Hello all!

So we’ve started doing something new with Dry Tears in which a youth group, church, school, whatever, will adopt a village in Africa and raise money to build a well there.  We have creatively called this the Adopt A Village program =)

As you may know, the middle school and high school youth groups at our home church of West Ridge in Dallas Georgia recently raised enough money for the village of Fing (silent “g”) in Burkina Faso! Now, First Baptist Woodstock (crazy gigantic church in, you guessed it, woodstock georgia) has decided to join.  The college ministry (Prime) has adopted the village of Sono, a village also in Burkina Faso.  They are raising money through the entire month of March, though we would not be surprised to see them continue their efforts beyond this month.  We ask that all of you reading pray that God would provide hope for the people of Sono in a miraculous way and we are so proud of First Baptist Woodstock for joining the Dry Tears movement!

It was random. But just the type of randomness that makes me love what I do.

Her name is Ana Vianei and she’s a freshman at Marietta High School. She explains to me over a facebook message that she and her friends have been hand-stitching shirts with Africa on the front. They found out about Dry Tears and also wanted to be a part of the growing movement of students that are radically making a difference. With more friends on board and shirts being sold like crazy, Ana and her friends at MHS continue to have after-school sewing parties to make these shirts and %100 percent of the profits from each shirt go towards the funding of a well.

So, I went to this conference in Irvine, California. A couple of my friends were gonna be there, like Zach Hunter, Charles Lee, and Billy Williams. This conference was called the Idea Camp, and it was really awesome. There were guest speakers and a lot of different workshops, but instead of just being taught, it was extremely interactive. People gave and critiqued ideas, and it was just an awesome time to connect with people.

On Saturday morning, I drove to the conference and Charles Lee (who put on the whole thing) came up talking to me about what time I was going up and what kind of questions were gonna be asked. Then it hit me, I’m going up on stage! I was blown away and honored. Zach and I both went up there and it was an awesome and unexpected time! Here are some pictures from that event that my brother, Chad, took.

Zach is in the middle and Charles is on the left.

The Idea Camp - Zach Hunter & Conner Cress from The Idea Camp on Vimeo.