This weekend we heard the story of Olympic Gold Medalist Chad Hedrick. For 10 years, Chad was the overall world champion of inline skating. In 2002 he exchanged pavement for ice when he became a speed skater, quickly winning the All-Around World Championship in Norway. At the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Torino, he won three medals: the gold in the 5000m, a silver in the 10,000m and a bronze in the 1500m—becoming only the third Winter Olympian to win 3 medals in a single Olympic Games.
Chad and his family have been a part of our Capital family for the last year. I invited him to share the story of his spiritual journey with our community before he departed for the Vancouver Games. If you missed the video or the live interview, you can view it below.
As most of you know, on Tuesday a magnitude 7 earthquake struck the island of Haiti, creating one of the greatest natural disasters of our lifetime. There are several factors that make this disaster so terrible. The epicenter of the quake occurred in a densely populated area, where poverty levels were high, and the quality of building construction wasn’t. At present, the Red Cross estimates that 50,000 people have been killed. More than a million people are now without homes. Access for aid workers is difficult, because Haiti is an island, and the port was destroyed. Lines of communication have been seriously disrupted. And on top of everything, many of the responders are also victims—people who have lost their homes and their loved ones
Most of you are asking: WHAT CAN I DO? Our government and first responders discourage us from going. At this stage in the process, we need leave these efforts to the professionals, because most of us would just get in the way and become an additional resource drain.
But there are two things we can do as followers of Jesus: We can PRAY. We can GIVE.
At all three of our weekend services, we will receive an offering for our partner on the ground in Haiti—the Convoy of Hope. The Convoy of Hope is a humanitarian organization with resources leveraged around the world to help those in need. Their ministry in Haiti feeds 7000 children each day, and I’m thankful that their warehouse was restocked just before the earthquake. This enabled them to establish a command center just outside the capital city of Port-Au-Prince within 24 hours of the disaster.
But they need help. They need our prayers. They need our money. Right now. When you come to church this weekend, please come prepared to give generously for our friends who really need our help.
www.convoyofhope.org
Here’s a link from MSNBC with a reference to our partners:
