Ethiopia
Mission Trip
July Family Trip 2006
June
30th - July 13th
Love, Listen, Laugh!
We are excited to tell you about our trip to Ethiopia beginning Friday, June 30th through Thursday, July 13th, 2006. We know that there is no way that we can do this trip on our own strength, so we would appreciate your prayers, both as we prepare for this adventure, and while we are there.
Our
team of 17 includes two families of four, one father-daughter and two
mother-daughter duos, a recently engaged couple and a newly adopted friend
and family member. We are heading into the hills of Ethiopia, ten-hours
north of Addis Ababa, to serve with HOPE Enterprises at their school in
Dessie where we will love and play with the children and provide a Vacation
Bible School program. As HOPE would say, these are the poorest of the
poor (in a country that is considered one of the poorest countries in
the world). (In each entering class, of 50 students, forty percent (or
20 students) are full orphans, another forty percent (or 20 students)
are half orphans and the remaining twenty percent (or 10 students) are
considered “destitute” (to use a HOPE phrase) – living
in a large family where starvation is a real risk or where the family
income is variable.)
Our
team will also serve in the HOPE feeding kitchen in Addis Ababa and with
the Sisters of Charity AIDS Orphanage. The soup kitchen would be makeshift
by American standards (with its corrugated tin roof held up on poles),
but it has been serving the street children of Addis Ababa since 1975
and is the oldest and largest feeding kitchen in Ethiopia. Today, it feeds
approximately 200 children each morning, who are then given some biblical
instruction before they go to school, and hundreds of people at lunch,
including street mothers and children, people suffering severe disabilities
and others who live on the street or are destitute. At lunchtime, HOPE
makes enough food to feed 660 people. Each person must present a meal
ticket (which can be purchased for 1/2 a BIRR (or approximately $0.06
US. That represents 1/4 of the cost of the meal, the rest being underwritten
by donations.
During our time of preparation, our team decided that our mascots would
be Gumby and Pokey, given that they form a perfect team (one is nothing
without the other) and they are incredibly flexible (as we hope to be).
To understand what these two plasticine creatures have come to mean to
us, please click here.
Love, Listen, Laugh (or L3) has become our mantra or team covenant. We
hope to do all three as we learn what God has in store for us. And we
look forward to sharing it all with you through these pages while we are
there, and with our personal stories upon our return. During our time
there, we would appreciate your prayers. If you are so inclined, please
refer to our prayer
calendar.