There's a video from NBC NEWS connected to RED NOSE DAY getting big traction on social media this week highlighting the day Jack Black spent with a Ugandan orphan boy named Felix who is living on the streets...and whose biggest desire in life is to get to learn by going to school as a 12 year old...
I watch this 4 minute piece and was instantly taken back to my first visit to a small village community in rural Zambia about a dozen years ago where I met several boys just like Felix who shared the very same life story and life desires in the midst of the devastation of a global HIV/AIDS pandemic...
At that moment, the trajectory of my life shifted...and that shift has actually even accelerated and become more significant as we now move through the days of 2015...my life story gained new and challenging and beautiful chapters because I was drawn into the life stories of Peter and Gracious and Monica and Darwin and Anthony in an unexpected, only God could do it way...
I never expected to try and raise a million dollars to help respond to the needs of the poor and oppressed in Africa...I never expected to travel over and over again to a place 8000 miles from the Midwest...and I never expected that even my career and ministry would be most deeply tied to communities in a place I couldn't have picked out on a world map in 2002...
I am quite certain that Jack Black's story in life will now include new words and chapters...because he entered into Felix's life in Uganda...the power of a story to change us and give us new passions and desires and even priorities is truly remarkable...
As I watched this video with tears filling my eyes I thought of many of you at CU...the opportunity you have to enter into life stories in unexpected ways in the year to come...and how excited God must be to set up those divine moments where our lives and stories intersect and new stories emerge...
Whose story do you need to step into? Whose life will you enter into when presented with a surprising moment? It's one of the greatest things we get to do as a leader...and something that invites us to bring change and be changed in Jesus' name...
Take 5 minutes to watch the stories of Jack Black and Felix at the link below...and ask God to prepare you well by giving you courage and love and willingness to enter into stories in new ways in the coming year in the places God has invited you to serve and love as you hear stories...CHIP
