have a friend who likes snowboarding, you go snowboarding with him and it strengthens your relationship,” he explains. “Well, God loves justice, so if you seek justice with God, you’ll get to know Him better by being involved in something He cares about.”
Soon Zach was tapped to become the global student spokesperson for the Amazing Change campaign in coordination with the film about William Wilberforce, Amazing Grace, and LC2LC spread to Australia, the United Kingdom, and Africa. With every step Zach became more and more convinced that God could use anyone to make a difference.
“Most people don’t know that I struggled with an anxiety disorder almost up to the time I started speaking out about slavery,” says Zach. “During these attacks I’d start feeling paranoid, have trouble breathing, or get extremely nauseated.” Sometimes they’d get so bad that he’d just have to lie down till they passed. They robbed him of peace and nearly destroyed his confidence.
As he looked out at the huge crowd at the music festival, Zach felt those old fears come rushing back. David Crowder was wrapping up his set. It was Zach’s moment. Can I really speak in front of fifteen thousand people?
Turning to his mom he urgently repeated, “I don’t think I can go up there!”
To his surprise she replied, “That’s okay. Then don’t.”
For a minute the battle raged inside the fearful fifteen-year-old. Then he stood up.
“No,” he said firmly. “I have to go. If I don’t speak up, no one will.”
With his mom praying, Zach took the stage. Five minutes later, at his signal, the whole fairground erupted in a passionate cry for human dignity and justice on behalf of all those unable to raise their voices: “FREEDOM!” fifteen thousand voices roared.
Zach had found a cause that was bigger than his fear.
How far will Zach’s holy ambition take him? Only time will tell. So far it has transformed a kid who suffers from anxiety attacks into a sixteen-year-old who has spoken to more than half a million people at live events, appeared on national television numerous times, written two books (Be the Change and Generation Change), and even delivered a speech at the White House.
Maybe that’s why Zach loves the Old Testament stories where God chooses the most unlikely people to do His tasks: people like David, the runt of Jesse’s sons; Jeremiah, the prophet who was too young to shave (okay, we’re exaggerating); or Mary, the small-town girl who was chosen to be the mother of Jesus Christ.
“My dream is to see the end of slavery in my lifetime,” Zach says, going on to quote the young British statesman William Pitt from the film Amazing Grace: “We’re too young to know certain things are impossible, so we will do them anyway.”
And because God is still in the business of choosing unlikely heroes to accomplish His big plans, Zach’s impossible mission to change the world has already begun.
We can make a difference in the lives of slaves. It doesn’t really matter how young we are. It doesn’t matter if we have physical, mental, or emotional disabilities. It doesn’t matter the color of our skin or where we’re from. Anybody can make a difference and be a voice for the voiceless.
—Zach Hunter, age 16
JAZZY DYTES: SMALL VOICE, BIG WORLD
From grade school to high school, Jazzy Dytes built a reputation as one of the best young minds in Davao City, one of the largest cities in the Philippines. She was always her school’s top representative at interschool competitions, and she always won. She was the essayist, the orator, the journalist, the debater, and the mathematician. As long as the world was spinning, Jazzy was winning prizes and praises. She was famous, she was great, she had everything—and she was only fifteen.
As the spotlight shone brighter, Jazzy became convinced that the only thing she didn’t have was freedom from her parents’ control. She had a brain and she believed she could live independently. Her opportunity arrived when she received a scholarship plus a living allowance from the University of the Philippines—the most prestigious university in the country. Only a week after turning sixteen, Jazzy was on campus. She was free.
Soon Jazzy had joined a sorority without her parents’ knowledge. Her new friends drew her into political activism and a network of underground organizations. She rioted in the streets and marched against the system, condemning repression and denouncing commercialism. She learned to be a rebel for her country, fighting for something she didn’t even understand. But this was her idea of what it meant to stand for her generation—rebellion. And she was so proud.
Completely free from her parents’ oversight for the first time, Jazzy gave herself to her every desire. Soon she had a boyfriend—again without her parents’ knowledge. Daryll was her “once in a lifetime,” and they promised that they would always love each other. With her generous study allowance footing the bill, everything seemed to be at her fingertips. She was happy with her boyfriend. She was happy with her “stuff.” She was happy rebelling. She was in control and she had everything she wanted. Then, only two months after entering university, her “perfect” world fell apart.
Jazzy Dytes disappeared.
On September 25, 2006, she was declared a “lost student” by the university and by police throughout the province. Soon word got out that Daryll was missing as well. When the couple finally emerged from hiding, they had missed final exams and their reputations were heavily damaged. But by then Jazzy didn’t care.
“I was completely blinded by my rebellion,” says Jazzy. “I was insane.”
Her worried parents accepted her back with open arms, but she still considered them her greatest enemies. She continued to operate behind their backs, hiding the fact that her grades were plummeting because she was skipping classes to attend rallies and spend time with Daryll, whom they had forbidden her to see. When her parents finally asked the university for her transcripts, they were shocked by what they found.
Their brilliant daughter was failing in every subject except her favorites: trigonometry and chemistry. Jazzy had gone from being one of the top students at the university to one of the worst. Unable to hide the truth any longer, Jazzy broke down and confessed everything. Her parents immediately removed her from the university and brought her home, and the spotlight of attention that had followed her since grade school went out.
With her future seemingly shattered, Jazzy slipped into a deep depression. She was convinced that no one could ever forgive her for what she had done, and she could never forgive herself. She’d gone from someone everybody admired to the failure everyone gossiped about. She tried to commit suicide, but her brother caught her just in time. Afterward she couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror.
One day, after nearly a month of isolation, Jazzy received a visit from a pastor’s daughter. Eventually the conversation turned to God. The girl invited her to church and left her some Christian reading materials along with a link to a website called TheRebelution.com. Later that day Jazzy opened the first magazine and read the following words:
It’s possible to be so concerned with what has happened in the past, or so caught up in what’s happening in the present, that we pay no attention to what God has for us next.
Jazzy began to read the Bible and two days later wrote an entry in her deserted journal. The entry was titled “God Loves Me.” That was when her smile began to return. She not only forgave herself, but she knew that God had forgiven her as well. She found the freedom she had been searching for all along—and it was through Jesus Christ. Ten days before turning seventeen, with her slate wiped clean and the spotlight gone, Jazzy Dytes had a new future to write. But she was no longer a rebel. She was a rebelutionary.
Never one to do things halfway, Jazzy threw herself into sharing Christ’s love the same way she’d thrown herself into rioting and protesting. She committed to using the gifts that God had given her to serve and follow Him only. Within two months she was volunteering with two nongovernmental organizations as a children’s rights advocate working with gangsters, sexually exploited girls, and abused children. The rebel without a cause now had a holy ambition. The angry activist had become the loving advocate.
“How do you engage a gang member in conversation?” Jazzy asked us not long ago in an e-mail. “How do you heal the soul of a sexually exploited young girl? For me there’s no way. I just can’t. I’m scared to mingle with them. I can’t even look them straight in the eye. If it were up to me, I’d rather say, ‘No thanks, God. You can look for someone else.’ But it is God asking me. He has given me the desire to see these young people surrender their lives to Christ. Am I going to refuse God’s calling because of fear and pride? Are they any more hopeless than I was?”
I will never stop seeking young people who don’t yet know God. I will never stop chasing them, winning their souls to Christ. I believe that God will equip me with the strength and the right spirit. Deep inside me flows the DNA of a rebelutionary.
Even though I am just a young lady—a small voice in a big world—I believe I can do great things for God’s glory. I am just a humble servant—geared up to face any challenge my Master sets before me.
—Jazzy Dytes, age 17
BRITTANY LEWIN: A CALLING HIGHER THAN POLITICS
When seventeen-year-old Brittany Lewin decided to attend a community breakfast in Weld County, Colorado, in late July 2006, she had no idea she would walk out as the campaign manager for a former U.S. congressman.
That particular breakfast featured Bob Schaffer, a Republican running for reelection to the state board of education. After hearing him speak, Brittany went up to Mr. Schaffer and asked if she could do anything to help his campaign. Never in a million years could she have predicted his response.
“Do you want to run it?” he asked.
On the ride home afterward, Brittany’s mood alternated between laughing in amazement (Is he really serious?) and sober shock (I have no idea how to do this). As soon as she got home, Brittany e-mailed Mr. Schaffer to make sure that he did, in fact, want a teenager managing his campaign. His response was immediate. Yes, he wanted a youth-led team.
He was serious.
Within an hour, Brittany was at the library checking out books on campaigning, scouring the Internet, and making leaflets. She had absolutely no idea what she was getting into, but she believed that God had opened a door, and she was determined to walk through it.
A subsequent planning meeting with Mr. Schaffer established several things. First, it would be an all-youth and only-youth campaign team—Brittany’s friends, Rachael (nineteen) and Jenna (seventeen), could also join the team as volunteer coordinator and press secretary. Second, they would all call their boss “Bob” (“It still felt weird,” Brittany says). Third, Brittany was the real, honest-to-goodness campaign manager—which was a full-time job.
The campaign’s immediate projects included filing candidate paperwork, putting together a website, and designing campaign fliers. Since none of the teens had any experience managing campaigns, almost everything they did was a new learning experience—exciting yet often terrifying at the same time. Brittany’s role, for example, required her to represent the campaign at numerous events, speaking publicly about Bob Schaffer and giving campaign updates at political functions. She was responsible for staying on top of every detail of the campaign, from how much money was in the bank account to which events Bob was going to attend.
Looking back, Brittany can only laugh about the incredible variety her job entailed: “I oversaw the campaign’s online presence, scripted campaign radio advertisements, wrote fund-raising letters, answered a billion phone calls and e-mails, did radio and newspaper interviews, and even co-hosted a radio show with two other all-youth campaign staffers. I really, really had to take everything one day at a time and one step at a time.”
As if dealing with all of these new activities wasn’t hard enough, Brittany also had to face skepticism because of her age. While many supported the idea of an all-youth campaign, others openly doubted that a seventeen-year-old could manage a campaign in a district the size of Indiana and a budget of fifty-five thousand dollars.
“There were definitely times when I thought it was impossible,” Brittany admits. “But Bob really believed I could do it, and he told me so every day. Most important, I knew that God would give me everything I needed to complete the job He’d given me to do.”
One of the team’s largest tasks was to distribute eighty-five thousand copies of their campaign newspaper—the Bob Schaffer Education Times. The student-authored paper included stories from the campaign trail, articles about Bob’s experience, reports on the history and responsibility of the state board of education, and dozens of pictures showing teens participating in the campaign.
“You don’t really realize what a large number eighty-five thousand is until you have to unload that many newspapers from the back of a U-Haul truck,” Brittany says, laughing. “You should’ve seen the looks on my family’s faces when I arrived home one day with twenty-five thousand newspapers that I needed to store somewhere.”
As the election drew nearer, the campaign became more hectic, workdays stretched to over fourteen hours, and a general lack of sleep pervaded campaign headquarters. Brittany remembers telling her mom late one evening, “There are four hundred thousand voters in the Fourth Congressional District, and it’s my job to make sure they all vote for Bob Schaffer.”
She was joking—sort of.
Two and a half months after the Weld County breakfast, election day arrived, and the skeptics had their answer: Bob Schaffer’s all-youth campaign had propelled him to a commanding win, with 57 percent of the vote. November 7, 2006, was victory day.
Looking back, Brittany is amazed at what she was able to accomplish, but in the end she doesn’t consider it all that remarkable. “A lot of people, even U.S. senators and congressmen, have told me that what I did was special, but I really believe that other teens can not only do what I did, but that they can do much harder things.”
Does Brittany have any regrets about how she’s spent her teen years? Does she feel like she’s missed out by not spending more time having fun? (Authors’ tip: don’t ask Brittany this question unless you want an incredibly passionate response.)
“Who ever said that doing hard things isn’t fun?!” she explodes good-naturedly. “On the contrary, I feel I missed out by not aiming toward more hard things. You’ll find more joy in doing what God has called you to do than a trip to the mall or a night at the movies will ever bring.”
Brittany considers the opportunities she’s had to work in politics a testimony to the marvelous plan of God for each and every person—if they are willing to follow Him wherever He leads, whatever the cost.
“The vision I have for the rest of my life is to live every day completely surrendered to God,” Brittany told us over the phone. “I don’t know what my future holds, but I know who holds the future.” In the short-term, her future includes more politics. She’s calling from the campaign headquarters of a leading presidential candidate.
“If I could give a peek into what I hope my life in the future will include…” She pauses. Then as if infused with a rush of confidence, the eighteen-year-old continues, “I’d describe the scene as a houseful of children, one on my lap as I hold the phone and discuss with some campaign manager what the next press release should say.”
She laughs. Now that we’ve got her started, she’s on a roll.
“As much as I love politics and campaigning, there is not a single political job I could find that would match the joy and satisfaction that comes from following God’s special call to be a dedicated wife and mother. Campaigns are won and lost; elections happen every year. I can only do so much by myself. What’s more inspiring to me is the thought of rebelutionaries across the world raising lots of counterculture, God-fearing, low-expectation-defying children who are constantly doing hard things for God’s glory.”
In the end, Brittany’s heartfelt closing words—not her impressive political accomplishments—are the most countercultural thing of all.
I believe that the doors God has opened for me and the lessons He has taught me through politics are only preparing me to be the wife and mother He wants me to be. Going from campaign manager to home manager sounds great to me. Being a wife and mother is a higher calling than politics.
—Brittany Lewin, age 18
LESLIE AND LAUREN REAVELY: TAKING HOPE TO THE STREETS
At five thirty in the morning, Leslie and Lauren Reavely were jolted awake by fire alarms, smoke bombs, and the volunteer fire department. “Everyone take only your sleeping bags and shoes!” rescue workers shouted. “You are now refugees! The building has burned down, and you must leave immediately!”
The building wasn’t actually on fire, as the girls soon figured out. But as the sisters and fifty other students were evacuated to a nearby field, it became easier and easier to imagine that they really were refugees.
Leslie and Lauren (ages fourteen and eleven) were participating in an annual summer program at Trout Lake, Washington, put on by WorldVenture. Each year’s camp is designed to give young people a taste of what missionary life is like. The goal is to show students that God wants to use them to meet the physical and spiritual needs of people around the world. In Leslie and Lauren’s case, the plan worked.
The next day and a half were spent living in a makeshift refugee camp. Everyone scavenged for peanuts scattered among the grass and found bananas tied to trees. They built shelters using tarps and cardboard boxes they pulled from a nearby dump. No one knew what would happen next, but no one was too worried about it. After all, it was missionary camp.
At the end of their first day as refugees, the students were told to stand in line to receive Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes that had been “flown in from America.” The boxes contained simple items such as a toothbrush and toothpaste, a bar of soap, and a bottle of water.
A few days later, Leslie and Lauren found themselves back in their air-conditioned home in Portland, Oregon, enjoying their warm beds and a cold refrigerator crammed with plenty to eat. But the camp had been remarkably successful. They couldn’t forget how good it had felt that night back at camp just to brush their teeth and wash their hands. They’d only lived as refugees for a day and a half. What about people who live like that for months or even years?
In the weeks that followed, the girls suddenly began noticing homeless men and women digging through Dumpsters and sleeping under bridges. Portland was the same, but Leslie and Lauren had changed. “We realized that homeless people are kind of like refugees in our own city,” says Leslie. “They’re refugees we are in a position to help.”
In the past, the girls had never known quite how to serve the homeless. Lauren still remembers riding in the car with her mom when all they had to give a hungry man on the curb was a cantaloupe. “We didn’t have any idea how he was going to eat it.” Lauren blushes. “I’m not even sure if it was ripe.”
But their experience at missionary camp had given them a fresh perspective—and an idea. After talking with their parents and a worker at the Portland Rescue Mission, the sisters launched Hope 2 Others (H2O), a ministry that provides homeless people with bags of essential items such as bottled water, granola bars, tuna and crackers, fruit snacks, Kleenex, hand wipes, a rescue mission meal voucher, and a gospel tract sharing the hope of Christ.
“Once a month we hold stuffing parties and have the bags available at our church,” explains Leslie. The bags cost three dollars each, to cover the cost of the contents, and are intended for drivers to have in their cars so that when they meet a homeless person, they have a good solution to meet some of that person’s needs.
The project has provided these “not necessarily shy, not necessarily outgoing” girls with many opportunities to trust God and step outside their comfort zones.
“I think the most stretching time for me was when we were first getting started,” Leslie remembers. “Lauren and I had to speak about our idea to the elders of our church. I remember feeling the butterflies and being so nervous that I thought my voice wouldn’t work! The meeting went well and now our ministry is up and running, but at that time I thought for sure it wouldn’t happen. It was very nerve-racking for me!”
Since then, Leslie and Lauren (now sixteen and thirteen) have distributed close to five hundred bags and have been featured in the Oregonian—their state’s largest newspaper. “Teens open their hearts to Portland’s homeless,” read the headline.
Doug Hazen, director of the missionary camp that inspired them, was so impressed by their outreach that he invited them to speak at his organization’s annual mission banquet and then structured the entire 2007 missionary camp around the theme of kids helping others.
“The Reavely girls were the inspiration for me,” he says.
Because of all the attention, the girls have had to develop a strategy for dealing with the dozens of requests they receive from other groups wanting to launch similar ministries in their churches or schools.
“We’ve started handing out CDs on how to start your own H2O ministry and created a website—hope2others.blogspot.com—where people can keep updated on our ministry,” explains Lauren. “People we don’t even know are helping with this outreach. It’s beyond our wildest dreams.”
Even with the success, the girls have often had to fight discouragement, whether because the bags aren’t selling as fast as they would like or because someone questions their approach.
“At those times it seems like God always sends us encouragement from people who have been impacted by the ministry,” Leslie says. “It’s always a joy to hear from people who are excited about sharing God’s love through our bags or to see the homeless people’s reactions when they receive them.”
One of their favorite stories to share is when they handed a bag to a homeless lady on an exit ramp and got to watch her open it as they waited for the light to change. She first pulled out the granola bar and then the gospel tract. To their excitement (okay, they were dancing in the car), she was reading it, and as they drove off she was still reading it!
“Our ultimate goal is to see hungry, homeless, and hopeless people find hope in Christ,” says Lauren, “but we thought they didn’t really read the tracts. Watching her take such interest in it reminded us that God can do anything.”
In fact, learning to trust God to do the impossible through them has been the lesson of the entire process for Leslie and Lauren.
Nothing is impossible with God! If you have a passion or a desire to do something for God, don’t say, “It’s impossible,” and close the door with doubt or fear. God can do it, and He may want to do it through you! Don’t underestimate Him. He can far exceed your expectations—I know that because He has done it for me.
—Leslie Reavely, age 16
BRANTLEY GUNN: MISSION FIELD NEXT DOOR
Whether it’s smuggling Bibles into China, being robbed at gunpoint in Africa, or launching nonprofit organizations in Jackson, Mississippi, sixteen-year-old Brantley Gunn sees himself as a normal teen who does slightly unusual things for a very good reason.
“Fulfilling the Great Commission has always been central in our family,” says Brantley. “I remember even as a preschooler working with my family in the Salvation Army soup kitchens and distributing food parcels to poor families on holidays.”
By age eleven Brantley was participating in short-term mission trips with his church. He still remembers lugging suitcases filled with Bibles through the streets of China with his dad. It was then that he first began to sense God calling him to a Great Commission lifestyle that would go beyond church-sponsored trips and other special occasions.
A year later Brantley found himself on another mission trip—this time to Kenya. His first impressions were of muddy streets, hovering flies, and dreary huts made out of a mixture of sticks and dried cow dung. One cramped hovel housed six people, two goats, a cow, and three dogs. Dung beetles were everywhere.
“I wish all of America’s youth could go through just one day of an African experience,” Brantley says. “The transformation would be powerful; I think it would motivate people to pursue heavenly treasures instead of material treasures.”
Brantley’s experience opened his eyes to the broken beauty of the world and taught him the importance of meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of people. “Jesus often treated an individual’s physical needs before He attended to their spiritual needs,” he explains. “After all, it’s hard for a person to get serious about heaven if he’s starving.”
Returning home to Mississippi, Brantley’s thoughts began to crystallize—even as his “new eyes” began to see the similarity between the African huts in Nairobi and the ramshackle houses in Jackson’s ghettos. Some quick research confirmed his suspicions. He already lived among some of the worst poverty and urban rot in the United States.
Brantley Gunn’s mission field was right outside his front door.
Armed with a holy ambition to serve “orphans and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27), Brantley launched Students Aiding Indigent Families (SAIF), a nonprofit charity to help needy families in Mississippi. SAIF purchases abandoned, dilapidated houses in Jackson’s slums, then recruits teams of students to repair and remodel them into like-new condition. When the house is ready for sale, Brantley helps arrange bank financing for the new owner—usually a poor single mother.
Needless to say, getting such a serious operation started wasn’t easy. Brantley spent hours researching how to set up a charity and met with other nonprofits, community service groups, and real estate investors. Three years since launching, SAIF has attracted more than two hundred students to the cause and generated over one hundred thousand dollars in annual revenue—but Brantley still remembers starting with no money, no members, and no experience.
“Any other thirteen-year-old facing such seemingly insurmountable obstacles would’ve thrown in the towel right there and left to play video games,” says Steve Guyton, one of SAIF’s adult board members, “but not Brantley. He has real grit.”
Interestingly enough, Brantley would probably disagree. “I really don’t think of myself as anything special or outstanding,” he told us. In fact, he describes the attention he’s received as “overwhelming” and “embarrassing.” This from a guy who has long battled with ADD (attention deficit disorder) and being picked on at school because of his small size (though he happily reports a growth spurt over the last six months).
“I think most kids can do what I do,” he says, “but most of them are more concerned with stuff like football and cheerleading. The only difference between them and me is that I focus on different things.”
Of course, he clarifies, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any fun. Get him out on the motocross track and he can triple jump and thrust up with the best of them—and he’s got the broken bones to prove it. But perhaps you could say his definition of fun is more inclusive—it includes serving others, making a difference, and pleasing God.
One of his favorite stories is about a woman named Hannah who lived in a rat-and roach-infested slum. She had two severely handicapped daughters and, somehow, lived off fifteen hundred dollars a month. SAIF found Hannah and set her family up in a remodeled three-bedroom home in a great neighborhood at a fraction of the cost of her old rent.
“When I handed Ms. Hannah the keys to her new home, she had a huge smile, and tears of joy were streaming down her face,” says Brantley. “My shine reflects the smiles on the faces of people I help like Ms. Hannah—beams brighter than any sun.”
When I do my missionary work…it reminds me of what Eric Liddell says in the movie Chariots of Fire: “When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” Well, when I do missionary work…I sense God’s pleasure and feel like I am doing his will…. And for me that’s what it means to live a full and fun life as a teenager.
—Brantley Gunn, age 16
WHAT IS—AND WHAT COULD BE
“I think the low expectations the world puts on young people is the very thing that will lead our generation to do something huge,” explains the nineteen-year-old excitedly, shifting position on the narrow coach. It’s a nice tour bus, but it’s no roomy lounge. “I really feel like intensity is growing in our generation. It’s a passion that just needs to be unleashed on something that’s right and pure.”
As we sit in Leeland Mooring’s tour bus just minutes before his Grammy-nominated band (that bears his first name) takes the stage at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, it’s hard not to feel like we’ve just discovered our long-lost triplet—discounting, of course, his reddish hair and musical genius (for some reason he’s not asking us to join the band). Outward differences aside, his words match the pulse of everything we have to say.
“I think our generation is sick of the world,” he continues. “They’re sick of everything it has to offer. The only reason they’re pursuing it is because that’s all they’re given—honestly. That’s why our mission as a band is to wake up our generation. We want to see our generation doing hard things. We want them to be completely on fire for the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Are you sure we’re not related?
Ever since we started on this remarkable journey two and a half years ago, we’ve been blown away time and again to hear the same heart-cry coming from young people all around the world—a growing restlessness that is finally finding its voice.
Leeland is right. Our generation is ready for an alternative. We are ready to do something big. In this chapter you’ve met some unlikely heroes who are already leading the way in redefining what the teen years are all about. They were twelve when they began to hate slavery, fourteen when they had compassion for the homeless, or seventeen when they decided that managing a fifty-five-thousand-dollar political campaign was not impossible.
Even though this chapter shows only a cross section of a much larger reality, we hope you’ve caught a glimpse of what is—and what could be. A generation is waking up—we can feel it. Rebelutionaries like Zach, Jazzy, Brittany, Leslie, Lauren, Brantley, and Leeland help us see it. This is real. It is happening.
Now it’s time to write your story.