This blog will be my primary means to communicate with everyone while I am an Ethiopia, as well as up to the time of my departure. I have been preparing for this trip since January of this year and it has been quite the journey. To all of you who have made the sacrifice to help support me financially I thank you, this trip would have been a huge burden without your help. With your help I was able to contribute a great deal to this trip beyond the cost for me to get there.
Many of you may be wondering what exactly I will be doing while I am out there and why I am going.
So here is the scoop on that. Thomas Hill introduced me to an organization called Mocha Club which serves various needs of the African people I encourage you to check it out. After giving to this organization for a couple years I decided I would go on one of their trips to Africa, when I found out that I could get a full four weeks off of work to go I signed up for the month long trip. There are a total of 10 people that will be traveling with me to Ethiopia including Gaia and Presley who are Asher and Missy's young children. Our purpose on this trip is simply this, to show them that they are touchable, that they are lovable, that they are not helpless, and that there is a God who sent His son to earth to live, die, and rise again for their sake. In the activities we do with them we will show them that we care for them just as they are. Through the relationships we build with them we will share the love of Christ that flows in and through us. I anticipate though that in our service to them we will each be humbled in our own way and God will work in us to continue to transform our hearts.
These are the two main ministries we will be supporting while in Ethiopia:
* Ambo: We will mostly be working with the Compassion kids. These kids are either orphaned or living with no/low income families that cannot provide for even basic levels of education. We will also be spending some time with street kids. These kids have NOTHING. They are on the streets for no fault of their own. Their parents probably died of AIDS, can't afford them, or it's safer for them to live on the streets than it is to live at home. These kids are very smart and very kind. They want to learn. However, because they are street kids, society there doesn't give them a chance at anything - education, job, etc. After MC sent some teams there in 2008, several if not all of us voiced our hearts for wanting to help them have a chance at a better life. Since then, they have built a school for these same kids. That's where we'll be teaching English to them for many of the mornings while we are there. And in the afternoons, one of the main activities that we will do will be a soccer camp, because they LOVE soccer! These kids gain a little in understanding a few new English words, and they have fun with soccer, but the main goal here is to love them, build relationships with them, and have them feeling like someone cares about them and who they are.
* Women at Risk: These women are rescued out of prostitution to make money to support their children. This program teaches them trades to sell at market. Some of their children will be there, too, so we will be ministering to both. Again, loving them just by being there for them is huge, and we will also see what we can do to help them learn how to create new things to sell at market. In some of the phone calls, we have had some ideas about what we can be doing (knitting, necklaces), but we have also discussed that using local materials will be helpful to them, so we're looking to see what we can be creative with once we get there as wel
The following is a list of all the things that I will be packing with me in two 50 lb bags:
-23 new Umbro soccer balls
-12 double action ball pumps
-20 175g discraft Ultimate Frisbees, thank you Young Life Crooked Creek for the reduced cost
-108 t-shirts of 4 different colors, thanks mom
-4 different spray painted designs on all the shirts for the four teams, thanks Collin and Brady for your help
-drawing pads, pencils, washable face paint, paint brushes, and permanent markers
-200 adhesive laminating sheets to help preserve the photos we take for the women in Nazret
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