Let the Children Dream

Two ordinary farmers. Four countries responding to war and disaster. One extraordinary calling.

In 1993, Garth and Anne Janson left their quiet life in Canterbury, New Zealand, and walked straight into a war zone — the territory that would one day become South Sudan. It was only the beginning.

Over the next decade, the Jansons would work at the frontlines of human catastrophe: rebuilding shattered communities in Mozambique, navigating the isolation of North Korea, and refining vision in Taiwan — always with World Vision; always where the need was greatest.

When they finally returned home to their farm, they thought their years of crisis work were behind them. Then, on Boxing Day 2004, a tsunami tore through the Indian Ocean, and Garth was called back into the field — this time to Sri Lanka, to lead World Vision International’s response to one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history.

It would take everything they had. And it would change the rest of their lives.

Home again, and with their farm now a thriving dairy operation, Garth and Anne could have simply rested. Instead, in 2009, they founded the Janson Charitable Trust — channelling significant funding into education programmes across East Africa, and turning decades of hard-won experience into a lasting legacy of hope.

Let the Children Dream is the story of two people who never stopped answering the call — and who discovered that the work of rebuilding the world never really ends.

About the author
Ken Edgecombe has known the Jansons for many years. He is a former teacher of English who has lived in Wellington since he left Hawera High School and graduated from Victoria University of Wellington. He has extensive editorial experience and is the author of half a dozen books. The most recent of them before Let the Children Dream, was From Sir With Love, a memoir of his 21 years of teaching Religious Education at Queen Margaret College, and also published by Ark House. He and his wife Felicia live in Paremata, on the northern approaches to Wellington, where he is a supporter of World Vision and an avid enthusiast of All Black rugby.