Pic Credit: Jerry Espinosa

Back from another trip to Haiti. Looking forward to getting this week started and making things happen. But first, let me take a moment to reflect on my 7th pilgrimage to Haiti last week.

• Every-time I go to Haiti, it helps me to re-center my life and ensure my priorities are straight.
• Haiti is beautiful. The people, the art, the food. We need to tell these stories more and more.
• Worshipping God in the midst of the largest tent-city in Haiti never gets old. We can learn so much from the resolve of Haitians and the local church that continues to move forward in spite of so many obstacles.
• We blogged daily while in Haiti. Go here for the links.
• The team from Austin New Church was amazing. As always!
• We will be launching our anti-trafficking initiative soon. Can’t wait to share the details. We’re going to need your help.
• We were able to start a new water project for 30 orphans to have clean water. We’ve committed to 25 clean water projects. This well was funded by a church that raised the funds through a Garage Sale for Orphans event last month. I love this!
• We also built two homes for two families. One home was also for a widow. Helping a family move back into a home NEVER gets old. This is why we’re doing the 100 homes project.
• We don’t call our trips “mission trips,” instead we call them “pilgrimages.” It’s truly a time to listen, learn, feel tension, be present and also get some work is done. (building two houses) Each team member raised an extra $500 to help build the two homes. Which also helped to created 10-12 jobs for Haitians before we arrived.
• It looks like we will be sending a family to live in Haiti full-time in the next few months. That’s crazy, scary and beautiful.
• We’ve also committed to giving a micro-loan to three pastors so they can expand their businesses. If only you could see how happy they were to learn that we will help them move their businesses forward.

Tweet. Meet. Give.

On 12 February 2009 175+ cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals which brings together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.

Movement has become (and for good reason) a massive focus in the global church world. We’re all trying to grasp what it means to start a movement, become involved in a movement and hopefully experience a movement. 

Twestival is a simple example of what a movement is, or could be, simple, effective, community-driven & glocal with lots of “normal” people helping out. It’s really a snippet of the power of movements; tonight in 175 cities across the globe, people will come together and listen to music and while doing that they will provide clean water to thousands of people in developing nations.

I have no clue who is leading this movement. I just know I got asked to go, I trust charity:water and I want to meet some new friends in Austin. Win-win baby!