Half a decade and half a million dollars

An email I sent out today reflecting on 5 years of response to AIDS in Zambia to my friends in leadership at World Vision USA...

Tomorrow is the last day of school at WA for this year...and it is the end of year 5 of this thing called the Zambia Project...I just wanted to drop you a short note of grateful thanks for your part in helping to change the lives of kids here in Chicago and in Zambia and in other schools across the country...

As we celebrate a third year in a row of raising over $100,000 for orphans and widows in Africa (I believe they call that the threepeat of fundraising) and over $515,000 from our little campus flowing from West Chicago to Kakolo Village, I am simply overwhelmed...I am amazed at the longevity of God's spirit in moving this team of students, I am amazed that these numbers represent so many changed lives for now and for eternity on both sides of the Atlantic, I am amazed that on our campus and on many other high school and college campuses there is a pretty large group of students who love to talk intelligently and passionately about things such as poverty, debt relief, AIDS, economics, justice, mercy, transformational community development, Milennium Development Goals, the Kingdom, the john 10:10 mandate, compassion, and other things that weren't in their vocabularies 5 years ago, I am amazed at how Jesus has wrecked our lives in the best way possible, I am amazed at the connection with those outside the church this project has given us, I am amazed at the richness of community found in caring for the poor and oppressed, I am amazed at how God has changed me and hundreds of students in doing something we simply couldn't have imagined in our wildest dreams a half a decade ago...

And I stand amazed before the God who loves children and communities in Africa far more than us...one of the students who helped cast the vision for this project at the beginning said to me the other day, "I remember that the One Life Revolution original goal was to raise a million dollars for Zambia...it looks like maybe you guys will do that just at WA..." And I simply replied back to him, "You know, maybe we will...nothing surprises me anymore when God shows up..."

Thanks for helping us to write a story, to meet God in the dirt of Africa and the strip malls of the suburbs, and to forever have our hearts drawn to Jesus and those He loves deeply...

Looking forward to the next half decade,

CHIP