A GREAT story about how spending time with students changes lives.

Yesterday I posted about an excerpt from Andy Andrew's book, The Noticer. Here is another part of the chapter that I really liked!


In chapter 6, the author links a Nobel peace prize to an adult spending a couple of afternoons with a 6 year old kid. The main point is that our lives make a HUGE difference in the lives of others. Here's the Cliff's Notes version:

"While it is true that most people never see or understand the difference they
make, or sometimes only imagine their actions having a tiny effect, every single
action a person takes has far-reaching consequences."

At 91, Norman Bourlag was informed that he had been personally responsible for saving TWO BILLION people's lives.

In 1970, the Nobel Committee awarded Bourlag, then 54, because he was the guy who hybridized corn and wheat for arid climates, that the committee estimated at saving billions of people's lives from what would have otherwise been famine.

However, Bourlag was hired by Henry Wallace. Wallace was Roosevelt's second VP and he was a former Sec. of Agriculture and while he was VP he set up a station in Mexico to figure out how to hybridize corn and wheat for arid climates.

But Henry Wallace was given a vision for his future and what he could do with plants to help humanity by a 19 year-old kid at Iowa State U. This 19 year-old had a professor who let his six year old son hang out with this brilliant kid. The 6 year old was Wallace. The brilliant kid was George Washington Carver.

The story goes on about how Carver was influence by the man who saved and raised him, but what really stood out was again, how much what we do makes a difference.



My life was changed by a number of people who drove me home from church, were youth coaches, adults who took me out to lunch, and loved on me. These are the relationships that change lives.



My friend Kurt says it best: People who love God + Teenagers = Good stuff/Good ministry.





sidebar: if you read yesterday's post: Norman Bourlag is 95 and was STILL teaching at Texas A&M at the age of 86!