So were sitting in our kitchen in Guatemala, right? All of us, plus our squad mentor, Jodi. The leaders talk and announce things for a while and then Dre whips out a computer and says soooo guys I have ministry placements for Africa !
We all get really excited because we like to know where we’re going to live. She says something about being in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, at a place called Loving the Children or Hoping for the Children, I don’t exactly remember. It was an orphanage that did all kinds of ministry, and we were going to be all together for another month ! Yayyy! That meant we were going on 5 all squad months.
Okay, fast-forward a couple weeks. We’ve left the base in Guat, our parents have come to see us, pvt is over, and we’re well into our trek towards Africa, one flight into our couple of travel days. We have a 26 hour layover in Houston, so we get to hang out in Texas for a little while, get some snacks, go to target, and use cell service for a while. That night, we get an email from Jodi explaining that out ministry host for our first month in Ethiopia, the Loving the Children home, had dropped. So now, all 44 of us have nowhere to live, nothing to do and flights to get on. But not to fret, she says! They worked it out so that we would be staying in a hostel for a couple of days in Addis Ababa while our leaders would be finding options for us and asking Ethiopian contacts for placement. We have absolutely no idea what could happen!
Next thing you know, were having another group meeting. There are 42 of us, 6 teams. 4 teams will be going to this place called Hope Ethiopia, kinda in the bush. The other 3 teams will be going to a place called Testimony 1235. That’s my team. So we no longer have all squad month, kind of sad about it. But “ it’s only 3 weeks,” they say, which is true. And plus for the first 2 days, were all together at Testimony while Hope Ethiopia gets things set up for the others.
We leave the hostel, drive through Addis towards Testimony. The city is a mix of rubble, cow fields, animals roaming, nicer buildings and half standing skeletons of buildings in the making. Ethiopians are beautiful and somehow look both African and middle-eastern. Everyone around waves at the passing bus full of white people. After a while, we turn into a…neighborhood? Granted, its no American suburb but the houses are nice, cars are parked in driveways and there are guards at the gate. Slightly confused, I did not picture life in Africa in a furnished house. But we pull into a driveway with lots of pretty flowers, a nice porch. Fluffy dogs outside !!!! FOUR FLUFFY DOGS !
An Ethiopian man comes out the doorway waving wildly. He helps us get our packs inside and then introduces himself. He is Gadisa; this is his house. This is also his ministry, Testimony 1235. Currently run out of his home.
That night, all of us gathered in his nice couches and chairs, he explains everything. He starts with his own testimony. Gadisa is in his mid twenties, is an orphan, and was raised on the streets of a city a couple hours away. He barely ate one meal a day, and his motivation during his youth was as his education. He learned English from a young age and that opened doors for him. He found the Lord while working for and with different ministries in the US and Canada, and started his own ministry here is Addis Ababa, what he calls a feeding center. G has almost 50 adopted kids off the street and the come to his house for meals and love, to be fed, in his words, “ of the body and spirit.” They live with extended family but he’s their father figure.
He has been praying for years for land and resources to create an actual center for his ministry, and for our first week here acclimating to the country, we joined him in praying over the country, its people, the political state, the homeless, street children, and for Testimony- its growth as a whole.
Last week, Gadisa had a meeting with the mayor of Addis, who he has been trying to see for a while. He explained to her his ministry vision and asked for help getting funds or finding land, and she agreed to support him and reserved a spot not far from his own house to become the new Testimony Feeding Center !!!
Last weekend, a ministry that Gadisa had partnered within Canada in the past had reached out to their friends in the U.S. to propose fundraising for Testimony, and someone personally agreed to help ask for funds and will be working towards a goal of at least $5,000. He also got a reservation to apply for visas to Italy and Canada to go abroad and fundraise himself !
Last but not least, our 3 team’s ministry over the past week had been very involved. So some context: there is a war on the Ethiopian- Somalian border over territory and Ethiopian refugees have been coming towards the capital by the thousands to escape the conflict and danger. The city welcomed them and set up a giant refugee camp. These are people who speak an entirely different language, Ormoric, than the people in Addis, who speak Amharic. They are of different classes, educations, and primarily Muslim. Though the country as a whole is mainly Ethiopian Orthodox, because we are a Christian organization, we had to get it cleared with the mayor to even enter the camp. She agreed, and we have been going to the camp everyday to minister to the refugees We can not talk about Jesus or discuss the Christian faith but we do pray that they would see the holy spirit through us and everyday strive to be examples of Jesus’s love for these people.
As awesome as an opportunity this is, it’s also unlike anything most of us have ever seen. When the bus stops at the gates, children flood towards us and greet us with kisses on the cheeks. They will fight each other over who gets to hold our hands, so often times we will have kids holding each finger. They walk us though their camp, which is made up of dirt roads and organized like a grid system. There are trenches on either side for runoff which are practically always full- babies wade around in the grey water, kids play in it, people even wash their clothes in it. They only get a set amount of clean water each day per family. Their houses all look the same; tin walls and roofs with rectangular holes in the middle for doors. The children are always dirty, have basically only the clothes they’re wearing, and don’t always get along with each other.
They usually lead us through their camp and out the back to this huge field. We spend most of our time there playing with the kids, entertaining, singing camp songs (like the moose song) talking with their parents. We also have plans to start teaching some English to the ones who can’t afford to be enrolled in school.
It’s hard to see this everyday and realize that these extreme minimal living situations is literally all these refugees have for who knows how long, and is probably better than what each of these families left at the border. What really gets me is that some of these families could not even come to the capital as a whole and had to leave loved ones behind. Knowing the situations these families are stuck in while being surrounded by so many eager people literally just content with your presence, your company, is so humbling. And having the oppurtunity to love on them as Jesus would, even if only for a little while, is so special. I wish I could get pictures up so yall could see but we’re not allowed to take any at the moment.
Long story short, the past 2 and a half weeks have brought so many answered prayers. It’s super evident why we were not placed all together, why instead the Lord sent us where we are now. God has shown his hand in everything happening at Testimony, in Gadisa’s life, and for our time here as a whole even. Someone recently told me that prayers never die, which I think is so encouraging and the perfect mindset for us right now. We have a wall of papers taped up in our living room with prayers, declarations. It’s a reminder for me that God has ears for us, and always will. He wants good for his people, all nations, and prayers are powerful.
So my friends, please keep us in your prayers. Africa is a whole new world, the air is just different. Which gives us all the more reason to strive to live by the spirit and be the word in the flesh for people here, so please pray that the Father would open doors. For us, for the ministry we’re helping get up and running, for the refugees. And can I just say, praise to heaven for all the blessings we’ve received !!!
