I'll begin by giving you a brief overview of our trip to put everything into context. Basically each day we awoke around 7ish, ate breakfast at the guest house, then got on the bus around 9, from there we traveled to various ministries and orphanages, some 30 minutes away, some 2-3 hours away. Some were so poor and remote that you thought you were going to get a disease just breathing and some were well run, clean, and full of joy. We usually arrived back at the guest house late, ate dinner and then crashed. We literally visited like 10 or so places so to recap them all would be impossible. So my plan for the next week or so is to share two over arching ministries and then the things we can do to help. As I told you before, the needs were beyond overwhelming. Almost every night I would go back and ask Jesus to show me how my "little life" could make a difference in this vast poverty and He assured me that I could. So I want to warn you on the front end that as you read this your heart may rip from your chest, but there IS a way we can help.
So our first stop along the way will be in an undisclosed location in Ethiopia. It was actually our 2nd stop of the week in Ethiopia and it was a good thing it wasn't our first. To give you a little background about this place, it is a dump (or what we may call a landfill). I got to hear testimonies from several men that had lived there their entire lives which made the entire place come alive in my imagination. Basically to make a very long story short, many years ago, (like 75) leprosy was rampant across the area and an American Doctor had just just come in and built a hospital to treat these patients. I am certainly the furthest thing from medical, but evidently, even at that time, as long as the disease was caught in the early stages it was treatable, but there were two problems, one was money (if you are too poor to eat, traveling to get medication is out of your scope of options) and two, false religious beliefs. People believed that leprosy was a curse and literally if your own families members found out that you had the disease they would at best disown you and at worst take you out and shoot you.
That's what happened to our friend S's father. He got leprosy from walking bare foot in the fields, tending the cattle. He hid it from his family for a brief time, but then his father found out. His father sent his brother to take him to the woods and kill him. He did that or at least so he thought, he shot him in the FACE and left him for dead. Yes this was his nephew. SO, because God is radical always, he saved S's father life, a couple found him and took him to that hospital I mentioned earlier, he was treated for his leprosy and healed. S did say that his father's face was still horrific, but he lived. He also met a lovely wife and they were married. But then the troubles continue. Once you have had leprosy and been ostracized from your family you can't exactly go back to town and work, so in order to provide food and shelter for his new family, S's dad relocated to the dump. He built a "house" there, had some children, and then the troubles continue. The country's leadership at that time was corrupt and would often visit the dump and slaughter whomever they came in contact with in order to rid the country of the "cursed people". Now is a good time to mention to you that sweet S has now been born and is SEVERAL years YOUNGER than me. So when S's parents would go to the dump to dig for food or items to sell they had to take S and his siblings to the woods and tie them up so they would be safe. At this time S is about 4 years old. S grows up, becomes a young teen and decides he has got to get out. He and his friend walk into town and sneak on a train to go and join the military, they have no desire to do this, they are not legally old enough to carry a weapon, yet they know this route will ensure them 3 meals a day so it is there only option. They get there, go through the line and get assigned a military uniform (which is 10 sizes too big) and then during line up they get thrown out. S explained it to us like this, we were so skinny, that even just walking through town it was known we were from Korah. S and his friend come back home, depressed and hopeless, they walk into the dump and JESUS shows up! He comes in the form of a man named Chuck Reinhold, a man who journeyed to Ethiopia to start Young Life there and had just "stumbled" upon this place. That sweet man of God talks to those boys, then day after day invites them back to their house. They are in total awe because no one from Ethiopia will even talk to them because of their outcast status, and now they are dining with foreigners. Chuck and his team tell them about Jesus, they are beyond trilled that the God of all the universe cares for them and loves them. And Chuck sets up a way for them to be sponsored and go to boarding school. WOW, how gracious is our Father to execute the impossible.
There is just one small problem, our dear friend S, he never gets sponsored...........He never gets to go to boarding school. All of his friends get to go, but not him. This is a good time to remind you again that S is younger than me. Ok, so year after year, his friends come back, they are strong men from being fed well, but not S, he is still skinny. Why God? Why have you turned your back on me? Why have you not opened the door for me? He fights those feelings, starts a Bible Study in the dump, and then gets a job in town with a Christian guest house to tour missionaries through Ethiopia, at least there he can get some food.
Well why do you think God didn't take sweet S from the dump? Often times if God removes us, our heart for the people will be removed as well. God gives S a vision to help the people of this place, but he doesn't even have the money or the means to eat, much less start a ministry. And then ONE DAY, a team comes in from Tennessee (not us, this is a few months back), they are touring with S and an orphanage they are supposed to visit backs out because they are celebrating Ethiopian Christmas. What will we do, asks the team, how will we help someone celebrate Ethiopian Christmas? S is brave, he speaks up, let's take a meal to the dump. This place wasn't exactly on the tour of places to visit back then. So they go, they grab some goats and put them on top of the van, alive, they pay two men to come with them to slaughter and skin the goats for the feast. They get there and the men realize where they are and run back to town for their lives, the cursed people, no way. So some men at this place, who probably have never even seen a goat, jump in, slaughter, skin, cook and celebrate like never before. Later as the team is sitting down for their dinner (to say we can't eat freshly slaughtered goat in Ethiopia is an understatement for several reasons) a sweet lady sits across from S. She starts asking him questions, he says in his mind "I am not sharing my vision again, I am so tired of sharing my vision and it never happening" but God gives him the grace and the rest in very recent history. In a few short months, that sweet gal has moved to Ethiopia, they have set up a sponsorship program for 300 kids to go to boarding school (that's as many as the school could hold). We asked who else goes to that boarding school (as we know it wasn't built for the kids at the dump) and they said, "the richest in Ethiopia" and we smile at God's grace. They have also started a shelter for the horrifically poor, a church, and summer camp for the children where they will at least get one hot meal a day.
So that's where we went my friends. We went to the dump and we fell so madly in love that life will never be the same. I think everyone in the group would have canceled the rest of the trip and just stayed there and been happy. Those kids were so alive BECAUSE THEY HAD HOPE! We did a tour of homes, far from something you would do in a big southern town in America. We entered one home that was about the size of Cross' room (maybe a 10X12) and 14 people lived there. There were 3 beds, but on one side of the room, the roof leaked so they had to rotate sleeping throughout the night on the two beds that were dry. The kids had no clothes on, the mother and grandmother looked about 100, but no one there lives to be much over 50 or 60. The next home on our tour took us to a house about the size of my tiny little hallway. There lived 5 teenage boys who were a part of the ministry's program. They had been set up there until they could go to school. I am sure they were all orphans. Only two were home, the others were out digging in the dump. I did not get to go to the actual dump because there was some hostility arising with Americans coming in and taking photos. The people had asked, "what are we animals in a zoo that you would like to photograph". With a group of 22, we were a white sceptical everywhere we went so half of us stayed back. Their feelings were right, evidently others had come, taken photos, yet nothing had changed.
So to end this post, I would like to introduce to you some of my friends. The very handsome young man right about the post is the young man that Jeremy and I sponsored. "Picking" someone to sponsor was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my entire life. It was like picking someone's life to save. But I vowed as I picked my friend who I had fallen in love with the first visit, that I would do everything in my power to make sure all 300 that qualified were sponsored in time for school to start in September. My young man was so incredibly humble and smart. He spoke some English, he interpreted for me all day, he never once asked me to sponsor him. Finally I asked him if he had been sponsored (I assumed he had) and he hung his head and said no. I knew I couldn't let him be another S who didn't get out. But there were so many others, promising young men and precious young girls. Two musts on my list are Baza (at the very top) and Brooktie (2nd from the bottom). Roll your R's my friends. Her name is so beautiful. I think I may have to get a second job if they are not sponsored soon. Baza had no parents and was so thin that I think if you tapped her with your finger she would break, but her kisses and her smile lit up my entire life. I can still see her as I was driving away leaping and blowing me kisses. And Brooktie, so polite, so grown up, with so much promise in her future. She would be brilliant I know.
You see schools there are not free and families that can't feed themselves can't send their kids to school because not only can they not afford the schools, but then their children will not be able to eat because they wouldn't have spent the day in the dump digging for food. But at boarding school ALL of that problem is solved. At first when I heard the word boarding school I thought, "oh wow, that is probably very expensive", that was a dumb thought when comparing anything in Ethiopia to the American dollar, $700 a YEAR, that's it! Only $58.33 a month and a child's entire life will change. They told us that people with an education will flourish in Ethiopia, it is just so difficult to come from poverty and end up with an education.
So I am speaking to you from the kids at the dump, please, please, please sponsor at least one! They will know you and love you and know your name and brag about you (several who were sponsored kept asking me if I knew "so in so" because they knew I was from TN). You will in many ways literally be their parents. I also learned so much while I was there about how no organization could reach all of the people in the world. That is why we have Compassion and so many organizations like these. Compassion has a home office in Ethiopia, but it would be impossible for them to reach that whole country and after touring parts of it I can most certainly see why. There are over 130,000 people living in this dump alone. This sponsorship program is just their step one. There is still a vast amount of work to do, but for every life that is changed, it will equate a family that will eventually be freed.
So how do you get started? Well here is the link to the awesome people back here in the states that are spear heading all of the logistics of the program. http://www.p61.org/sponsorship.html Basically the missionaries there, along with S, and the pastor of the church are overseeing who qualifies for sponsorship and then a team here in Nashville runs the "business" side of things. They wanted to make it very clear to us that 100% of the sponsored funds went to that child. No ministry costs were involved in this what-so-ever. Unless you want to sponsor Baza or Brooktie (which I am praying that you do) you can just contact them and they have the children set up on a "need" basis, I am assuming the older ones are first and the ones who are orphaned or who are in extreme poverty conditions. There are no words for the pride I felt having a blog community I could come home to that I knew would help, actually who would be dying to help and already asking me how they could help. I love my friends and I have not yet mentioned this, but knowing that you were praying me through gave me the grace to laugh at satan's schemes. He is defeated and no matter his attempts to brag in the middle of the dump, in Ethiopia, God has already worked all things for good there for those who have put their hope in Christ Jesus. satan will be sorry I know. So until next time, change someone's life. There will be no greater high and no thicker of His presence than this. I have been so convicted this week at my ignorance of our calling from the Word to minister to the poor. I have never met someone that literally had NO clothing until this week. I have never met anyone that was digging through a dump to get food and unlike in America, there is no welfare program or homeless shelter to be found. There is no such thing as a food stamp there. There is no Medicare or Medicaid, only the hands and feet of Jesus and that was an awe striking honor. I love you guys, come with me to Ethiopia, we just can't sit around here any longer!
K
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