So… if you are a High School friend of Amy’s and in Portland this week, drop her a line!  She is in town.  If you happen to be in Mexico, come on by the build site and pound a nail or make a sandwich. (less likely, yes, but believe it or not, we do have a woman “coming by” in Mexico that just HAPPENED to read about the builds, contact us, and volunteer!)

Upon our return to Boise, we will be spending around two weeks helping my mom transition from the Elks Rehabilitation Hospital back to home.  Then we’ll load the RV and see where God takes us!  (Thank you to those who are taking a role in helping make my mother’s transition happen- from meals to overnight stays to visits to phone calls- while we are out of town!)  She is continuing to recover well from spinal surgery, and is expected at this point to regain all functions that she lost prior to the surgery.  Praise God!

Blessings – From the road once again!

The Houcks

Amy working on Stucco, Mexico House 2, March 2009

This first home will go to Beatriz Meneses and her 5 children and 2 grandchildren, who are presently living under a tarp between two adjacent walls. Things are still a little up in the air as to whether we will build a full double version of our typical house, or just complete a portion of what would eventually be their final house, just to get them in.  Regardless, it is not too late to participate financially to help make this dream a reality.  Please, make your contribution today and help us put a family in a home and off the street.

To learn more about UthBuild, how you can participate in one of our future builds, or to find out about bringing a group of your own to build a home in Mexico, visit our UthBuild page and then drop us a line!

Bethany Grace Houck

• Born 2/17/2010 at 10:42pm
• Weight: 8 lbs 14 oz.
• Legnth:  21 1/4″

You can see photos on our Flickr site here

Emily and Dillon Meet Their Sister Bethany from Share5 by WorldWins on Vimeo.

Since so much of what we do in ministry is in the context of family, we wanted to share with others the expansion of our family as we added Bethany Grace Houck to the Share5 team. This video shows Emily and Dillon’s first reactions to their new sister and travel partner Bethany!

We returned from our amazing experience at the Baby Place with our great midwife team, and made it to the house today at about 3pm following a short trip to share pictures with Grandma at the hospital (more on her below).

We will be visiting a doctor early next week, and also have a mom and baby check at the Baby Place on Monday.  I can’t tell you how amazingly cool it is to see Amy just relaxing here at the house and walking around and sitting on the couch with the kids.  It is such a contrast to the way the first two were born.

So here we are.  4 has now become 5.  We never imagined when we began sharing our lives and our family with others on the road that the moniker of “Share5″ would prove to be prophetic.  Now, as we sit here in the context of our new head count, all we can say is that God is good, and we are so fortunate to be a part of His plan.

Bethany Grace Houck is now officially one full day old, and for this little one and for our family, let the adventures begin!

Update on Linda: Mom is doing well and recovered beautifully from spine surgery. Fortunately, my sister flew in from San Jose and has been taking care of her at the hospital while we had the baby on the other end of town.  She will be undergoing a procedure tomorrow to see if there is any bacterial infection in her heart.  They are basically final checking everything before clearing her to go to a managed care facility to begin rehab.  She has regained significant use of her left arm, and the majority of the paralysis has left, which bodes well for her recovery.  Thank you all for your continued prayers, as she still has a few hurdles left to clear.

Linda has safely completed the surgery to decompress her spinal column.  While the compression is down, the next phase will likely be to treat the infection itself via an extensive inpatient antibiotic treatment (multiple weeks) and to begin what rehab they can to see how the damaged tissue and nerves respond.  We appreciate your prayers over what may be an important next number of days.

I will try to continue to update our blog for those who are interested in details.

On the Baby B front, Amy is doing well, though not in labor.  Her exam and appointment today went very well, with all factors continuing to look healthy.  We are simply waiting for her body to do its natural thing and start labor spontaneously.

Thank you all for your prayers on all fronts!

In the following video, we will show you how to turn 1 yd of fleece fabric (often available as a remnant at your local fabric store) into a pair of fringed fleece baby blankets to be distributed by Project Linus! (be sure to check with your local Project Linus chapter to see what they have the greatest need of.  Some may need 1/2 yd baby blankets, while others may prefer larger blankets for youth and teens!)

Comfort a Child with a Project Linus Blanket! from Share5 by WorldWins on Vimeo.

Project Linus is an organization whose mission is to provides love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer “blanketeers.”

Making a fleece blanket is a simple way for a family to practice compassion, sacrifice, passion, and teamwork while providing a great volunteer opportunity to you and a blanket to a child in need.

This video will give you the basics of how to fringe a no-sew fleece blanket for Project Linus by showing the fringing of a 1/2 yard baby blanket. You can also make blankets for teens by using a full 2 yards of fabric!

We did a family blanket night recently, and along with the kids doing 2 baby blankets each, we were also able to create a teen boys blanket (navy blue with guitars), a teen girls blanket (white with bright flowers) and a third teen blanket (blue, brown, and yellow print). Each full-sized teen blanket was made from a full 2 yards of fleece.

This project really came home for us as we were sharing the story with one of our board members recently. When I told him about Project Linus, he said, “That’s where my grandson’s blanket came from!” Three years ago his grandson, a high-school basketball player, had emergency brain surgery and received a basketball-print blanket. He still has the blanket today.

Take the time to make a blanket this month for the Project Linus chapter nearest you. The life you impact with your small gift of love may come home closer than you think. Regardless, isn’t it a small price to pay to put a smile on the face of a child?

There are two kinds of people on earth to-day;
Just two kinds of people, no more I say.

Not the sinner and saint, for it’s well understood
The good are half bad and the bad are half good.

Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man’s wealth,
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.

Not the humble and proud, for in life’s little span,
Who puts on vain airs, is not counted a man.

Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years
Bring each man his laughter end each man his tears.

No; the two kinds of people on earth I mean
Are the people who lift and the people who lean.

read the full poem from The Charlotte Democrat, Jan 10, 1896

So what is it about the poem that makes it’s words seem to transcend time? While the poem in its entirety holds some theological challenges for me, like the fact that the Bible would tell us that we should be both a leaner AND a lifter by lifting each other while sharing one another’s loads, within the words seemed to exist a sliver, a thread, of what seemed like the truth.   That is what grabbed my attention.  You see, truth is timeless.  In it’s absolute, Truth is eternal.  It can cut through the clutter and move the background into the foreground.

On Tuesday of this week, I am going to be heading to a club in downtown Boise to accept an invitation from an old college buddy.  He contacted me by Facebook and invited me to listen to his younger brother sing and play acoustic guitar. I have a feeling, however, that he thought there was no reason why I would actually accept the invite.  In his invitation, he said “Maybe he isn’t right up your heavy Christian roots alley, but it’s powerful music all the same.”  That struck me.  Truth once again?  Sure, there is the chance that his brother’s music isn’t “up my alley”, but why would he suppose I would simply dismiss him out of hand?  Even better, why would he feel that if the music is powerful, I wouldn’t be able to extract value, to draw truth, from it?  Is my faith so fragile that I can’t find value in things that may lie slightly outside of it?

I checked out his brother’s stuff on MySpace, and what do you know… it is powerful music.  It’s honest music.  The truth in it makes it powerful.  Sure the themes aren’t what I listen to every day, and sure there are songs that I could find good reason to refute in principle (like “Damned”) but many resonate with experiences I’ve had in life, and I can feel the emotion in his brother’s voice.  I’m looking forward to Tuesday night.  It’s a chance to get outside of my typical and keep my eyes open for that thread of truth.  I’m learning that it gets easier and easier to find it when you know what you’re looking for.  The more I understand my own faith, the better I understand my own beliefs, the more I find that the truth that they are based on is threaded through so much around me.   I just have to discern the threads.  (In a touch of irony, while on his website, I also noticed that he is a supporter of TOMS shoes, so I guess our worlds aren’t that far apart after all!)

So here is my question for you.  Have you done, seen, or listened to something lately outside the typical scope of your faith that resonated with you and, possibly to your surprise, reinforced your beliefs?  What was it, and what about it, rang true to you?  I look forward to hearing your responses!

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!

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

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.”

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