NIGHT OF NETS: Is This the World You Want?

Yesterday in chapel we showed a new film piece from our recent Zambia trip where some of our incredible Zambian leaders and caregivers discuss the impact of malaria in their lives and communities...here's the link to watch an incredibly moving and educational piece:

https://vimeo.com/107432341

After we showed this video I read something I recently wrote after watching it to our student body...the words remind me and I hope inspire you to continue to pursue a world without malaria...those words are here below...

I don’t know about you, but when I run across a huge problem, something I know just isn't right, when the world does not look like I want it to look and how I believe God intends it to be, I want to come up with a viable and effective and long term solution.

 And you've heard today from our friends in Zambia the scope of this 1 problem, this disease called malaria. And you've heard the incredible power of the solution called an insecticide treated bed net.

 And God in His sovereignty, in His surprising plan, has invited our school to help make others aware of what happens every night when Mosquitos buzz into homes in Africa. And he's called us to be a leader in rewriting that story and giving life in all its fullness without malaria to this next generation in places like Ndola, Zambia. 

 GO week is about learning. And GO week has to be about doing as followers of the God who desperately loves every nation and person in our world.

 Wednesday night is our final night of nets event for this fall. The men's soccer team started this event 5 years ago. And our passion as a team and as a campus still continues to grow as God enlarges both our hearts and our visions for global impact. They are actually hoping to raise the funds thru one match to provide every home, 1500 at risk families, who still need a bed net served by our partner Jubilee Ministries in a place where malaria season is just around the corner…

 I love the fact that one of our defining traditions now, one of our can't miss events at CU, is something where we do something focused on the other, the least of these as we watch a game on a beautiful fall night featuring something on a grass field our African friends love dearly, and we cheer together for this school, this community of faith we all are part of...

 I hope...I actually do pray you'll be there Wednesday night at 7pm on our soccer field. Wear your NON shirt (buy one and save a life like almost 1000 others already have…it’s the thing this year). I need a great all campus shot at halftime. Don't buy Starbucks for the next 2 days, skip a movie this coming weekend, or just give with gratitude $6 as you head into the stands because the reality is that those green nets you saw in African huts on a video today are the ones that $6 of our money collected in an orange bucket at our CU athletic events purchased for their families. They are the ones that my 11 year old sponsored child Darwin who wants to show me his own book he's published someday now sleeps under because of some of you who went to a night of nets match...

 Is this the world you want? It’s a question we all have to daily ask and face as followers of the one who proclaimed He had come to bring the Kingdom…If not, let's make it different Wednesday night...