(Nashville, Tennessee) Word Records and UMCOR  (United Methodist Committee on Relief) have partnered to present a benefit concert for Haiti relief. Point of Grace, Mark Schultz, and many special guests will perform at this Feb. 6 event.  All proceeds will go directly to benefit the relief efforts in Haiti. Every donations made to UMCOR is used 100% for Haiti relief. This means that 0% of donated money will be used for administrative or other operating costs.

The concert will take place at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb 6, at Brentwood United Methodist Church. The concert is free and open to the public. Tickets are available online here.

Point of Grace – www.pointofgrace.net

Mark Schultz – www.markschultzmusic.com

Brentwood United Methodist Church – www.bumc.net

UMCOR – www.umcor.com

(Colorado Springs, CO) WAY-FM and World Vision announce a national tour featuring Jeremy Camp, The Afters, Chasen, with special guest Jason Gray. The tour will kick off January 20 in Charleston, SC and will travel to a total of 8 WAY-FM radio markets, finishing up in Louisville, KY on February 12.

Steve Quant, Director of Media Acquisition for World Vision stated, “I’m always amazed at the generosity of God’s people. Audiences in these eight cities will not only enjoy a night of powerful music, but will also fuel World Vision’s efforts by forever changing lives of children all over the globe.”

The tour is a component of the partnership between the two organizations that began last summer. Lloyd Parker, WAY-FM Chief Operating Officer noted, “The tour was designed to bring the outstanding ministry of World Vision to the local station level. Working with key WAY-FM artists like Jeremy Camp and also The Afters will give a great evening of music to our listeners.”

Tour Itinerary:

January 20 Charleston, SC

January 22 West Palm Beach, FL

January 28 Wichita, KS

January 29 Denver, CO

February 5 Ft Myers, FL

February 6 Tallahassee, FL

February 11 Huntsville, AL

February 12 Louisville, KY

Markets served by WMG include Denver, CO; Nashville, TN; West Palm Beach/Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Huntsville, AL; Louisville, KY; Colorado Springs, CO; Charleston, SC and Wichita, KS with additional cities and affiliates listed on www.wayfm.com

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. www.worldvision.org

A Guest Blog Post by Chad Houck

As 2009’s final weeks and days pass, I find myself at what has often in the past been a difficult season.  It’s that season where I evaluate my past year, perhaps contemplate setting some new lofty goals, and maybe even lay out a few new practices that I’d like to implement into my life.  About every third year or so, I been known to buy a gym membership that I later fail to utilize and try to get out of come March.  That’s right, New Years and its accompanying resolutions are right around the corner.

Personally, thanks to the lessons I’ve learned over the past year of my life, I plan to approach this New Year a bit differently.  I won’t be setting any earth shatteringly high bars to leap over.  I likely won’t even set any “resolutions” at all, save one -  to begin.

You see, I’ve come to realize that the primary reason I’ve failed to achieve certain goals or to take advantage of certain opportunities that I’ve encountered may not have had anything to do with the difficulty of the final objective.  In fact, probably more often than not, the things I either wanted or needed to do weren’t even that difficult.  I just never got the ball rolling.  I simply failed to begin to do something.

Lately, however, I’ve come to realize just how far you can go in the 365 days following that all-important first step.

Perhaps there is no better example of this than a young friend of mine from Arizona named Austin.

Austin Gutwein

If you met him today, you’d likely be amazed at by how humble this remarkably influential young man is.  At a surprisingly young age, he is directly responsible for the development of 2 clinics and a high school in Zambia, Africa, as well as additional projects in Kenya and Swaziland.  In 2007, the organization that he founded (at the age of 11) provided bicycles and World Vision’s AIDS caregiver kits to 250 indigenous AIDS caregivers in Sinazongwe, Zambia.  For Austin, 2009 will be remembered as the year that his organization crossed the $1,000,000 mark in funding for AIDS orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Oh, and also as the year that he turned 15.

Austin Gutwein didn’t set out to build the world’s largest basketball free-throw shoot-a-thon. In 2004, after watching a World Vision video about AIDS orphans in Africa, he realized that these were children just like him.  He felt that God was calling him to do something to help them, so on World AIDS day, with his friends and family sponsoring him, 9 year-old Austin shot 2,057 free throws, one for each child that would be orphaned by AIDS during his typical school day.  As his father Daniel counted the shots, Austin’s solo effort raised just over $3000 that day.   More importantly, however, it was the beginning of Hoops of Hope.

Austin will be the first to tell you that he had no idea where those initial shots would lead.  The following year he was joined on the court by several friends and collectively they raised over $35,000, supporting and caring for 100 orphans.  2006 saw the first school built in Zambia, providing 1,000 children the opportunity to envision a future with an education – But it never would have continued if it hadn’t begun.

Occasionally we see an opportunity before us but (continue reading…)