This past month we had the honor of serving with HopEthiopia for almost 3 weeks. For the first week, we got to serve alongside our parents, and the final two weeks we served with our team, as well as 3 other teams from our squad and a team of semesters World Racers.
HopEthiopia is a beautiful ministry that serves the community in many ways. Their primary mission is making a home for children who are orphaned or abandoned and having them living in houses with house moms to provide them with loving families and safe community. Hope also has a massive reforestation project in the area, and they have planted hundreds of thousands of trees in a part of the country that 30 years ago, was completely barren. They also support families in the community and provide training for women who do not have education to provide them with skills that can help them create income for their families.
The majority of what we did there, however, was manual labor, from cutting grass to painting to gardening. It was rainy season in Ethiopia, which made some outdoor ministry challenging, but we were able to find projects to do to make ourselves useful, which was usually either hanging out with kids or cutting grass.
Our hosts, Ralph and Glenda, were truly amazing and inspiring. We got to have devotions with them every morning and, as much as they could with their busy schedules, really poured into us. One thing Ralph did on our second to last day was have a teaching ono leadership with us. He told us about the importance of vision and having faith in that vision. He often talked about how kids living at Hope already know they‘re going to be the next prime ministers and Secretaries of State, and he fully encourages them in that, because they have vision and purpose for their life, and if they live their life believing that they will be the prime minister, they will get there.
So he asked us what our visions were, and we went around the circle and everyone shared their visions. Some were specific, and some were very general, but they were all unique and different, and it was so beautiful to hear all of the different things the Lord had put one people’s hearts, and how we have all been created uniquely and for a specific purpose, and God reveals that purpose to us little by little along the way.
Coming on this Race, I didn’t really have vision for my life. I kind of knew I wanted to work in the music industry, probably move to Nashville, and later on in the Race, God revealed to me that I would be ministering to artists and musicians in the music industry, and I felt like that was confirmation of the dream I had to live in Nashville. However, while we were sharing about our dreams and visions, the Lord downloaded a new vision in my mind.
At Ethiopia debrief, we were asked to pray and start thinking about our future after the Race, and I didn’t feel like I got too much clarity. All I saw was me driving around the United States, traveling to many different places, constantly moving. I wasn’t really sure what to do with that, but then the Lord gave me some more clarity. All of a sudden He gave me this idea for a ministry that would travel around the United States, sharing the love of Christ with people all over the US through food and worship. It seemed like such a crazy and random idea when I first got it, but I was so excited about it. I started writing a list of what I would need to start, who I would partner with, what types of outreach we would do, so on and so forth.
Now, I share this because this month has taught me a lot about the word “hope”. Before coming to HOPEthiopia, I didn’t fully understand that word. I knew hope was a nice word that generally means to desire something to come in the future, but it was never a word that deeply resonated with me. Perhaps because I had never really had a time in my life where I lacked hope. I have always looked expectantly towards the future, and have never felt truly hopeless. But now, after this month and seeing these children who went from having no opportunity and no hope of a future, to having hopes and dreams of being the next great leaders of the nation, I understand what it means to have hope, and it means to have vision. You feel hopeless when you feel like you have no vision of the future. Hopelessness sets in when the future is blurry and unsure. That feeling when you are in a life-threatening situation and you are not sure whether you will live another day. That is hopelessness.
But hope is when you can dream for the future, and you can see yourself in future years doing grand and glorious things, and that hope comes from God. Hebrews 6:19 says that “This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary,” meaning that the hopes that we have will lead us closer to God, and we have to trust in the desires and dreams He gives us, and bu doing that, we will learn to trust in Him more, and be lead into the deepest most intimate parts of His being.
Having hope requires faith, though. Hebrews 11:1 says “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for.” We can hope for revival in the United States, but faith gives us the vision for that. Through faith, we can see stadiums of people being filled with the Holy Spirit. Through faith we can see a new generation of people walking side by side with new believers and discipling them. Through faith we can see young people putting down their phones and going out of their way to share the love of Christ with strangers. God gives our hope clarity through our faith.
Our team got to visit one of the sponsored families of HOPEthiopia. We talked with a mother of 2 children. The son was about 7 years old with scabies, and the daughter was about 14 and a singer in the church choir, and the mother was humble and quiet. We stayed in their house for a few hours, and while we were there, the Lord was revealing so many things for us to share with them, and they were all messages of hope. I felt lead to anoint the mother in the Holy Spirit, specifically in boldness to speak. We shared visions of the boy becoming a strong leader in the nation, and later he said he heard the Lord speak to him in his dreams. The young daughter we encouraged by telling her she has the power and authority in her worship to drive out all demonic forces of the world. Later, the mother’s siter visited, and we told her how God is always singing over her, and that He thinks about her always and is always walking with her.
This is what hope is: sharing dreams and visions of the future, and we just pray that God gives them the faith to believe those things for themselves and to walk in the purpose God has set before them.
So as I’m starting to mentally prepare for coming home, I can hold onto this confident hope God has placed in my heart, and to focus on running towards Him and trusting in the plans He has for my life, and not letting any attacks of the enemy in this world to keep me from veering off of the path that He has set before me. So thank you, Ethiopia, for teaching me this lesson, and showing me what hope in this worl looks like.
