Changing the World an Egg at a Time

Sometimes teaching at ECS makes me feel like a little kid with his nose pressed to a giant window pane, looking out at the world on the other side of the glass in wonder. In my mind’s eye that’s me … only bigger,  my nose and forehead pressed against the glass of the window of my corner room in Eagle Hall, straining to look out at the wide world and at what some of my former students are doing.  

The view can be breath taking. One day I looked out and saw that quirky former 7^th grader trekking Bibles in Nepal, going to law school, and waging war on human traffickers. Then another time it was the kid who played third team defensive back … at best, and is now a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps planning convoys in Afghanistan, coordinating air strikes on really bad guys, and keeping the men in his care alive. And just the other day I mashed my nose a little flatter against the window and looked out to see Sam Holcomb.

Sam Holcomb, class of 2005, is going to sell eggs. Thousands and thousands, if everything goes well. And he is going to raise 6,000 chickens. And get water from point A to point B. And help little kids learn. And help provide jobs for their parents. And share the Gospel … in Rwanda … Africa. Not Arkansas. Not America. Africa. For the next two years.

To tell the truth, I had to wipe the fog off the window pane. This proved almost too much to believe. Sam Holcomb, going to Rwanda for two years to manage a chicken farm and to work on a hydroelectric plant to supply water to these same chickens and the people in that town? Sam Holcomb, the kid with the suspect academic work ethic and impulsive personality? The guy who almost didn’t get to play in a state football championship his senior year because he…get this… barked in the face of an opposing player. Yep, like a dog. And got ejected from the game. I found him after the game that night behind the field-house weeping bitter tears over his ridiculous mistake. It wouldn’t be his last.

This same kid I half-expected to one day call me asking for bail money had finally thumped his compass and gotten his heading. Over the course of our recent conversation, I realized that like Captain Jack Sparrow, his compass was now pointing to what he most desired, a mission bigger than himself.

 I love his story because it is decidedly not the caricature some people have of the “good” little ECS student who goes off to college to study hard in yet another Christian school and become a missionary to pygmies.  Sam still needs about 20 hours to graduate from Ole Miss. Listening to him talk, it was pretty obvious he came off the rails more than once in his college career. At one point he decided to join the military because he thought it would give him the discipline he needed, but couldn’t pass the physical because of allergy issues. He dropped out for a while. Went back and messed it up again.

Until just a few months ago, he had settled into the idea that he would be the tour manager for his brother Drew Holcomb (ECS class of 2000) and his band, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors. He was working with Drew, making decent money and had decided he was going into the music business. And then, for the lack of a better explanation, God moved, or better yet, continued to move things in the direction He had ordained from the day Sam was born into the family of Hamp and Nancy Holcomb.

It had long been Hamp’s habit to expose his kids to lots of options, and one of those was to meet lots of people doing kingdom work. “I always encouraged my kids to talk to lots of folks and meet lots of people and have lunch with people who I thought were doing interesting things.” It was Hamp who prompted Sam to have lunch with Tom Phillips, the president of Diversified Conveyors Inc., a company that donates at least one third of its profits to charity. And it was that lunch which helped him plot this course for Rwanda.

According to Hamp, after having lunch with Tom and his wife and hearing about the One Egg Project they were supporting, Sam came home from that meeting and for the next few days had a tough time sleeping. He couldn’t get that One Egg thing out of his mind. It was then that Hamp urged his youngest son to accept the opportunity to go to Rwanda with Tom for a tour of the projects his company supports.

 Within a month Sam was on a plane bound for Rwanda to tour One Egg Project sites with Tom. A week into the trip “I knew I was going to come here. There’s no way to explain it. Maybe being the youngest in the family, I’m just not used to making decisions. It didn’t feel like a decision, I just knew,” he laughs. “ I mean, man, I was talking to these interns working on their masters in engineering from Dartmouth at one of the project sites, and they keep telling me how much they would love to have this job, and all I can think in my head is ‘I already have it and I don’t even have my degree.’”  He is laughing the whole time he is trying to explain the unexplainable, but that’s Sam. I have known him since he was a middle schooler,  and this sort of ridiculously absurd kingdom adventure just fits him. He is just living up to his father’s defining question for deciding how his kids should pursue kingdom opportunities: “Why wouldn’t they do it?” That same question freed Drew to pursue music and Clare (class of 1999) to be a missionary with her husband in Panama.

Apparently Sam couldn’t come up with a good reason not to do it, so, he’s going to head off to Rwanda in March to manage a chicken house for the One Egg Project. His 6,000 chicken operation will provide jobs and skill training for adults, food for children, and a product for the market place that will in turn impact others in the community.  According to the One Egg website:

            These businesses, employ local workers, are locally owned, use local materials and purchase local    supplies. In addition to job creation and food to children suffering from malnutrition, eggs and chickens from OneEgg partners are also sold within local markets. This will help to further the development of food markets, ultimately impacting the overall health of developing regions by providing affordable sources of high quality protein.

I read this and realize that Sam has indeed found a mission bigger than himself. But I also realize that his quest had its roots in Christian parents whose response to questions about their kids always ended with “… and we’re still praying for Sam.” It involved a community of believers at church and in the community. And according to Sam, it involved coaches at ECS who “let us into their lives” and modeled what it looked like to invest in people. Together this threefold cord helped bind up in his heart the need for meaningful work. Work that would last for eternity.

Thanks to Sam Holcomb the view from my window in Eagle Hall makes the world look a little wider. From it I can see all the way to Africa.