THIS JUST IN:: $120,000 Raised to Help Fight Human Trafficking

A Letter from Chris Heuertz, International Director of Word Made Flesh

to all the WMF community,

well, i write to you with a heart bursting with gratitude and a soul that is overwhelmed.

as many of you know, in january 2011 the Passion movement (louie giglio, chris tomin, matt redman…) helped us raise $90,000 for [our] project in bolivia. they raised more than 3 times what we had asked. amazing.

since march i’ve been working with them to figure out a continued Passion+WMF partnership. this fall we finally found some traction and it all played out today in an answer to our prayers.

over the past 4 days the annual Passion event has taken place here in atlanta. this year they had nearly 44,000 students and their focus was on freedom for victims of human trafficking. they had identified 8 organizations they wanted to partner with (WMF was NOT among the original 8)-their goal was to raise $1 million to help these 8 groups.

to everyone’s surprise they raised well over $3 million. during these past 4 months i’ve been in talks with them re: the possibility of Passion helping [one of our projects]. today, from the main stage louie giglio introduced [our community] to 44,000 students and informed they’ll be making at $120,000 gift to help us buy and renovate a new [project] building!

i sat in the georgia dome (where the atlanta falcons play their football games) and tried to hold back the tears as 44,000 students cheered for our [project] women. it was powerful.

let’s claim this as a promise that God is with us and for us, that 2012 wil be a year when our prayers for freedom, justice and hope can be answered.

if you’ve not seen this, CNN did a story on the even that you can watch here :: http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2012/01/05/cfp-clancy-do-something-now.cnn#/video/world/2012/01/05/cfp-clancy-do-something-now.cnn

peace to each of you as we believe for better than good things in 2012,

chris

*the specific name of the project the funds were raised for has been omitted for security purposes