I have exciting news to share. Rachel and I only need another $200 for our trip to Ethiopia.

I’ll be honest, I had been worried that we were going to write a large check to get there. Thanks to all of you who gave for your generosity. We’re excited to go and to share with all of you what God does while we are there. Only 16 more days!

You need a mentor. In fact, you may need more than one mentor. You may need a mentor at work and a mentor who helps you to become a better person. Andy Stanley writes in Next Generation Leader:

You will never maximize your potential in any area without coaching. It is impossible. You may be good. You may even be better than everyone else. But without outside input you will never be as good as you could be.

Even the best athletes have coaches. Tiger Woods has a coach. There’s probably no one better at golf than Tiger, but he still needs someone to give him a third person perspective on his game, to evaluate him.

And you know what, chances are that you are not the wisest, smartest, or most experienced person in life or in your field of work.

How do you find mentors? I’ve got a trick to doing it, so stay tuned for part two.

It may be March 2, but it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Here’s some snow covered holly from my walk this afternoon.

Tonight we held a fundraiser for Beza, the church that we are partnering with in Ethiopia. It was a good time to hang out and sample some great food, and we were able to raise nearly $2,000!

A huge thanks to Min Kim and Mary Evans for doing most of the prep work for the event and of course thanks are owed to John Hasler, our fearless leader.

The first team leaves on Friday, and our team leaves in two weeks. I’m starting to get excited! Please be in prayer for all of us, especially for the team leaving this week. I’ll be posting some more specific prayer requests later.

I should have written about this earlier, but we’re having a fundraiser for Beza International Ministries (the church we’re working with in Ethiopia) at 6:00 tonight at Ebenezers Coffeehouse (201 F St. NE, Washington DC – next to Union Station). We’d love to have anyone who can come out and learn more about Beza, Ethiopia, and the teams from NCC that are headed there this month. The event is free, but a donation is requested.

If you can’t make it but are still interested in giving to Beza, please leave a comment below, and we’ll figure out the best way to do that.