In Eastern Europe around 2004, the major topics concerned teen pregnancy, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse. Educators saw an urgent need to adequately tackle these issues.

Leon Berg, an instrumental team member from the early days and beyond, recalls, “In an ISP planning session in San Clemente, Blair Cook introduced the need to continue the work begun with the Morals and Ethics curriculum by addressing the problem of teens involved in drugs, alcohol and sex. He called these the ‘hot button’ issues now faced by teachers in the former Soviet Union.”

The curriculum team began writing lessons and activities immediately. The curriculum featured a story of three grandmothers whose grandchildren, in a classroom setting, would discover valuable life lessons by unlocking a treasure chest of stories and games to help them identify life choices that would fulfill their dreams, not destroy them.

In 2005, the first DreamMakers conference was conducted in the city of Sumy, in eastern Ukraine. Our Ukrainian partners, Oleg and Galina Kargin, had worked diligently to build relationships with educational officials in many oblasts (geographic regions, like a state). They presented an outline of the curriculum and challenged the officials to send representatives to the training seminars to evaluate the work of ISP for themselves. The officials responded enthusiastically to the conference and materials. Even now, Ukraine continues to serve as an excellent example of national “ownership” of the ISP strategy, as there are roughly 200 Ukrainian teachers who conduct DreamMaker conferences among their colleagues with very little assistance from North American staff.

Sixteen years later, the DreamMaker conferences continue to serve as strategic catalysts to open new areas that would otherwise be closed to the gospel–the Middle East, post-Communist cultures, and Asia. The DreamMakers-DreamBreakers curriculum is available for elementary and secondary students.