We just landed the caravan in Sparks, NV for tonight’s show with A Current Affair, The Wedding, and Wavorly.    Night two in Henderson was excellent, with all three bands putting in amazing performances.

It was a mixed night… on one hand the show was great, but almost immediately after I got done sharing a short bit about Share5, Pastor Sackey and God’s faithfulness, and the fact that God has a plan for our lives (Jer 29:11), we got a call from Pastor Sackey in Africa.  He told us that they had just been robbed and their house broken into at gunpoint.  Everyone was OK, but they did steal his laptop, camera, several other items of value, and his wallet with his Visa card, so we had to get all his accounts shut down immediately.

The high point:  Amy told one of the members of ACA about what had happened.  As soon as Wavorly wrapped up their set, the bands took the stage and explained that the very same man I had shared about earlier had just been robbed in Africa.  They immediately took up an offering to offset the family’s losses, and the crowd responded with their prayers and over $600 in contributions over the next 15 minutes.

It was a beautiful example of the body of Christ in ACTION. 

What the enemy intended for loss, the Lord has turned for His glory.

I am happy to say that this week, thanks to the generous responses of readers of this blog and supporters of World Wins International, that we were able to provide $2050 of the total of $4500 needed for this project in only a few short days.  I have been in contact with Pastor Sackey, and he said his church raised an additional $800 from their members and the community, which means that they were only $1650 short of the full purchase price, which the family has agreed to take on payments.  Praise God!

Thank you for your support of this great acquisition.  If you missed the original post and would still like to participate, we would be happy to let anyone who wishes help pay off the remaining balance on the land.  Simply contact us through the website, or go to our secure online giving page.

We, along with Pastor Sackey and his congregation, have been praying that the family who owns the land parcel adjacent to the Revival Harvest Academy school would decide to sell the property to the school for use in expansion.  As of last week, they are now ready to sell.  We are looking to assist them in financing the $4500 total price tag, $2000 of which is needed as a down payment immediately, as there are a few other interested buyers in the wings.  Allow us to share with you why we feel this is a great opportunity not only for them, but for a few of us as well. The key thing we would ask you to focus on here is not the purchase.  It is the potential.  Let’s explain.

About seven years ago we heard about a similar need.  We decided, along with 9 other families, that if each of us could contribute $300, we could quickly and easily raise the $3000 needed to install a water tower as a gift for Pastor Sackey, the first of its kind in his village.  When we made the decision to invest $300 in the water tower, we only saw the water tower.  In that moment, that happened to be enough, but who knows.  Another week, or if we had just had a car break down, (or if the economy was doing what it is today) we may have responded differently.  We would have missed out on one of the best lessons in our life.

What we would have missed was what that water tower enabled. In the last seven years, that water tower has proved to be the single most important catalyst for the development of what is now a school providing meals and an education to over 300 young children daily. 

THIS LAND IS THE NEXT WATER TOWER. This property is not the payoff.  The ability to expand, and the potential that this land represents over the next several years is the payoff here.  Imagine being part of enabling the development of a school that can provide for not 300 but 500, 600 or more children as it continues to grow.

Here is our challenge to you.  Please consider what you and your family can do to help make this land purchase a reality.  It may be $20.  Maybe its $100.  15 of us at $300 and we are done.  Maybe you want to do more.  It is up to you.  We urge you though – be part of this with us.  We will be taking emails and calls all this week, and plan to follow up with Pastor Sackey by the weekend.

The ideal plan would be to donate $2000 towards the purchase, and then loan them the remaining $2500 to allow their church to participate in the payback.  (This would also allow us to re-use this portion of the funds at a later date.)  Lets team up with their church in Somanya and buy this land.  We know where the economy is at, but we also know that we serve a God that says he will supply ALL our needs.  We believe in stewardship of our resources, and believe that this is an investment that will pay back those involved in ways that will transcend finances.  Please, get involved with us.  Its an amazing story to be a part of.
We look forward to taking your call or email.  We can be reached at 208*585*7370 or by email.  We’d love to speak to you personally, however, if you would prefer to simply make a secure online contribution, please do so at our website. 

Blessings, and may you experience the peace of God during troubled times!
Chad and Amy Houck
World Wins Int’l

World Wins Int’l is a registered Idaho 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization, and all contributions are tax deductible as allowed by law.

Download Share5′s radio interview as an mp3.

Watch for updates from Catalyst this week!  We fly at 7:30 Tuesday morning.  You can also follow chad or amy on Twitter!

We just finished the design for the new shirts we will be printing for Catalyst last night. (see image)  These will be printed in small quantities this week for a test run to see how people respond to them before we print a larger quantity for the tour with Wavorly in November. (see my post on The Difference a Year Makes)

So… the flights are booked, rental car reserved, and its off to see what God has in store for us this year.  We appreciate your prayers this next week as we continue discussions with those we will be meeting there.  Please also be praying for either a renter or buyer for our house, as we’d love to get the house situation put to bed by early October.  We have been packing and moving things into storage at my mom’s, as we will only have basically 3 weeks after returning from Catalyst before heading to Arizona to kick off the Wavorly tour.  That makes for a lot of loose ends to still tie up in a relatively short time!
 

I walked up to a coffee table run by a group doing reconciliation ministry through Rwandan coffee.  As a volunteer unpacked their story, God spoke to me for what would be the first of many times that week.  He said “you need to work with this ministry”.  I thanked her for the coffee, and left wondering what that would mean.

The first person I had an appointment with suggested we go catch Andy Stanley’s opening session.  We headed to the front row of section 110, right next to the speaker’s entry. The intro video for REVERB (the theme for 2007) began, and all the screens in the arena flashed the statement “one person can make a difference” followed by the question “What will you do?”  I had no way of knowing it then, but this theme would resonate in my head and my soul until it caused a change to take place.

Andy Stanley called me “the most powerful person in the room”, and told me how God wanted to put “extraordinary influence” in my hands.  He asked how I would leverage that influence for the sake of others.  There may have been 11,999 other people in the arena, but I know he was talking to me.  I returned to the same seat after the break, and Francis Chan said that if I’d only believe what God says about me, there was no limit in what God would do through me.  More importantly, he asked if I was in love with my Jesus, and if I was doing the task he had set apart for me to do.  I called my wife and told her something indescribable was going on, enough to make me oddly sick to my stomach.  I told her I couldn’t explain it, but knew God was up to something.  She promised to pray.   I went to the hotel.  I went to bed.

Craig Groeschel told me the next morning that his 6 children were praying that God would disturb me.  Little did he know that God had already answered their prayers in advance. Shane Claiborne talked about being a different kind of Christian, and my eyes filled with tears.  I knew God meant me.  There was Sunday Adelijah, Erwin McManus, and others.  God used each one of them over those two days to speak to me at my very core. I ended up listening to every speaker, recognizing my only appointment was a God appointment.  Finally, Rick Warren asked what we would do with what God had placed in our hands. I began to inventory exactly what that was. He spoke of influence once again, and the responsibility that comes with it.  He spoke of his trips to Africa, and my eyes filled with tears yet another time.

My wife and I had just returned from our first trip to Africa only three weeks prior to Catalyst, and the memories were still fresh on my heart.  In 2005, God called my wife and I to start a nonprofit to work with and support ministry projects and development in Africa.  We founded the nonprofit, but a few months later, I was offered a position with a company to work in Christian media.  We put our nonprofit on hold, and I took the position.  A trip to Africa had been in our plans as well, but I canceled it twice over the next two years because it created schedule conflicts with my “real” work.  I guess God felt Catalyst was a good time to realign my priorities.

I returned from Catalyst and I knew God had done something, but I wasn’t sure what.  I remembered the coffee people.  I remembered the messages.  I even looked through my notes and watched the DVD’s I bought.  Its only in looking back today, however, that I can fully see what Catalyst 2007 meant.

As I write this, I am sitting in my home office with my wife.  We just booked our flights to come (together) to Catalyst 2008.  I am no longer an executive with a media company, though they are still doing quite well.  I resigned from that post in June, leaving my comfortable salary, benefits, and stock options to return to the calling God placed in my heart three years ago.  We have put our house on the market and will soon be moving our family of four into an RV. (thanks to Shane Claiborne for that idea!) We’ll be starting a traveling ministry for the project we call Share5, kicked off October 31st by 3 week multi-state tour as the ministry partner for Christian Rock band Wavorly!

This year at Catalyst (where the theme is appropriately "Together"), you will find us serving coffee from the table of our now good friends and ministry partners – Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee.  Turns out we’ve been able to fund some microfinance loans for a few of their growers.  There is a meeting on this year’s agenda as well with a couple other nonprofits whose leaders just happened to be either attending or speaking at Catalyst.  The introductions have literally been happening over just the last few days as we realized everyone would be in Atlanta.  Our plan is to discuss how we could combine our Share5 concepts, Land of a Thousand Hills’ coffee growers, specially designed bicycles from another nonprofit, and microfinance processes from yet a fourth to create an efficient, manageable and sustainable ministry solution none of us could have done on our own.  We’ll be coming together to talk about working together.

One year from Reverb to Together.  God spoke to one person, me, in 2007. Now, a year later, I find myself in a position of influence, bringing ministries together to help address problems we can’t solve on our own.  You think the Holy Spirit is leading us this year?  I look forward to being together.  Save me a seat at the front of section 110, right next to the speaker’s entry.  I seem to recall that God’s anointing is extra heavy in that spot.

Chad Houck
Director, Co-Founder
WorldWins International/ Share5