January 25, 2010 Comments Off
Well, it still hasn’t happened. It is January 25th and as of yet, no baby! I guess its not really shocking, but since Dillon was 2 weeks early, we thought #3 might make a surprise early arrival. Guess not.
In the mean time, we have been wrapping up some end of year matters like finishing our accounting for 2009 and getting all of the receipts ready for our donors. Today at 5pm on the nose, they slid smoothly through the mail slot of the Overland Station of the United States Postal Service. 2009 is officially… wrapped up!
Taking a little time to slow down seems to have a way of making you reflect, and as I looked back on what the last year has brought to pass, I could not help but say, honestly, I was surprised.
I was surprised at the way that, even when our plans for financing this ministry didn’t work out, people came out of nowhere and the money we needed was there.
I was surprised at how when we had the floors completely torn out of the remodel house in Kentucky with no flooring contractor in sight, one showed up in the middle of the chaos and saved the day.
I was surprised at how many times we would find ourselves in a parking lot or at a grocery store at just the right time.
I was surprised when I read about a school district in Atlanta that couldn’t send a class on a fieldtrip, and I was blessed when our readers responded to the call for help.
But more than anything, I guess I was simply surprised at how many times I was surprised. Why? Well, I guess it is somewhat human nature to doubt. When your finances are tight, when the fuel tank in your car seems to be getting low, when your job seems to be deadended, whatever it is… have you been surprised when out of the blue, something comes along that you weren’t expecting? I think that sums up 2009 for me. It was a complete, unanticipated, enjoyable, amazing, educational, and welcome surprise. Everywhere I looked, I saw God working in ways that I didn’t expect. You might even say it was beyond all that we could ask, think, or imagine…
So with that, we take a small break from the road life, just a few months, to welcome our new baby to the family. When will it be here? Is it a boy or a girl? The answer, like with many things, only God knows, but that is ok. We’ve learned to like surprises!
This morning, shortly after rolling out of bed, I got the amazing pleasure of helping a Rwandan genocide survivor reconcile with the very man who murdered her husband just over 15 years ago. Then I was able to provide the funds for a farmer to purchase a specialty piece of equipment to transport his precious crop cargo to the processing center that I helped build. To polish off what must seem like the perfect morning, I envisioned the children that would soon begin playing a soccer match on a field of green grass built on ground that only fifteen years ago ran red with the blood of innocent genocide victims. It was an amazing morning, and yet my day had only just begun.
You undoubtably ask how on earth can a person do all of these things before breakfast? The secret lies below the frothy surface of my morning’s Double Bohoro Bohoro Latte (with a touch of vanilla.) “Bohoro Bohoro” – Translated it means “Slowly, Slowly.” It is the phrase that a priest will use to describe how reconciliation between a Hutu and their Tutsi countrymen will happen, and it is the name on the bag of these roasted seeds of redemption from Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee that I hold in my hand. I’ll let them tell their story.
The coffee beans in this bag traveled more than 8,000 miles just to make it into your cup. Each one was hand picked on a Rwandan farm, tenderly cared for along a journey down a bumpy dirt road on a coffee bicycle, and eventually traveled across the whitecaps of the Atlantic Ocean to make it to Roswell, Georgia, where they are roasted in small batches by an Artisan roaster for what will undoubtedly be one of the best cups of coffee you ever taste. But the geographic distance is not what makes this coffee amazing. The longitude and latitude, although exotic, are not where the miracle lies.
The true distance of these beans, the real journey, is that they traveled a road of forgiveness. These beans represent reconciliation. These beans represent grace and hope for a people torn apart by violence. In the same way you come together with friends over a cup of coffee, farmers torn apart by genocide in Rwanda are coming together in their coffee-growing community. Great healing is taking place. For Hutus and Tutsis, orphans and mothers, reconciliation is becoming 3D. Grace is alive.
And with these beans, with each bag, up to $3 travels back into the Rwandan economy providing a just, Living Wage for each farmer. That is the distance these beans traveled to make it here. From hurt to hope. From loss to life. From Rwanda to you. (- from the bag label on my Bohoro Bohoro Espresso, Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company. Written by John Acuff)
So… can your coffee do that?
Find out more and start your next morning differently at DrinkCoffeeDoGood.com
January 6, 2010 Comments Off
Over the course of the last year we have had the chance to watch a bit “behind the scenes” of the upcoming release of the teen-targeted movie “To Save a Life” from New Song films. We got to watch a couple of pre-screenings, helped with a screening in Irvine, CA, and laughed whenever we actually spent a night in the RV at the Oceanside Harbour campground (a few of the scenes from the movie are shot there). ANYWAY…
ITS ABOUT TO BE PUBLICLY RELEASED!!!!
After more than a year of preparation and development, this film will release in theatres nationwide January 22nd. The film features the story of two teenagers whose paths separated at the beginning of highschool. One was escorted into the spotlight, and the other faded into obscurity. The film does an amazing job at addressing issues relevant to today’s teens including suicide, cutting, teen pregnancy, drugs and drinking, and divorce, without seeming too over the top by piling them all on one character.
If you are in High School or Junior High ministry, or if you know a teenager, take them to a theater near you on opening week. You can check out the trailer here for a bit more of a taste of this great film! There is also a great site for leaders with tools to help you use this film as an outreach opportunity.
Director Brian Baugh said, “(This is) a film made with a different approach, a different production value, with a different vision…(it) looks at real teen culture—as edgy and uncomfortable as it can be at times…with characters and a story that have credibility.” With 12,000 church leaders and youth seeing the film in pre-screenings, viewers rated the film’s quality at 9.0 out of 10 and 9.3 out of 10 for ministry usefulness. The film has also been hailed by leading teen ministries: Josh McDowell called the film “excellent” and“relevant”; Ron Luce of Teen Mania Ministries called the film “important” and “a wake-up call for teens”; and author and veteran youth minister Brooklyn Lindsey called the film “more than a movie—it’s an invitation for teens to be a part of something bigger than themselves.”
January 5, 2010 Comments Off
The following was recently posted as a guest blog post at http://givmusic.com by Chad Houck
As 2009’s final weeks and days pass, I find myself at what has often in the past been a difficult season. It’s that season where I evaluate my past year, perhaps contemplate setting some new lofty goals, and maybe even lay out a few new practices that I’d like to implement into my life. About every third year or so, I been known to buy a gym membership that I later fail to utilize and try to get out of come March. That’s right, New Years and its accompanying resolutions are right around the corner.
Personally, thanks to the lessons I’ve learned over the past year of my life, I plan to approach this New Year a bit differently. I won’t be setting any earth shatteringly high bars to leap over. I likely won’t even set any “resolutions” at all, save one - to begin.
You see, I’ve come to realize that the primary reason I’ve failed to achieve certain goals or to take advantage of certain opportunities that I’ve encountered may not have had anything to do with the difficulty of the final objective. In fact, probably more often than not, the things I either wanted or needed to do weren’t even that difficult. I just never got the ball rolling. I simply failed to begin to do something.
Lately, however, I’ve come to realize just how far you can go in the 365 days following that all-important first step.
Perhaps there is no better example of this than a young friend of mine from Arizona named Austin.
Austin Gutwein
If you met him today, you’d likely be amazed at by how humble this remarkably influential young man is. At a surprisingly young age, he is directly responsible for the development of 2 clinics and a high school in Zambia, Africa, as well as additional projects in Kenya and Swaziland. (read more…)
Want to know what we are planning on beginning for 2010? Stay tuned… details coming in the next few days! Happy New Year!!
-Chad and Amy Houck
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