going back to the beginning...
For those of you who may have missed it, I want to share our story, how we fell in love with Ethiopia, and the story behind the Ekklesia CarePoint.
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I had NEVER... EVER been drawn to a mission trip. It was something missionaries do, not me. But something stirred in me as I read the description of a mission trip our church would be doing to serve orphans and vulnerable children and women coming out of prostitution. So in November of 2012, Hannah, our oldest daughter, and I packed up and headed to Ethiopia. We fell in love with the people, the country, and the culture of this great place. My heart had been changed.
Fast forward six months. Ben had the opportunity to travel to the same place and meet the same people. He too fell in love. After two years, we decided to start a community of people here in the US to support a community (CarePoint) in Ethiopia. So in August of 2014, we traveled to Ethiopia together to identify a community in which we would partner and walk along side. I remember thinking, "How would we ever choose which CarePoint to partner with?" As I reflect, we didn't have to choose. God chose for us. See the story below.
“I’m done.”
When you look up the exclamation meaning of the word ‘done’ in the dictionary, you find “to accept the terms of an offer.” These words have finality. They mean you have made an agreement on something and there is nothing more to say. Ben and I often use these words with each other when we have made a firm decision about something. It doesn’t mean we are completely closed to another thing or idea… but close.
When we visited the first three CarePoints during our visit to Ethiopia in August, all desperate to find partners, we were truly moved by their stories. We fell in love with their missions to reach people for Christ, to provide for them spiritually, nutritionally, medically, and educationally. Their love for the children and the communities in which they live blew us away. We had in mind which one we would choose, but there wasn’t a unanimous feel behind the decision. We just knew any would be great to support. And we were okay with that.
On the day we were to head back to the U.S., we visited our last CarePoint. A young woman named Bersabeh shared the story of her father’s desire to bring holistic transformation to the poorest of the poor by sharing the Good News and providing vocational training for people to work and earn a respectable living. In fact he left is his career as a doctor and professor in the capital city of Addis Ababa to pursue a life serving the Lord and people in desperate need. At times during Bersabeh’s story, she had to pause to gain her composure. Her father had died in a tragic car accident before he could carry out that work. Bersabeh’s mother, Almaz Tarekegn, is now carrying on the mission of her late husband.
As I listened to the heart of Almaz, I leaned to the person next to me and said, “I’m done.” (Ben was not near me.) After the presentation, we visited a small classroom. It was in that classroom where the Lord brought the unity in which we had asked for prayer. Ben walked up to me with tears in his eyes and said, “I’m done.” We believed at that moment God had chosen where we should be.
Almaz’s mission is big. Really big. She’s been led to the Oromiya Region, which has a total population of 89,000 and is about 40 kilometers away from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. In this region, poverty just doesn’t impact a few, it impacts most. Her vision: to transform the lives of the poor through the Good News, education, and vocational training to help the young and the old find productive skills and jobs to break the cycle of poverty.
She’s established a beachhead in the community by starting a school named Ekklesia. Ekklesia currently serves about 100 kids in extreme poverty and also provides vocational training to unemployed youth and women. And we want to help her in God's mission.
So here we are - ready to take our first official mission trip to Ethiopia in May. We look forward to this journey, walking along side Almaz and the community in which she serves.