Trade As One

We’re one weekend into our 3 week event with Willow Creek Community Church. One of the thrusts of the whole event is that our actions here in America…

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In two days Celebration of Hope 2009 will begin. We’re so thrilled to be a part of this amazing event. For three weekends, Willow Creek will turn their eyes and their hearts toward the developing world. This year, they’re focusing on clean water issues, highlighting the unbelievable reality faced by 1.1 Billion people worldwide: no clean water.
Last year, the Willow congregation provided more than 40,000 hours of dignified, stable employment in the developing world in just two weekends. This year, we’re there for three weekends, and we can’t wait to see what will happen. But before we dive into Celebration of Hope 2009, we should revel a bit in what happened last year. We put together a video that does just that. Take a look at it here, and if you’re in the Chicagoland area, come out and see us!

I’ve spent the past couple days in Cincinnati at an event called Unbound (see previous post). Hundreds of high school kids are here hearing from people like Justin Dillon from Call+Response and Ben Skinner, author of A Crime so Monstrous.  It’s so encouraging to see the passion and conviction here. These kids desperately want to become the next generation of abolitionists.
During a conversation over dinner, Ben told me that when he was a kid, his Mom took him to Hiroshima, and that from that moment on he hated war. He compared that to the experience these kids are getting this weekend. These kids are not only are aware of slavery, for the rest of their lives they’ll hate it, and fight it.
Tonight they’re marching down to the river, where they’ll have a rally, and a chance to respond to what they learned. Kids will be using their spending to bring justice to Cambodia, India, Guatemala, and Thailand. Should be fun.