MORE GOOD NEWS
This is just too freaky not to share! I've been watching Tami Heim's tweets about the Thomas Nelson sales conference. She mentioned a boy there named Austin Gutwein who had raised over $30k for World Vision through basketball with his Hoops of Hope project. Gutwein wasn't a name I'd heard since the pastor who led Dave and I to the Lord left Wabash. It's not a common name. So of course I had to look up Austin. The first thing I saw was that he was in Mesa, AZ. Pastor Don Gutwein lives in Mesa now. It mentioned Austin's dad was named Dan. By then the bells were clanging in my head. We'd loved all the Gutwein kids: Amy, Dawn, Mike and Danny.

I emailed Tami and asked to to see if Austin's grandpa was named Don and his grandma was Judy. But then I found a video. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16110914/ I saw Austin's dad Dan and it's the Danny I know! Talk about an incredible coincidence! What's so cool about this is how Pastor Gutwein's family is continuing to serve the Lord. We had lost track of them in recent years, but we're going to have to look them up again. It's just amazing!

The really cool story of how we met the Gutweins is yet another good news type thing. We'd been invited to their church by Dave's boss and had gone one time. We'd intended to go back--you know what they say about good intentions. We'd been out celebrating my birthday and Davy's birthday (we're a day apart) and while we were at my in-laws', freezing rain had started to fall. We didn't realize how bad the roads were and blithely started for home. We never made it. We had a head on collision with a boy and his passenger. The boy was driving drunk. His passenger was killed and we were in the hospital for about 10 days with various things. Our daughter was hurt the worst (she had broken jaw) but we all made it. After we got home, the church began to bring food in for us, even though we'd only been there once. We just loved the Gutweins and their kids.

The really encouraging thing about all this is that we never know what impact we will have on others. I'm sure Gutweins never knew the ripples that would go out from that first meeting and that a young woman they led to the Lord would be fortunate enough to be able to write the books of her heart that contain a Christian message. It's a super encouragement to me today. So keep fighting the good fight and reaching out to those around you. You never know where it might lead and how the ripples will go on for years!

Labels: Austin Gutwein, Hoops of Hope