As we were getting ready to fly out of Houston in route to Africa we were informed we had a last minute ministry change. As we stepped on to the plane we had no idea what awaited us in Ethiopia after a nearly 48 hour travel day(s).
We spent a couple of days at a hostal in Addis Ababa while our squad leaders and the AIM coordinators talked to ministry contacts about us spending the month of March with them.
My team, as well as two other all women’s teams ended up being placed with a ministry called Testimony 25:40
Mathew 25:40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
A 27 year old man named Gadisa started this ministry right outside of downtown Addis to provide both physical and spiritual feeding and schooling for children living on the street. Gadisa has a powerful story. He grew up on the streets as an orphan himself but did not let his circumstances define his future. He went to school every day, elementary school through university education, despite having nowhere to sleep at night from the time he was 12 on into his twenties. God’s hand and favor were over his life before he ever came to know Christ. When he finally did meet Christ he was ultimately given the ministry of working with children in the same situation in which he lived his entire childhood.
Needless to say we were awestruck that the Lord was allowing us to work with this ministry for the month of March and potentially into April and May.
We spent the first week here praying for Ethiopia, for peace, for the ministry and our time here, for the locals and for the Ethiopian government to allow us to work with a recently opened refugee camp.
Nearly 1,000 Ethiopians living on the Somalian border were moved to Addis within the past couple of weeks to a government sponsored camp. The war over territory was far too dangerous for them to survive in at the Somali border.
They are ALL Muslims.
Kayli Harshbarger and I dreamed of working with refugees when we were living in Cambodia nearly 6 months ago. I have also had many dreams of women covered in black head to toe save for their eyes. When we heard we were to pray for this opportunity to work with them we prayed FERVENTLY.
The mayor met with Gadisa after a week of prayer. She was thrilled that a group of English speaking Americans (and Canadians) wanted to work with these persecuted people. She instantly gave him permission for us to go. There was only one condition: we could not teach the children about Jesus.
The wonderful thing about the God we serve is we do not have to speak His name for His presence to be known. His Holy Spirit lives within us and ministers to human hearts through us.
While at the camp we cannot speak about Jesus, but we CAN be His hands and feet. We can pray in our hearts and display a kind of love that is entirely separate from anything the Muslim nation has ever seen.
The day we got to the camp my heart instantly broke. There was so much pain, hurt and fear in the eyes of these refugees. The conditions are unlike anything I have ever seen before. I cannot fully put it into words. The men publicly whip, hit and shout at women. I saw the very women I have had dreams of in the past. The men beat the children to get them to listen. They have multiple wives and many of the 12-15 year old girls I met are mothers to at least one child. And the worst part is, all of this is accepted. It is just the culture.
Each day, for five hours a day, we play, sing and dance with 300-400 children. They braid our hair. We do cartwheels and play games. We teach them English and they teach us the language of their tribe. We love on them. We hug and kiss on kids that are ostracized for the diseases they have and their “dirtiness” as compared to some of the “higher class” refugees.
We run in the fields, pick up dandelions, laugh and smile.
I have cried so many tears of joy and equal parts tears of heartbreak.
I know they know the love we have within us. The children ask us if we know the trinity (in hand signals) without us saying a word and the parents say they did not even love their own children the way they see us loving them.
They desire to hold our hands, hug us, cuddle with us and kiss our faces. And every time they do I know without a shadow of a doubt they do not want to hold MY hand, but Jesus’s. They don’t want to hug and kiss ME, but JESUS.
It is a beautiful thing to see children that have endured so much able to simply be children. To play, to laugh, to dance and sing. They are teaching me anew what it means to be a child in the presence of God.
Thank you all for supporting me and allowing me to be a part of Jesus’s loving and reconciling His world and His children.
I am indescribably grateful.
