Ministry at Hope can look different every single day. Here’s a short run down on most of the ministries that our squad has gotten to do and experience over our time here.
- Reforestation
Personally one of my favorites but pretty much what this ministry is you walk 40-45 minutes through town to the reforestation site. Ethiopia and Harbu Chulule specifically has been greatly affected by deforestation. The site houses thousands of tree seedlings that we fill up watering cans from the river and water the potted plants with. They get water twice a day and once the trees are big enough they transfer and plant them in the ground. We also pack seeds and dirt into little plastic tubes that then get moved to the rows where they can grow before being planted in the ground.
- Water Distribution
This ministry is for sure one of the most difficult but also very rewarding. Hopethiopia has a well and distributes millions of gallons of water to the community for free. Every morning women, children, and their donkeys come to get water for their families. Usually what we do is help carry the huge jugs of water down from the well into the ‘loading area’ and load them on the donkeys. You get muddy and wet and there’s a ton of kids everywhere asking you your name and wanting to hold your hand. It’s an amazing ministry that you literally see the fruit of it while you’re doing it.It’s also nice to relieve these women ho are used to doing this hard task every single day.
- Construction
This ministry has looked different throughout the three months. There is a trade/training center that we’ve gotten l see a TON of growth in . At first that job looked like helping move bricks to build rooms, painting and priming the walls, laying cement, and most recently moving in all the furniture and sewing machines into the building! Also every building at Hope is built from bricks made on site. They’re hydroform bricks and that involves shoveling piles of rocks into big sifters then mixing that with water and cement then shoveling the wet mixture into the machine to form each brick. Recently we’ve been making bricks because they are building a public restroom by the market which is super exciting. So a lot of different construction jobs have been going on but it’s been awesome to get to work alongside and build relationships with the workers they have employed.
- Teaching in the children’s village
I love this ministry so much. In the mornings you are assigned a house to teach in (there’s 5 kids houses) and pretty much we just help with any English or math homework or we make our own lesson plans. I’ve been in the oldest kids house the most and I love it. They go to school right before lunch so I usually would just ask them what they’ve been learning in school recently and we’ll work on that and things they’ve been having a hard time with. Dereja is 16 and I’ve been helping him with his math which is legit stuff. It’s funny trying to help teach something I only learned two years ago. It’s really fun way to connect with the kids at Hope and love them really well.
- Cooking
At our compound we have 3 cooks, Eldana, Zanit, and Buzza. They cook us 3 meals a day 7 days a week for 50 people so it’s pretty intense. This ministry is usually just 2 people who get to help them as they prep and cook all our meals for us. The kitchen is my favorite place in the house and we all love the cooks so much. Being able to serve them has been super awesome.
- Walking kids to school/teaching
House #4 has 6 kids who all go to kindergarten in town in the morning and since they’re still so little there’s a group that walks them there. It’s a 30 minute walk to the school and then that group usually stays and helps out at the school teaching English there. I’ve walked the kids to school some and they’re just the cutest!
- House moms ministry
So each house has a house mom that has been trained up and is either widowed or divorced. They take care of all the kids in their house including doing laundry, cooking, and cleaning. The house moms are really awesome and this ministry is just coming alongside of them and helping them out with whatever needs to be done. It’s also a great time to build and strengthen relationships with them!
- Gardening
This ministry involves weeding and watering and just tending to the garden we have. It has flowers but it also has things like lettuce and tomatoes and potatoes that are used in the kids meals once they are harvested.
