Inspiration often occurs at the point of confrontation with
a problem.  That is what happened with
General Motors Vice President, Terry Woychowski, whose family had gotten
involved in the sponsorship of an African outreach in Malawi, through the efforts of
their church and the World Vision organization. 
The Woychowskis sponsored a ten year old boy named Solomoni Mufata.  Solomoni, one of five children living with a
single mother in an AIDs ravaged territory, began receiving financial support
from the Woychowski family.  But soon, he
would receive much more. 

            As Terry
Woychowski explains, "I often pray for him, and want to help instill in
him a Godly way of life.  I also want to help
Solomoni lead a battle against corruption in his country and help lead his
people to a better way of life. Then I received a background report on Solomoni
which included his report card.  He was
failing all grades and was going to be required to repeat the second
grade.  I found this shocking and
unacceptable."  Woychowski decided
to do something to help.  He began by
researching the reasons why Solomoni was doing so poorly in school; the biggest
of which turned out to be truancy. 
Solomoni was missing a lot of school. 
Among other reasons, Solomoni is needed to help with the family chores,
particularly the efforts involving the processing of corn, his family's staple
food crop.  This not only involves
growing and harvesting the corn, but transporting it to another village and
having it ground into a fine flour, a key ingredient in their main food.  The grinding is done on a diesel powered
hammer mill, which is fraught with problems and is not always reliable.  Additionally, the whole process is expensive
(estimated to consume about 30% of a family's annual income).  Beyond the $15.00 per gallon fuel price, the
grinder is a day's walk away from Solomoni's village.  This means that young Solomoni must carry a
40 pound bag of corn on a day's march, spend money and another day getting it
ground, then carry it back home again on the third day.  No wonder little Solomoni's education was
slipping when it took so much to simply survive. Worst of all, however, was the
fact that Solomoni's situation was not unique but typical for his region of the
world.

            Woychowski,
a leadership guru and serial engineer, knew just what to do.  He marched into a regularly scheduled meeting
in which he mentors a select group of up-and-coming automotive engineers (who
have named themselves "Terry's ARMY" after the characters in the
Harry Potter series who styled themselves as "Dumbledore's ARMY"),
gave a short presentation about Solomoni and his dilemma, and said simply,
"Fix this.  Use the best fifty
minutes to create a plan that the ARMY can implement to address the failing
performance of Solomoni."  One can
only imagine the looks on the faces of the young protégés as they wondered if
their mentor was serious.  Quickly the
group got to work and dug up information and crafted action plans.  One of these plans led to a Senior Design
Project at Michigan
Technological University
to design and develop a human powered hammer mill, built from inexpensive
component parts readily attainable in the local African villages.  Sponsorship would be provided by the
Woychowski Charitable Foundation, and development would take place at Michigan
Tech.  Next, The World Hope organization
agreed to build and test several units, pending a viable design.

            The result
was the first ever workable human-powered hammer mill.  World Hope has now begun installing mills in Zambia
to test performance.  David Erickson of
World Hope reported that the mills, "are generating a lot of
excitement."  The human-powered
hammer mills have the potential to ease the burden of thousands of sub-Saharan
families and may also help small businesses prosper because of lower corn
processing costs.  If successfully
implemented, the ramifications of the hammer-mill project would be truly
immeasurable. 

            That's how
it works with inspiration in the life of a leader.  Caring enough to dig into a problem thousands
of miles away caused a pivotal moment of inspiration for Terry Woychowski and
his ARMY of young protégés.  They spotted
a challenge and decided to do something about it.  The ideas flowed as a result.  What began as a way to help a ten year old
boy turned into something far larger, spanning several organizations and
continents and loaded with the potential to affect thousands.  That's the power of the weapon of inspiration
in the hands of leaders who care.