Hey friends,
For those of you who don’t know, it’s been nearly two months since I moved to Harbu Chulule, Ethiopia! My squad and I have been working with the amazing organization, HOPEthiopia to reach out and empower the community here!
I consider myself beyond blessed to be working alongside HOPEthiopia and having the ability to support what they’re doing, so I just wanted to break down some of the things me and my squad have been able to do for ministry through this incredible organization!
Teaching/playing with kids!
The organization has a BIG heart for the kids that are sponsored and live at the compound! There’s a big kids village at our compound, where a few kids live with house moms in each of the houses. It’s set up as their home, and we get to come in and teach in the mornings or afternoons! They’re very good hosts and welcome us into their space! My favorite part about teaching them is it doesn’t have to be English—we’re encouraged to teach them other skills too like technology, music, photography, dance, and everything imaginable. The heart behind that is that they have the opportunity to excel at what they love! These kids are not limited to learning English and math, they’re encouraged and empowered to be who they want to be! When we’re not teaching them in their homes, we’re playing with them at the compound, whether that’s soccer or sports or Friday night movie time up at the guest house where we sleep!
Construction:
HOPEthiopia is currently in the process of building a giant event center and offices! It will be a place where the locals can be trained in a trade so they’re more qualified for jobs in the community. We met a man who owns a leather company in Addis Ababa and he talked about teaching locals here how to make leather. Such a great way to share skills and build up the community!
One of the coolest things about building the new event center is that they use bricks that they make here at the compound. Some of the guys from our squad has helped them with their production.
Gardening:
There are gardens all over the property so the community here is self-sustaining and there’s less of a need to go to the market!
Water Distribution:
HOPEthiopia distributes clean water to the vast majority of the village—it has one of the only wells. Every morning until around noon, there are people lined up with donkeys and huge water jugs! We get to help women take their water to their donkeys, and sometimes we get to play with the kids that are there. Without their well, locals would have to walk miles out to the next closest well.
Reforestation:
Similar to gardening, but on a much larger scale, HOPEthiopia has a site where they’re planting indigenous trees and plants so the area is self sustaining. A lot of the native animals have been coming back to the area, now that they have homes to live in. I really like this part of the organization just because it shows their holistic approach to loving the community well and empowering it in all aspects.
Clinic (dentistry and optometry):
Healthcare is so important everywhere, and they do a great job at providing that FOR FREE to everyone in the villages! I worked with Ralph, the founder of HOPEthiopia, and we were preforming dental surgeries to anyone who walked in, and they didn’t have to pay a single thing! It blows my mind that everything from the local anesthetic to the treatment to the antibiotics were all free of charge. It goes a long way here. We don’t think about how something so simple like extracting an infected tooth could actually save someones life, but it’s real here. There’s also an optometrist who performs cataract surgeries on the locals! People who have gone years without being able to see to the best of their ability are finally able to see with clarity and excellence!
It truly is a blessing to the community to have free, adequate healthcare that is actually carried out with love and excellence.
House visits:
I like to think of this as reaching out and building relationships with the community. A super tangible way to just love on people. Nothing better than spending time with locals in their home—a lot of the times they’ll do coffee ceremonies! It’s super sweet how inviting they are.
I hope this shows a little bit of what I’ve been up to and where I’ve been staying at. I’m beyond happy with the organization we’ve been working with and I can see how they’re making a difference in the community here. Blessed to be a part of that for a couple of months!
