Mengistu Bedada (Mango) was raised in a small farming town about a two hour walk away from where we are living now. Before he was born his dad was taken by the dictator government to be a solider. He was taken by force and with no contact with his family. His wife got to visit him once for a week and she became pregnant with Mengistu’s older bother. He then years later got another week break and visited home, that is when Mengistu’s mom became pregnant with him.
Mango’s dad was gone for 14 years working as a government solider. When he came back he had really struggled from trauma from the war. He saw many things because he fought for so long in places like Somalia.
Mango was a Shepard boy on his farm land, watching over cattle and all of their animals. The closest school to his community was a two hour walk away. His older brother moved to the closest town to go to school. After this Mango begged his dad to go to school. His dad continued to say no because he needed him to look over the farm and the family. Mango now knows it was God’s provision that a Muslim gave land for a school to be built in his community. The first year of the school Mango’s dad didn’t let him attend. After years of begging when Mango was 13 years old his dad finally let him go to school. He said he could only go to school until he was able to write his name.
When Mango got to school he snuck himself into Grade 2 and excelled highly all the years after that. With the Lord his dad let him continue school through Grade 4 and after that the only school with Grade 5 was a two hour away walk. His dad said he would not pay for any of his schooling if he continued and everyday he would have to come home and work for his food. Mango didn’t know how he would make money but trusted God.
One of Mangos classmates told him about Jesus. Mango and his family we’re Orthodox and when his friend told him that he could hear from God and had power and authority, mango wanted that. His friend prayed for him that day and from then on he started making the two hour walk to church every Sunday by himself.
As he was making the long walk back from home he heard a “buzzzing” sound and looked for a bee but there was no bee. Then the Holy Spirit spoke clearly to him and told him to buy a bee hive. That night he got an old hive from his uncle and hung it up on his house. The next morning the hive was full of bees. He told me that bees don’t ever come out in the morning and there were so so many. They were stinging everyone around him except Mango.
After a week of having the bees he had lots of honey. He sold the honey to buy a chicken and then with the eggs and honey he was able to sell them so he could pay for school and all his fees.
He continued to do really well in school and was in the top three of his class. But to continue going through school he had to go to the next town. It was to far from home to make the daily walk so he had to pay for housing as well. His chickens and bees couldn’t pay for it all. But he continued to trust God.
Ralph and the first team from HOPEthiopia came to his community and wanted to meet with the kids who scored a 90% or higher to understand the community and surrounding communities to see if it would be beneficial to come here. Mango went to those meetings and met with Ralph and his wife.
Months past and they went back to Canada. Mango thought that they forgot about him. One day when Mango was walking through town Ralph saw him, stopped his car to talk to him. Ralph said “where have you been, I have been looking for you everywhere?”, Mango laughed because he didn’t live in that town anymore. Ralph gave him $10 and got his information. After that HOPEthiopia sponsored Mango and gave him 250 Burr a month. This funded him through high school and university. He became and social worker and came back to work for HOPEthiopia.
He loves his job fully and getting to help this community. Mango said that some times his spirit feels low and its hard but God always provides. He is currently trying to plant a church in his home town to show them the Jesus he knows.
Mango said, “I have faith in an empty field, because God was faithful with the chickens and the bees.”
